Demystifying the Misconceptions About Mixed Martial Arts

DEMYSTIFYING THE MAJOR MISCONCEPTIONS PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT THE SPORT OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS

By: Rich Bergeron of Fight News Unlimited (unlimitedfightnews.com)

THE FIRST MAJOR MISCONCEPTION: What’s in a Name?

Mixed Martial Arts, as the sport is officially known, goes by only one other officially and universally recognized set of initials: MMA. The sport incorporates a variety of different disciplines with the three most basic and core components being Boxing, Jiu Jitsu, and Wrestling.

The best fighters in the business never stop learning new disciplines and styles and can benefit from any fighting background since there are so many ways to win a mixed martial arts fight.

You can tell folks are new to following the sport when you hear them call it “UFC Fighting,” “Ultimate Fighting,” “Cagefighting,” “Ultimate Boxing,” or maybe even “Human Cockfighting.”

The UFC is a league (Ultimate Fighting Championship), and UFC Fighting happens within that league only.

Ultimate Fighting is a term the UFC would love to claim, but it is also what people in the U.K. have been calling MMA for decades.

Cagefighting happens in a cage only, whereas MMA can happen in a ring or a cage, and there is no set design for either field of combat. There have been plenty of square cages used in MMA as well as octagon rings.

“Ultimate Boxing” is what Larry King called MMA while Jesse Ventura was a recent guest on his CNN show, and it doesn’t appear to have a clear origin. Perhaps he just made it up on his own in a senior moment.

“Human Cockfighting” was the term Arizona Senator John McCain once used to describe MMA, but his stance on the sport is biased by his family’s heavy involvement in boxing and the businesses that support boxing. This big misunderstanding on McCain’s part brings about another misconception...

THE SECOND MAJOR MISCONCEPTION: No Holds Barred & No Rules? Is MMA the most brutal sport on the planet?

Many casual fans of MMA might spout the idea that they like watching the sport because there’s “no rules” or “no holds barred.” No Holds Barred, or NHB fighting is a completely different animal from MMA.

MMA has several rules. Primarily there’s no biting, eye-gouging, head-butting or hair pulling in MMA under traditional rule requirements. Most leagues also forbid kicks or knees to the head of a downed opponent, though PRIDE Fighting was a league that famously allowed “soccer kicks” to the head and some leagues in Japan still permit this form of attack.

Mixed Martial Arts has often been compared to boxing and called more dangerous. However, the fact is Boxing has a much longer history and exponentially higher incidences of formal prizefights on record than MMA has in its still young life span.

Therefore, it is impossible to truly tell which sport is truly more dangerous. It's been said that there is not a single recorded death that has occurred due to injuries sustained in a formal sanctioned Mixed Martial Arts Fight.

This is not entirely true, but scouring the Internet only produced three MMA death examples with only one death occurring at a sanctioned MMA event in the United States (see comment).

Countless boxers have been put in comas or killed by the sustained injuries they have endured in lengthy and brutal gloved slugfests where punches to the head are the most preferred method of offense.

According to the popular "Manswers" TV show, boxing is responsible for an average of nine deaths each year. This past July was particularly rife with boxing deaths: both inside and outside the ring.

The shorter duration of mixed martial arts fights on average and the different finishing methods available do not change the fact that more concussions on average are seen in mixed martial arts than the amount occurring in boxing.

Elbows and knees can deliver deeper cuts than a gloved fist can, as well, but the key difference in the damage allowable in MMA is the fact that Knockouts can and often happen so quickly.

The saving grace of MMA in many cases is the lack of a standing eight-count. When a fighter is struck repeatedly or with such force that he becomes unresponsive and can’t fight back, referees step in quickly, often tackling fighters before they can land one more big shot to a fighter who is already all done.

At that point there are no restarts or countdowns to let the downed fighter recover. The fight is over. Every so often this kind of ending happens too quickly, but the sport would rather err on the side of caution than risk a fighter pushing him or herself way too far in that kind of fight at the expense of his or her long term health.

Mixed martial arts is a fighting sport, and there is some level of aggression involved and obviously a great deal of adrenaline, but that does not mean the sport is inherently brutal.

Fighters do not battle to the death or face men twice their size, and the level of sophistication has evolved 10-fold since the heady early days of the sport when fighters fought in tournament-style showdowns facing multiple opponents per night.

Now opponents are of similar weight, a typical pro fighter rarely ever fights more than twice a month at most, and the rules and customs of the sport are designed to protect the fighters from serious and life-changing and/or threatening injury.      

The Third Major Misconception: The referee is supposed to stand the fighters up when they go to the ground.

The ground is where many submissions and KO victories occur in mixed martial arts. There are so many things that can happen when fighters are rolling around on the mat and jockeying for position. Casual fans may boo and yell at the ref to “stand them up,” but real fans see when the fighter on the bottom or the top is working in a rarely seen choke or submission.

Some fighters are phenomenal on the ground and can keep the crowd excited as well as finish the fight there, but there are other fighters who have boring ground styles. Yet, it’s not the referee’s responsibility to make the fight more exciting for the fans by initiating constant toe to toe action.

The only time you should see a referee stand up two fighters is when they are both not working for something.

Similar to when a referee will warn a high school wrestler for stalling, if a fighter who is in the most favorable position is not advancing his position, working a submission, or initiating “ground and pound,” a referee can stand the fighters up at that point.

This usually only happens when both fighters are trying to rest or are wrapped up in a human pretzel of some sort that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere for either combatant.

The Fourth Major Misconception: All Fighters are Brain Dead Bruiser Types Who Come From Bad Backgrounds and Broken Homes.

Most fighters can take each other apart with unmitigated fury in the confines of a cage or ring and just as easily put all that aggression and intensity behind them as soon as the fight ends. Also, though some guys who fight take on the look of a common street thug in a bad action movie, looking menacing can be a psychological edge.

Many Fighters are smarter than you think, and though some might come from troubled child hoods, have criminal records, or went to reform school, you usually find it is organized fighting that kept them out of trouble rather than what got them into it.

Many people are astonished to find out some of the toughest fighters in the sport are the nicest and most intelligent people you could meet when they step outside the field of combat.

Consider these big name brainiacs from pro MMA circles:

Phil Baroni (EliteXC/Strikeforce): Known as “The New York Badass,” Phil is currently fighting with Strikeforce. He’s the last guy you’d expect to have a degree in psychology from Hoffstra. It’s no surprise biology was his other major considering his struggles with “performance enhancing” drugs.

Joe Lauzon (UFC): The local kid who trains at his own gym right here in Bridgewater, MA is a computer genius. According to Wikipedia: Lauzon graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology in 2006 with a Bachelor's degree in computer networking.

He worked as a network administrator in Cambridge, MA before he began training in mixed martial arts full-time.

Rich Franklin (UFC): This famous UFC Fighter is also a former math teacher who has a Master’s Degree in Education from The University of Cincinnati. As a fighter, he deals with entirely different kinds of angles and formulas and likely takes home a much bigger yearly paycheck. I bet he doesn’t get to take his summers off anymore, though.

Carlos Newton (UFC/PRIDE): While Carlos has done more coaching than fighting in recent years, he is a legend of the sport, once beating Pat Miletich for the UFC Welterweight Title in 2001 and beating a few other legends of PRIDE along the way as well.

Carlos, a former linguistics student at Toronto's York University, is in the latter stages of his pre-med studies in geriatric medicine, having done research at Baycrest Hospital, one of the world leaders in geriatric care.

So, just because a guy can fully channel his caveman fighting instincts when the cage door shuts, you can’t just assume he’s a mean-spirited dimwit when the fighting is done. Many fighters are personable, smart, extremely intelligent, and much nicer than you might think after you watch them beat an opponent senseless.

Think about it. It takes a lot of mental focus and discipline to be a fighter. When you consider how many different styles are involved in a truly well-rounded MMA fighter a great fighter has to be well educated by nature.

Also, when you make it your career to physically destroy another person the last thing you want to do outside training and competition is get in a fight or be a brute to somebody.

The Fifth Major Misconception: Everyone Who Wears a Tapout Shirt is Not a Fighter. Beware of greenhorn MMA fans who pose as world champion pro fighters.

Many folks new to the sport will immediately recognize that lots of fans wear a brand of shirts with a logo that reads “TapOut.” This brand has become synonymous with the sport of MMA and is a big supporter of up and coming fighters.

The UFC works hand in hand and has part ownership in TapOut, and while not everyone who wears a TapOut shirt pretends to be a fighter, plenty do. A few questions you might want to ask to prove if a guy really is an MMA fighter, Tapout shirt or not:

1. “Where’s your TapOut tatoo?”
2. “Can I see your knuckles?” (look for knuckle scars)
3. “Where can I look up your fight record?”

If the poser can’t give you a good answer on those three questions, chances are it’s all a ruse. Whatever you do, don’t ask the guy/gal to show you some moves or fight you to prove themselves. Though lots of folks who aren’t for real claim to be professional fighters, many of them can actually fight.

Either way, fighting should be confined to rings, cages and training gyms and doesn’t belong on the street anyway. MMA only gains a bad reputation when people take it to the streets and glorify using it in a non-sports context.

DO YOUR PART

MMA only gets a bad rap when uneducated fans and/or practitioners spout these kinds of misconceptions. Know the sport before you spread the word about it, and try to understand all the different facets of the sport before you attempt to criticize it for any reason.

Those fans who know what it’s all about also have a duty to pass on their knowledge to others and correct friends when they make bad observations or uneducated comments.

If we all work together some of these stale/tired myths about mixed martial arts will fade into history, only making an already healthy and thriving sport even stronger as a result.