Mixed Martial Arts
Mixed Martial Arts is fast becoming the world’s fastest growing sport. Mixed Martial Arts combines all the different style fighters and fight techniques such as wrestling, karate, Jujutsu, boxing, street fighting to name a few.
The sports popularity has taken off and the biggest and most popular mma organization is The Ultimate Fighting Championship also known as the UFC. When the UFC first started there were not many rules to abide by and did not even have weight classes the sport was viewed by many as barbaric and most banned across some states. Rule changes led mixed martial arts into being a sport and established weight classes a to protect the fighters, the term tapout is refer to when an opponent is put into a submission and will tap the opponent with his hand a signal to the referee that he has surrended.
The early days of the UFC you would see a lot of bar room type fighters like Tank Abbot who were tough but did not train as a fighter. Todays fighters are mostly full time fighters who treat their fighting as profession and train on a daily basis. Todays fighter must be well versed in all style of fighting and learn to combat each style.
What has also made the UFC popular is the actual stage the fight is fought on called the Octagon. The ring shaped like an Ocatagon. In between rounds you will see pretty ring girls as you see in boxing matches.
Some of the other mixed martial arts organaztions include the WEC, Elite XC, and Pride fighting to name some of the top organaziotns, there are several more less known local and national MMA organaztions.
UFC Fighters
Heavyweights
- Randy Couture “The Natural”
- Brock Lesnar
Light Heavyweights
- Forrest Griffin
- Quenton “Rampage” Jackson
- Chuck Liddell
- Rashad Evans
- Keith Jardine
Middleweights
- Anderson “The Spider” Silva
- Michael Bisping
- Patrick Cote
Welterweights
- George St-Pierre
- Matt Hughes
- Matt Serra
- Matt Arroyo
Lightweight
- BJ Penn
- Kenny Florian
- Sean Sherk
WEC Fighters
- Urijah “The California Kid”Faber
- Miguel Torres
- Jaime Varner
- Carlos Condit
- John Allessio
- Rob McCullough
- Mike Brown
- Manny Tapia
- Chase Beebe
- Jens Pulver
- Leonard Garcia
Woman Fighters
- Gina Carano
- Tonya Evinger
- Kelly Kobold
- Tara Larosa
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
My brother watched UFC all the time. Exciting to see and the power, energy, the rush they possessed. Very entertaining but on the long run it makes you sad. For me it makes me sad. They are entertaining but through painful exhibitions. Still it is a clean work. I hope for their good health.
It was the genius of the UFC to transform MMA into more of a mainstream sport, so politicians and other pain-in-the-ass type people couldn’t so easily knock it or associated with things like ‘cock fighting’.
Thank god for the UFC, they brought MMA out of the dog house and into the spotlight.