What the hell's happening to MMA?

[Ryu]

MMA magazines and the "atmosphere" of the tournaments used to really emphasize fighting spirit, realistic technique, competive spirit, etc. For some reason, it seems to me that it's growing more and more into the "WWF" type of garbage. Perhaps it's just certain magazines, etc. But I used to buy Grappling magazine all the time, kept up on current trends, etc. I happened to flip through a Black Belt "Sport Fighting" magazine (new magazine?) that covers MMA fighting..... and almost all that I read seemed to convey an almost "gang" like atmosphere, arrogant bad ass attitude, and every advertisement they had seemed to sell "bikini cat fight" videos, P_enis enlargement packages, "how to have better sex" in bed videos, etc. etc.!

Look, maybe I'm old fashioned, and I am too "ethical" in some people's eyes, but I really thought that magazine was in very bad taste. I can't even buy Grappling Mag anymore because it's getting just as bad.

I'm really disappointed in the kind of media coverage MMA is getting..... no wonder the majority of people are starting to wince at its name now.
MMA is a VERY effective way of fighting, training, and honing a competitive spirit. It really has the potential in my mind to really stand out in a very good way..... so I don't understand why they take this route It's becoming something I don't even want to associate myself with anymore.....

Obviously MMA is part of my training.... but what I keep seeing is really starting to bother me.

Just a rant I guess......

Ryu

[Xebsball]

When i said MMA sucked nobody listened to me
The Gracies were bullies, what did you expect to come out of that huh? Fighting spirit, honor, blah blah blah?

[Ryu]

I'm not against the MMA practitioners themselves. They have nothing to do with what's being promoted... it's the media coverage I'm disappointed about. It's going to make these atheletes look very low class in a lot of people's minds. I mean Japan's mags on MMA are nothing like that..... at least not yet..

I'm just annoyed at that. The mag I picked up was almost a borderline "adult" magazine. I'm not saying there's not a place for that, but I don't think MMA or martial art in general is that place....

aw well....

Ryu

[Cipher]

I know what you mean. Things seem to be going down hill. The thing that sucks, for anything not just MMA, is that if the media leads one direction then that is how the general view on the subject will be.

[apoweyn]

Are there any English-language MMA mags being published out of Japan? (Doubtful, I know)

The Japanese do seem to have a much more austere (and in my opinion preferable approach to this stuff).


Stuart B.

[The Willow Sword]

It HAS been over run with shaven head vin diesel fuk choads with no idea what it is to truly BE a martial artist,,,they have no respect for themselves or anyone else,,they just get off on grappling with other men and brutalizing them in this repressed ****sexual manner. they sport these tournaments which serve no purpose other than to entertain all the toothless dyptheria ridden lowlifes with T-shirts that say " my sister is the best" .
"oh lets all respect these guys,,lets band together and put our *****s in thier butt in appreciation of the hard work they do" lets
all have one big GAY PORN love fest and worship these guys and commend them for taking MA to an all new high"

ARRRRGHHHHH!!!!! ARRRGHHHHHH!!!!! SHWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! RAARRRRRRRRRRRRGHH!!!!

.................................................. .................................................. ..................................whew that felt better,,,,,,,now what was the question?
(where are my pills?)

MRTWS

[old jong]

The thing started with the very first UFC's and the cards girls going around the octagon almost ass naked .It was quite a new feeling to the martial arts! Some BJJ websites also added the "Girl of the month" or something often "submitting" some "poor" guy with an armbar or triangle wearing a g-string in place of a gi!... Now ,we even have "ladies" giving very special wrestling shows at home or hotel. Look at that!... Of course,this mix of fighting and sex is very good for sales.They say that money has no odor?...
I say all these things will harm the serious MMA's in the medium to long run as corruption has hurted professionnal boxing in the past or as politics and greed have hurted many Kung Fu lines.

[Kristoffer]

I've always had that macho feeling from bjj. but it's not like it doesn't excists in CMA.

[KC Elbows]

Welcome to the flighty world of magazines. They get it right for about two weeks, then have to do everything wrong in order to raise up sales. If they're lucky, they won't go under, but oftentimes they do.

Of course, you wouldn't be writing this post if you read Kung Fu Qigong magazine.

Pretty soon Gene's gonna owe me a whole six pack. Or one of those water pipes he bogarts all the time.

[Suntzu]

magazines make $$$ selling ad space… look at there target audience… 13 - 25 y.o. males… what else are you gonna sell them… walt disney and nickolodean aren't gonna throw good $$$ to reach them… 13 - 25 want and get bikinis, sex, EAS and close-ups of open head wounds... sex and violence pays the bills...

… and let me hold that bikini cat fight vid when you're done...

[qeySuS]

I dont mind really, fightsport is one of my favourite magazines, i agree with you that those advertisements suck, the ***** enlargement thing and all that, but it´s a good magazine and i cant say taht the articles in it promote any badass stuff, recently they had an interview with don frye who said he´d been childish in his handlings with shamrock and was very cool about it. Also had a cool piece on how Nogueira has survived being in a Koma after a car accident and ****.

Btw you still train with Vunak? Met two guys this summer that train/trained with him (english John and english James (wilkes)), and they had some crazy stories He seems cool.

[Ford Prefect]

Ryu,

I stopped being interested in MMA for the same reason. It's going "main stream" just like everybody wanted. Oh well. I still roll with some JKD guys, but I'm going back to kung fu for the mentality etc.

[Merryprankster]

Ryu, I hear you--but remember that's the fan base. There's nothing to be done about it. Think about it this way, San Shou doesn't get NEAR the same amount of attention. EVERYBODY has heard of the UFC. They might get the name wrong, and they might think it's a "death match," but they've got an idea of what it is.

The price of popularity is appealing to the lowest common denominator. The last set of fights I went to was at a biker convention. The promoter set that venue up last minute, halved his ticket price, and made a killing. Standing room only, and nobody who knew a THING about what was going on was watching. The typical kick his ass crap. On the other hand, you haven't lived until you've watched 1000 screaming bikers do... well, anything....

Here's the truth--in Japan they've merged "TMA" with"MMA." They've got the right idea that MMA fights are a VENUE and you train accordingly. To them, it's just a natural extension of their other competitions.

In the US, for some reason most people were offended when it was demonstrated that what they were doing might not hold up to scrutiny. It's part of what Apoweyn terms the "true believer," syndrome--everybody wants to believe what they do has all the answers and that any faults in what they can accomplish with their training are due to personal failings (not doing it right, etc) vs possible training failures. I'll personally never forget when a friend of my girlfriends was watching one of the early UFC's with us, and saw a Kyokushin guy with an established fight record in in Japanese Kyokushintournaments get clobbered by one of the grapplers. His comment was "Oh, well he was only a 2nd dan. If he had been a 4th dan then things might have been different." It's that kind of illusory thinking that blows my mind. He lost because he was unfamiliar with an entire set of attacks that were thrown at him.

Anyway, couple that type of reticence this with a lot of loudmouth TMA bashing on the part of MOSTLY wanna-be fighters who aren't actually willing to train that hard EVER, and you've got the makings of a minor war that's still going on. The original few UFC's were all about putting different people of different styles in the ring, and that was COOL. Then Rorion sold the whole mess after UFC IV or something like that(no problem), and the next set of promoters emphasized the "bloodsport," aspect, bragging that it was banned in 49 states. (problem!) Yeah, that'll sell to the mainstream...and now you've got "Tough Guys," by the dozens. These are the guys that would have believed pro-wrestling was real in the early 80's.

Hard core MAists of all types should have been WELCOMING the UFC and similar events, as a chance to at least show people what good hard sparring was all about, and probably would have, if it wasn't for the constant bashing so many of the wanna be's spew. It gets tiresome to be told you suck repeatedly, when these guys know nothing about your training.

This problem is not going away. It has to make more money to be mainstream, and it will never be mainstream without an educated audience, and you'll never educate the masses with a magazine that's basically T & A. Two hopes are foreign fight fans and the fact that people who follow WRESTLING are typically not the trailer park tough guy type.

Willow, has it ever occured to you that your stereotyping of MMA fighers is almost identical to the assertion made by those feminists that all men are violent? You're still incapable of putting together anything resembling a decent argument, but you blow hot air pretty good.

[The Willow Sword]

DILLIGAF


mrtws

[Silumkid]

Sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but what do you mean by this question? UFC has always been full of low-lifes and liars and braggarts.

Kimo...claimed to have all sorts of training, then was later revealed to be nothing more than "basically a big football player with a gimmick"...pretty WWE'ish.

Tank Abbott...yeah, there was a class individual.

That three tooth biker dude that competed once that I know of and did that ridiculous somersault landing flat on his back.

Steve what'shisname...the "Ninja Cop" who won the same as event as above mentioned biker boy.

That fat black fella who claimed to be a sumo champion...of where? His neighborhood?

The entire "undefeated, unbeatable" Gracie clan...call it semantics, call it whatever you want, but a loss is a loss and Poppa Helio is NOT undefeated. So that makes them braggarts and liars.

I'm really not trying to sound insulting here...I respect what these guys are willing to do to themselves to prove whatever it is they feel they need to prove. I just don't think we should try to romanticize it into something it isn't.