The Rise of MMA in America - Gotmadskillzson's Blog

Gotmadskillzson's Blog

The Rise of MMA in America

Posted on May 13, 2009 at 02:44 PM.

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In the beginning MMA was seen as a brutal sport. Nothing but an organized bar room brawl between 2 men who were out trying to prove who was the toughest. That was they view most americans had of the sport in america.

Now in other countries, MMA flourished for years. The UFC tried to make MMA a mainstream sport in america in the early 1990s. However their achilles heel was the fact they marketed as a blood sport. No rules no holds barred fighting.

Almost everything was legal to do. 98% of the fighters had no real skill at all. They were either tall and fat, or tall and muscular. It was just a streetfight.

Then came a little skinny brazialian named Royce Gracie with a style called Brazilian Jiujitsu. Now in america, nobody ever heard of BJJ. About the only martial arts americans knew of was karate and kung fu from the hundreds of martial arts movies that dominated american air waves starring Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris.

So when Royce use to pull guard, people use to laugh at him and say why the hell would he pull a guy down on top of him for. But one by one, Royce was submitting people twice his size with arm bars, triangle chokes and rear naked chokes.

Back then UFC was a tournament. You would fight 3 or 4 times in one night. There really wasn't any stars back then other then Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock. For the 1st 4 or 5 UFC's, it always came down to those two.

UFC chugged along for some years. Never ever breaking into the mainstream. Boxing was king in america. The 1990s were dominiated by boxing greats Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Ceaser Chavez, Macho Commacho, etc.

By the end of the 1990s, UFC and MMA were dying in america. Then came 2000 a balding guy named Dana White(he still had some hair back then) and his 2 childhood buddies bought UFC.

At that time UFC had some stars in it. It had Tito Ortiz, Chuck Lidell, Matt Hughes, etc. So Dana White went on a marketing blitz and heavily promoted these stars. Which in the past, UFC never really did. By doing this, they became household names.

Dana White was kind of no sense and heartless kind of guy when he talked to fighters. Which caused about a dozen of UFC's top fighters, mainly in the heavyweight and lightheavyweight division to leave UFC and go fight in Pride FC in Japan.

So for about 3 years UFC kind of chugged along again. Their marketing was there, however the depth of talent wasn't there. Because everybody wanted to fight in Pride, because they got paid more money there.

Being the baseball fan Dana is, he took the baseball approach to UFC. Instead of hiring high priced fighters to come to UFC, he developed a farm system to help replenish the ranks of UFC. Home grown talent, which was cheaper. This farm system was called The Ultimate Fighter.

Season one of The Ultimate Fighter was a huge success. Airing UFC on regular cable brought in millions of new fans. Because previously you could only see UFC on PPV.

What that show also did was cause dozens of MMA gyms to pop up across the nation. 8 seasons later of The Ultimate Fighter and the UFC is stronger then ever. Their divisions are full of new and cheaper blood.

That show produced Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Diego Sanchez, Kenny Florian, Keith Jardine, Joe Stevenson, Michael Bisping. Fighters that are now household names, young talent. With all of them within the top 5 of their division. With 2 of them(Forrest & Rashad) becoming champs in the UFC.

To help cement their standing, UFC signed former Pride superstars Anderson Silva, Dan Henderson, Rampage, Shogun, Crocop, Nog. So now UFC has a mixture of young stars and veteran stars.

Also UFC have PPV's every month. Along with Unleashed, which is nothing but select fights from PPV's that happened 3 months ago, coming on a weekly basis.

UFC also allowed other MMA organizations to flourish in America. You have WEC, EliteXC, IFL and Belator organizations in america now. People in america now have some what of an understanding of what rubber guard, kimura and thai clinch is now.

What was once a middle of nowhere fight league, has become a mainstream sport in america. More people talk about MMA PPV's now then they do boxing PPV's.