Has mixed martial arts (MMA) become too mainstream?
I remember being one of the early followers of MMA… Running to the store to grab my blank VHS tape to record the PPV. We were so excited each time to see if kickboxing could really beat ninjitsu, jujitsu or wrestling.
When I would fly to Vegas on business I would always try to grab a UFC shirt, because you couldn’t find them in Utah.
Then came Tap Out. It was a cool brand that I loved to wear. If I saw others with ufc or tap out shirts I knew they were kindred souls… Fighters or serious followers of fighting. The brand and the sport was still pretty obscure.
At times it bothered me that it was apparently manly to watch boxing, but if you followed MMA you were clearly a redneck hick. I wished for it to be more accepted… More appreciated… More mainstream.
Be careful what you wish for.
Now you can but iceman and rampage t-shirts at Walmart for 9.99. The sport is now “hip.”. I don’t know if I like it.
No longer do I see kindred soul that I can appreciate and swap stories with. Now it might just be someone who thought the shirt looked cool, or who wanted to wear an edgy brand and couldn’t find a No Fear shirt at Walmart.
Related posts:
- The best Mixed Martial Arts Utah has can be seen tonight at Horns Elite 10
- Traditional Martial Arts versus Mixed Martial Arts: Old School and New School
- Mixed Martial Arts observation from UFC 98
- Reno MMA, Karate, and Martial Arts at the Lions Den
- Interesting data on the martial arts in Utah
Ahhh… has it grown too large? It’s an interesting conundrum isn’t it, but let’s keep in mind that through regulation and effective marketing, MMA and marital arts in general have done nothing but burst at the seams with talent. The UFC under SEG nearly collapsed until Dana White stepped in with the Fertitta’s and bought the company. Unified rules were inevitable and they showed up in UFC 28… I digress though.
The original statement was that you didn’t like that MMA has crawled out of the basement of a few dedicated fans and into the homes of millions thanks to Versus, Spike and Showtime. Ok. Let’s tackle this one. In professional ice hockey (you knew I was going to bring that up, didn’t you), Fighting was usually punished strictly with two off setting 5 minute majors. Suspensions for fighting were rare and were usually only applied in the case of a bench clearing brawl, and even then, it was the first guy off the bench that got the suspension. The instigator rule was put in place in the early 90′s to curb the perception of hockey as being too violent for families to attend. It worked, much to the chagrin of hardcore fans everywhere. Seeing MMA grow and explode as a sport has been difficult for the early fans that watched it growing up. It did seem like you were ‘in the know’, but guess what, you still are. For every one of us there are 100 casual beer guzzling fans that do not appreciate the sport for what it has become- and it is a sport now. The hair pulling/groin shot antics of UFC 1 are long since dead and we have unified rules, television contracts and a huge expanding talent pool. Do I get agitated when I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an Affliction T-Shirt? Sure I do, but I always look on the bright side of life. Where would we, as an MMA community be now if not for the marketing muscle of Zuffa? Does Zuffa do a lot of bad things- heavens yes. No doubt about that. Every major media organization does, but look at the way that they have transformed the sport. You have gyms teaching MMA as an actual martial arts form. You have kids in training that are under the age of 10. You are able to watch more MMA then you can shake a stick at with the WEC, UFC and now Strikeforce on Showtime. In the big picture, you are still ‘in the know’, my friend. It’s just that more people belong in the same octogon.
Bishdom, great to see you. Can’t wait for the fights on Saturday… you guys coming?
Also, I agree with your points completely. I definitely appreciate MMA having moved from the basement, to being respected as an art form. There was a definitely downside to being looked at as a caveman or something whenever I would wear my UFC t-shirt. But I also miss the exclusivity of being part of a small, elite club.
There’s the problem… It’s a trade-off. There is no optimal solution.
I am pleased that MMA is huge, has survived, and has led to advanced genetic manipulation that can produce superhuman mutations such as George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva.
But I still reserve the right to periodically sit in a corner with my VHS tapes of Royce Grace and mope about what I have lost
Kinda like finding a band first and seeing them in a small club, then, the next year–BOOM!! Huge. It can be an annoyance, but we still get to brag. I saw John Matua get knocked out and flop around like a castaway from Breakin’ 2- Electric Boogaloo by Tank Abbott; and I saw it LIVE on PPV. That will always be something that the kids coming up now will never be able to say.. You see, you are still on the fore front of MMA. Even though you might not be able to tell me right off of your head who the headliners were at UFC 70 (Gonzaga vs. Cro Cop btw), you know more then about 90% of the MMA fans out there and you train as well. Something couch coaches like me do not do. So, knowing all this, you are still in an elite club, and when you see a guy in his 40′s wearing a UFC hat, then you know you have a real kindred soul….