The Basics for Begginers

The number of people who read the last blog surprised me, especially as people read it without any knowledge of the sport at all.

Before I begin, I thought I better explain why I started doing it. Basically I text my 5 closest friends MMA mini blogs before fights etc, and they ask me crazy, ridiculous and occasionally very smart questions, ranging from “Stack the Lightweight division,” “To when will the MMA superfights start?” to “Who would win in a MMA match between Mario and Sonic?” Unfortunately, I promised to answer any MMA related question and I am not one to break a promise.I am now getting a lot of questions that are too big to answer via text so I shall be answering the big ones on here. Feel free to ask me any questions and I will (provided its MMA related) answer you.

For now, due to the number of people saying they read it but didn't have a clue I am going to go through the basics:

UFC 97: The Arena and Octagon

What is MMA?

Before anything, UFC is not the same as MMA. UFC is a TV Programme, which features MMA Fights. You can't fight UFC. It would be like saying  I play FA... Grammatically it's: I play football. I play under the FA. MMA is the sport, UFC is the promotion one would fight.

UFC was however was the company that launched MMA onto the mainstream stage.

How UFC came to be

A Brazilian family, known as The Gracies, were so confident that they were the best in the world at fighting, that they posted an open challenge for any contender to fight them; the prize being money. An entrepreneur called Art Davie saw this and created the idea now known as the UFC. He would get a fighter of different Martial Art’s background's (such as boxing, kick-boxing, Sumo etc) and put them all in a one night tournament. The fight had to begin standing but from there could end up on the ground or in a clinch. The first fight occurred and I won't spoil who won in case you fancy doing some extra research, but the event was a lot bigger than the producer's anticipated. As planned the tournament's continued with very little decline in popularity... But a rise in media attention, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. The tournament was given names such as Human Cock Fighting. Tournaments were harder to keep going, due to ongoing court issues and although the producers tried to get the event ruled as a legal sports fight, they found it impossible to keep pumping money into the UFC as profit's were disappearing, due to not being allowed to air on TV, ongoing legal fees and lack of location to hold the event. The producer's eventually  gave up and sold the business. This was the biggest thing to happen to the sport of MMA.

2 Casino owners (The Ferrita Brothers with a new manager: Dana White) brought the company and were more than willing to battle in the company's name and continuously pump money into the UFC. During the early stages they saw no profit but with every big event they produced they realised there was potential.

At UFC 30, with ZUFFA (The Ferrita Brothers brand) and all their money, The Ferrita Brothers were able to win Court room battles for haggling rules, meaning that rules had to be put into place, but the UFC became a recognised and legal sport.

They are currently 31 Fouls which makes the sport less “violent.” These range from the illegality of “groin shots of any kind” to “holding onto the fence” even rules such as “Stomps, knees, Kicks to the head of a grounded opponent,” all of which can lead to immediate disqualification or losing a point on the judges score card. The most commonly used rule, means a fighter cannot compete for more than 1 fight a night and must undergo thorough medical check-ups before and after fights.

How to Win in the UFC

*KO (knockout) – When a fighter is unconscious

*TKO (technical knockout) - this is where the referee jumps in, to stop the fight when one contender has hurt the other to the point where the hurt one is no longer intelligently defending themselves. As far as the ref is concerned, although the fighter is conscious, he might as well not be.

*Submission – Where the losing contender taps on the floor to signal that they are being hurt by a choke/hold (known as a submission) to the point where they can no longer continue.

*Technical Submission  - where the referee stops the submission (choke/hold) due to obvious signs such as being unconscious or broken limbs.

*Decision – If all rounds end with none of the above occurring, 3 individual judges (who do not confer) score each round out of 10 marks. The one they deem the winner receives 10 and the loser receiving 9 or less. If all 3 judges score the fight in favour of you it is a unanimous decision, if 2 score it to you and 1 to your opponent this is called a split decision.

Final Point

*All fights start standing
*UFC bouts take place in an 8 sided cage
*Rounds are 3 by 5 minutes or 5 by 5 minutes in cases of title fights.

So who is the best?

 

They are 7 weight classes in the UFC and so it’s hard to say 1 best; it’s all a matter of opinion.

There are 2 fighters who stand out.
George St Pierre (GSP) and Anderson Silva.

George "Rush" St Pierre (GSP) Left, Anderson "The Spider" Silva Right

Anderson is 12 (wins) –0 (losses) in the UFC.

GSP is 17-2 in the UFC.

Anderson Silva is an exciting Knockout artist and a slick submissionist who out of his 12 fights has finished 10 (meaning they didn’t go to a decision). He was won many awards including “Fight of the Year” and “Beatdown of The Year” across his career. Unfortunately for Silva he has weaknesses in his wrestling game and has been exposed on several occasions however nobody has been able to capitalise on them.. yet.

GSP hasn't finished a fight since April 2008 but has no weaknesses (well none that have shown up yet). He hasn't lost a round since August 2007 but whilst doing this hasn’t been exciting or entertaining to watch. He uses repeative gameplan's to beat opponents, but never commits himself to finishing fights, making for lacklustre fights and dominant match-ups. Anderson, on the other hand, is always fun to watch.

So who's the best and most complete fighter in MMA? GSP. Who's the guy you wanna go out and watch his fights? Anderson Silva.

Finally, if you have time, watch this Video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U030eKQp2Lc . MMA has gone a long way from the brutal days of blood filled cages, with people fighting each other with little experience.  MMA is a fully sanctioned and legal sport and it’s a sport for real professional athletes; These fighters train everyday like other athletes, to be top of their game. All the current UFC Champions are intelligent, respectful people; the above video shows this, demonstrating Anderson Silva in and out the cage.

I hope whoever read this has learnt something and I'm really hope I don't end up writing blogs on cartoon character superfights...

Till then if you have any subjects you want me to write about (or even if you just read this) please let me know! Thanks.

P.S I just wanna thanks my girlfriend/editor/secretary for making sure my grammar and english is at a readable standard. So thank you Beth. And for the record everybody. My Grammar etc apparently was better than last time!