| University of Washington Article on UFC’s Rapid Growth |
The fastest rising sport in the world is not the NFL, soccer or even NASCAR. It’s much more physical and intricate than any of those sports. The sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) — and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) organization, a major organization within it — is the fasting growing sport in the nation.
MMA is a sport that combines all aspects of fighting in a competitive forum. Fighters from the world over compete with a wide array of stylistic backgrounds, such as boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, Muay-Tai, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu (BJJ), Samba and others to answer the age-old questions “would a boxer beat a wrestler” and “would a BJJ specialist beat a Muay-Tai artist?”
In an age when prize fighting has seemingly been in a state of freefall (perhaps due to the lack of any real icons to admire), where it is now losing touch with the very demographics that supported it for so long, MMA — and the UFC in particular — has been there to catch the audiences that are searching for a sport that showcases competitive fighting.
Recently, the UFC has been so competitive that three straight pay-per-view main events have been regarded as huge upsets. March 3, during UFC 68, 42-year-old Randy Couture — an Everett, Wash. native — came out of retirement to challenge heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia. In that fight, the highly favored Sylvia — who sported a 7-inch height advantage — was dominated over five rounds for a unanimous decision win by Couture.
During UFC 69: Shootout April 7, welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre battled Matt Serra in a bout where no one was giving Serra a chance to win. Serra only earned the title shot by winning The Ultimate Fighter 4 (a reality show that UFC produces), in which he beat 15 other amateur welterweight fighters.
Serra shocked everyone around the sport of MMA with a win.
This past Saturday, UFC 70: Nations Collide stunned the majority of MMA fans when heavyweight Gabriel Gonzaga knocked out Mirko Crocop (widely regarded as the No. 2 heavyweight in the world) with a right leg kick to the head. By winning the fight, Gonzaga cemented his status as the No. 1 contender for the heavyweight title and will fight Couture in August.
MMA is dominated by two main enterprises, the UFC in the United States and Pride based in Japan. However, in March the owners of the UFC bought Pride and all its entities, merging the two dominant forces in the sport.
Pride and the UFC have slight rule differences. In Pride, rounds are 10 minutes long (rather than five in the UFC), and when you have an opponent on the ground, elbows to the head aren’t allowed. In the UFC, the fighters fight in an octagon cage, while Pride fighters duel it out in a square ring. With the merging of the two organizations, it looks like the sport of MMA will slowly follow the form of the UFC with its five-minute rounds and octagon ring.
The next big event in MMA is UFC 71: Liddell vs. Jackson May 26. Light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell (20-3) looks to defend his title for a fifth consecutive bout when he takes on Quinton Jackson (26-6). Liddell, perhaps the UFC’s biggest star, also looks to avenge his last loss against Jackson in 2002.
Perhaps the biggest draw of the UFC is the fact that, in an age when boxing fails to bring us the iconoclastic heavyweight star, MMA has. With the sport growing so fast, the UFC has gone from having what could have been termed a “weak” heavyweight division to a very strong and high-profile division to go along with star figures throughout the rest of the other four divisions.
Couture, the heavyweight champion, is as popular a fighter as there is in the world. Liddell, Tito Ortiz, Anderson Silva, Matt Hughes and St. Pierre are the sport’s largest figures and are capable of carrying pay-per-view cards on their own.
This year has already been a landmark year for MMA, and the UFC and the summer look to only bring bigger and better fights.
| " | Perhaps the biggest draw of the UFC is the fact that, in an age when boxing fails to bring us the iconoclastic heavyweight star, MMA has. With the sport growing so fast, the UFC has gone from having what could have been termed a “weak” heavyweight division to a very strong and high-profile division to go along with star figures throughout the rest of the other four divisions. |
