Tales To Astonish: A Personal Story About My Discovery Of MMA

Caption: My Hero Fedor Emelianenko

In this article I am profiling my discovery of mma and the development as interested fan to devote fan boy.

When I was young I was always a rambunctious boy who enjoyed kung fu movies and comic books, jumping off the couch doing flying side kicks and karate chopping my dog. It wasn't hard for me to cross over to mma it seemed like a natural extension of my personality to go from these two things that had herculean men and women flying around doing the impossible. MMA simply seemed like the embodiment of these concepts within actual physical human beings who were almost more inhuman than human with their talent, skills, and physical fitness.

When I was young I vaguely  remember watching mma VHS tapes with my dad keeping them a secret from my mom who was more concerned with my exposure to violence than anything else. But once I reached middle school the thoughts of the old UFC tapes were in the back of mind, a vague whisper that clawed at my love for the martial arts. I took martial arts looking to be the next Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, or even the next Dolph Lundgren.

I eventually stopped doing martial arts when I reached high school instead to play sports like lacrosse and soccer. It was fun, but it was something I never took very seriously, and really never took advantaged of my athletic talent. Always intrigued by wrestling I never participated out of the physical toll it took on peoples bodies from trying to make weight, at 145lbs it didn't seem like a good idea.

It wasn't until about my junior year of high school that my friend Marcus Walker, who is also a writer on the Bleacher Report, had a old UFC VHS laying around that I re-discovered mma. Through my friend Marcus I was introduced to another friend of mine named Matt who started really getting into Pride FC.

Matt and I started to really hit it off and he started to introduce me to the world of Pride FC. Falling in love with guys like Kazushi Sakuraba and Igor Vovchacyen I was instantly sold on the sport of mma.

Not being a fan of most sports mma truly spoke to me like nothing else, I knew that this sport was something I wanted involved in my entire life. My friends Matt and Marcus and a small group of people were interested in training. I wasn't hesitant at all I said sign me up and that was the beginning of one of the most life changing experiences in my life.

Only a junior in high school my friend Matt was a 21yr old who lived in a downtown loft in Flint, MI with his girlfriend that I frequently went over to watch Pride FC dvds and highlight videos. Afterwards, we would turn up some music and start lifting and hitting a heavy bag in his apartment.

Those were my fondest memories of training, we worked out in a makeshift gym with a heavy bag and speed bag along with a weight bench that had about 170lbs worth of weight.

The beginning days of training were very humbling as well, I thought having done martial arts that I was prepared to deliver a proper punch little did I know that the mechanics of a karate punch is completely different than actually hitting a physical target.

Pulling out a futon mattress I had my first expeirences with grappling having my leg knee barred to the point where I couldn't even barely walk the next day at school. People wondered about my scabbed up swollen knuckles and funny limp, and I could only smile and laugh at them when I told them about what I was doing.

There were a couple people who acted interested in joining the crew and getting in on this stuff called mma, but no one ever took it serious. It was like we had are own private fight club where we trained in a sport that no one else knew about.

MMA began absorbing my life more and more, I started lifting weights and paying more attention to what I ate. The sport was changing me for the best and I found myself studying old fights more than my homework.

Of course eventually the Ultimate Fighter Reality T.V. show came along my senior year and it sort of changed the climate for me at school when it came discussing mma. People now thought they were resident experts in the sport of mma and were constantly trying to debate with me about a sport they had vaguely watched on Spike TV.

It was an uphill battle that was difficult to discuss, people who had seen only one or two Matt Hughes fights were trying to lure me into the singular world of UFC, completely unaware of K-1 Heroes and Pride FC these people thought they were more of an expert on mma than I was.

It was a fun ride through out high school that saw me fighting a couple back yard sparring matches, outclassing the rough and tough high school wrestler in a boxing matches and submitting a few along the way. Having my head blasted off by my then 180lb friend Matt when I only weighed 145lbs and enjoying the bruises I received along the way.

Eventually I made the move to college were I am now as a junior four years after my discovery of mma to see the landscape of an mma fan change. Now, all my old training partners have moved away and I am left to train by myself although less seriously.

People have grown more educated in the sport and the interest in it has increased whether it be a fad for this generation or not remains to be seen but it has given me some interesting conversations along the way.