Are we at the peak of the sport?

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

As the sport gets more popular, as it becomes more lucrative to be a fighter, as it opens up around the world, there will be more and better athletes getting into it. This could do 2 things: make MMA better, or make it worse.

 

Right now, MMA is pretty free-formed. It's pretty open. There are many different styles and types of fighters; athletes who grew up with traditional martial arts like wrestling, boxing, tkd, bjj, judo, etc. and have centred their fighting style around those bases. Shogun is different from Silva, Silva is different from Liddell, Liddell is different from Tito, Tito is different from Couture, Couture is different from Babalu. It's very diverse, and guys are good enough and well rounded enough and wreckless enough to make for fun and exciting fights (generalization).

 

So as more fighters get into it, as MMA becomes the base style -the one athletes grow up with-, it will probably get more standardized. More structured and rigid and less open. Fighters will be more similar stylistically and things like conditioning and strategy will become more important (we are already seeing that become more important in the past few years). So rather than "styles make fights" it will be "the best athlete wins" Whether that makes the sport better or worse becomes the question. It could be very possible that fights will be more competitive, yet along with that it will be more bland and less interesting. Today when you get two high level fighters, you are either going to get an awesome match, or a really boring match. The thing with strategy is that fighters will be fighting to score points rather than go for the win (in the UFC, PRIDE has rules that try to avoid this), so you would get fights that consist of a takedown or two and that's it, because that's all they need. I don't think I want to see the day when that becomes prevalent in the sport.

 

However, there could also be positive effects of better athletes, better training, better conditioning that means fighters can fight at a high level throughout the entire fight. Which means there is still lots of room for improvement.

 

SO, in the future, is MMA going to be better, worse, or the same?

[Dangerous A 0]

The only way I can see MMA even starting to get more mainstream is if it can be seen even more legitimate overseas. The US mainstream sports media hate MMA with a passion and think it's human chickenfighting. A lot of them are not going to change their stance on it ever. I think if it can get more over in other countries to where, let's say, it comes close for consideration as an olympic sport, then the US would have almost no choice but to start to acknowledge it as a legit sport.

 

Still, I think the US is still a good 5-10 years, if ever, from accepting MMA as anything but barbarism.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I don't post in here a lot, I guess I have a casual interest in MMA...but don't you think MMA is already pretty popular overseas? I mean, it seems to be pretty huge in Japan, for example.

[Dangerous A 0]

Yes, Japan is way ahead of us, but Japan also sees almost all combat sports as legit.

 

I think in order for MMA to get the US mainstream media respect, it has to be seen as on par with an olympic sport. MMA does have aspects of wrestling, but we dont' want to see that.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

The only way I can see MMA even starting to get more mainstream is if it can be seen even more legitimate overseas. The US mainstream sports media hate MMA with a passion and think it's human chickenfighting. A lot of them are not going to change their stance on it ever. I think if it can get more over in other countries to where, let's say, it comes close for consideration as an olympic sport, then the US would have almost no choice but to start to acknowledge it as a legit sport.

 

Still, I think the US is still a good 5-10 years, if ever, from accepting MMA as anything but barbarism.

 

Dude, have you not been around for the last.........year or so? It's getting mainstream exposure and the articles written on the sport are defending it and legitimizing it.

 

We're way past the "bloodsport" witchhunts of the past but that doesn't mean that it's going to be an easy road.

[Dangerous A 0]

The only way I can see MMA even starting to get more mainstream is if it can be seen even more legitimate overseas. The US mainstream sports media hate MMA with a passion and think it's human chickenfighting. A lot of them are not going to change their stance on it ever. I think if it can get more over in other countries to where, let's say, it comes close for consideration as an olympic sport, then the US would have almost no choice but to start to acknowledge it as a legit sport.

 

Still, I think the US is still a good 5-10 years, if ever, from accepting MMA as anything but barbarism.

 

Dude, have you not been around for the last.........year or so? It's getting mainstream exposure and the articles written on the sport are defending it and legitimizing it.

 

We're way past the "bloodsport" witchhunts of the past but that doesn't mean that it's going to be an easy road.

 

 

Yes, I have been around and most of the articles I've seen are negative. I live in the Bay Area where San Jose just hosted a huge MMA show. I checked out several local affiliate news stations for their stories and all of them were negative, including several where they tried to imply that the participants are carried out to the hospital every night.

 

I'm aware that MMA has evolved a long, long way from 1993. However, I'm thinking about big time mainstream exposure to where ESPN and the local sports affiliate are reporting results. Where it gets sports page coverage as a regular thing, not as a special feature.

 

No need to be a dick about it.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Fighter paydays in the UFC have grown quite a bit from just a few years ago, and eventually they will get to the point to where much more athletic guys who would normally go down other avenues to make money, will see fighting as a good option to get into. MMA is still very new in North America, there isn't a single fighter out there who started taking MMA classes when he was 7 years old and now 15 years later is fighting in the big time. Think of the effect that will have on the fighters and the fighting style 15 years down the line.

 

Lei Tong brought up a while ago the prospect of Mexicans getting into MMA, since there are plenty of great Mexican boxers. There's another angle. There is still lots of potential for the sport, but whether or not that makes the fights more exciting is the question.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

There is a lot more positive MMA press going around today than there has ever been before, and it will only increase until there is a death in the sport.

[Dangerous A 0]

I'm not saying that there hasn't been any positive press. I'm just going by what I'm seeing where I'm at in the Bay Area since San Jose is a pretty big haven of MMA right now. There have been some positve articles in the SF Chronicle and some local free papers. However, when the local CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox affiliates run negative stories, some of which were designed to make MMA into the "Bloodsport" LOTC referred to, I just think perhaps a lot of the media still hasn't come around.

 

If I could, I would buy stock in MMA (or at least UFC) because I get the feeling it'll grow monumentally in the next decade.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

I don't think UFC is going to surpass Boxing in America, as far as popularity goes.

 

Zab Judah Vs. Floyd Mayweather just got 350,000 buys. Thats crazy considering it was $50. Mosley Vs. Vargas did over 250,000 buys also.

[Special K 0]

THe competitevity (is that word) is incredible right now, though. I could watch MMA forever right now.

 

Evander's got a point, though, I don't think MMA will ever eclipse boxing in terms of popularity, not in the US, certainly, even though I'm bored with boxing now. All I do when I watch boxing is try to compare boxers to MMA fighters, and wish they would fight.

[nl5xsk1 0]

Dude, have you not been around for the last.........year or so? It's getting mainstream exposure and the articles written on the sport are defending it and legitimizing it.

 

We're way past the "bloodsport" witchhunts of the past but that doesn't mean that it's going to be an easy road.

Aren't there still some (a lot?) of states that ban MMA fighting? Until it gets national acceptance on a legal level, it's going to be difficult to lose the "bloodsport" stigma entirely.

[jwpeer 0]

I don't think UFC is going to surpass Boxing in America, as far as popularity goes.

 

Zab Judah Vs. Floyd Mayweather just got 350,000 buys. Thats crazy considering it was $50. Mosley Vs. Vargas did over 250,000 buys also.

 

 

 

I think they should examine the age of the people making these purchases.

 

Most of those people buying fights, will be dead soon

 

Seriously though, boxing is not mainstream anymore, and really doesn't have a huge pull amongst younger people except in areas like New York and Philadelphia where amateur boxing still has a major presence.

[naiwf 0]

I don't think MMA will get substantially better, but the talent pool will get deeper over the next 5-10 years. I do however think there will be some MMA guy who makes the breakthrough and becomes the sport's equivalent of an Ali or Tyson in terms of popularity and recognition in the mainstream American media. Sadly, he'll likely have to be an American (or at least an English speaking) heavyweight version of Fedor for it to happen, but I think it will eventually. If Lance Armstrong can transcend cycling and be (almost) universally recognized as a great athlete, somebody should be able to do it in MMA.

[Damaramu 0]

I thought I'd bring this back up because ESPN recently had an Outside the Lines about UFC(inspired by Kobe's octagon reference) and some boxing promoter was on there still calling it human cockfigthing and saying that it wasn't a sport.

I dunno. It looks like the mainstream watches UFC 1 and thinks that's still what it is.

This guy was saying things like "Well it's a no rules competition. Boxing has rules. This has no rules!"

[randomguy 0]

In some ways the old UFC was a lot more interesting with big fat guys, wrestlers, boxers, pure karate guys, etc. That was a very different experience.

 

In the future there will probably be less diversity but if you like athleticism it will be a lot more interesting. Guys will still have different styles though. Even if wrestling different guys have very distinct styles - the pure stength guy, the fast guy who specializes in double leg takedowns, etc etc.

 

Another possibility is that martial arts like Karate, TKD, etc will train for contact and become more well-rounded and we will see more of those guys.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

It will be more people starting with MMA rather than starting from a "_______" background.

 

What was Kobe's octagon reference?

[Damaramu 0]

After Raja Bell clotheslined him he said in the news conference afterwards "That stuff belongs in an octagon. I don't know if ya'll know what an octagon is but that's the place for it." or something like that.

Also Shaq said something like "Randy Couture is the only athlete in the world I'll pay to see."

[Guest]

Yeah, he said we'll go to the octagon if we have to.

 

I didn't know that this was in here and I planned on posting in here anyway, so for what I was going to say....

 

MMA is just growing. If it's just catching on in this state (it is) and there's been PPV's here, the sport is nowhere near it's peak. It's peaks will be 10 years from now, when the kids that are starting to like it are able to train to fight, and when the guys that are just beginning training now have their own families down the road.

 

Eventually they'll be fighting in places like Ford Field and Reliant Stadium in Houston. Trust me.

 

The bad thing, is that if someone dies in the ring at a UFC PPV, the sport is killed dead in America as we know it. Sanctioning bodies would NOT like that at all.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I admit it would be bad since MMA is judged more harshly than any other sport. However, since there's not been one death in any MMA event so far(Doug Dedge doesn't count), as well as the fact that numerous people die in High school football each year as well as other pro sports, it would not be as bad as it's made out to be. It will be blown out of proportion though. I still don't think it would kill the sport though.

[Guest]

Depends on if the death is due to a submission (near impossible unless someone went batshit insane) or kick to the head. On a punch or punches, I doubt if the backlash would be that bad.

[Damaramu 0]

I just don't think it's as deadly as it's made out to be.

I've been doing Judo for almost a year now and it's basically throwing(sometimes onto your head), grappling, and submissions and it doesn't have a bad rap. Sure it's not mainstream but it is an olympic sport. And we learn a lot of chokes that go across the throat rather than just blood chokes which seems to be what they use the most in MMA and those are relatively safe.