Mixed Martial Arts

I'm by no means a big fan or expert of MMA, but I've watched enough of it to have become mostly desensitized to the knee-pounding and blood-gushing moments of the UFC. On Saturday night, I watched for the first time on pay-per-view, a UFC event that was being broadcasted live. There were a lot of big matchups (so I was told) including two title fights, which made the event particularly exciting. However, I was disappointed that I didn't get to see any wins by submission. Most matches ended in a TKO (Technical Knock Out), in which the ref will end the fight if a contestant is no longer intelligently defending (brutal blows to the head). I find submission techniques to be more interesting because they are the closest application of Judo in MMA. Sometimes throws are used for take downs (it'd be awesome to see an Uchimata thrown in there), but chokes and armbars that force an opponent to submit or "tap out," are probably the most relevant weapons from a Judo practitioner's perspective. I'm not so good at following the boxing/kickboxing elements of MMA, but when they do groundwork I can usually understand what is going on.

Despite how vicious the fights look, MMA is still a sport, and it's pretty well controlled. To protect the players, there are many restrictions to the types of moves that can be done. For example, no blows to the back of the head, no kneeing the head of a grounded opponent, and of course no strikes on the family jewels. The refs have a huge responsibility to enforce these rules and also call a match if one player is no longer defending intelligently. There can be a lot of blood and cringe-inducing strikes, but considering what MMA is, it's relatively safe.

Aside from the fights, one of the most amusing things about these contests is when the contestants pimp their sponsors' wares. After the match is over, the trainers will make sure they get their guy to put on a t-shirt that is emblazoned with logos and have them take a swig of some energy drink. cha-ching! Oh, and on a side note, the octagon girls are hot.

After watching three straight hours of MMA, I did get pretty bored though. It's helped me learn a lot more about the wonders and pageantry of MMA, but I doubt I'll follow it any more closely.

*Links to gifs c/o of gif-master Andrew.