UFC 100 - The Dawn of a New Era

The biggest night in MMA history went better then anyone could have planned, signalling the sport reaching the apex on par with other international sports and it is all thanks to the UFC.

Around the world 500 million people watched UFC 100, not including the millions that would have watched it online or those in countries outside of America who could not catch it live. Compare this to the 2006 World Cup final (600 million viewers), or 100 million who watched the latest Super Bowl. This means it has left behind other traditional American sports such as Baseball, Basketball and American Football, or European favoured sports like Rugby and Cricket. The UFC have now put MMA on parity with Athletics, Boxing, Soccer and Tennis.

No doubt it still has a long way to go before it can match the clean cut image of Tennis, or emanate the wholesome glow of camaraderie that Soccer has and it will probably never be able to compete with the history of boxing, while there is certainly too much showbiz razzmatazz for it to have the purity of an Athletics competition.

Yet like any Olympics, Grand Slam, the World Cup Finals, or a Super Fight, millions from around the world stop to watch Ultimate Fighting at least once a month. And they all watch for different reasons.

Patriotic countrymen may watch to support fighters from their nation. The rise of England’s Michael Bisbing has seen hundreds of Brits fly out to watch him fight in America more then once. Brazil have no less then two world champions (out of 5) in the UFC, something which has seen the popularity of MMA outstretch boxing by far. At UFC 100 millions of Japanese tuned in to watch the debut of their national hero Yoshihiro Akiyama.

Others watch to see the type of fighting you would otherwise only see on a movie screen, such as from Middleweight champion Anderson Silva. His free-flowing style has been described as “a ballet of violence”, involving knees, elbows, punches and kicks from all angles. Light-Heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida has adapted Karate to work in the octagon in a manner which has seen him remain undefeated and hardly take a punch on the way. A modern day Bruce LeeBruce Lee, Machida is a fighter who trains just as hard mentally as physically. But if that does not capture your imagination how about the thought of a mere mortal being chucked into a cage against an absolute beast of a man? If that is more your cup of tea then you may like to watch Brock Lesnar rugby-tackle opponents before beating them to a bloody pulp.

Most however, simply watch for the sheer competition. UFC is probably the most unpredictable sport in the world. Anything can, and does, happen. The small gloves mean if you leave your chin out you will be knocked out. The allowance of grappling means that if you leave one of your limbs akimbo then your bones will be pushed to breaking point.

Whatever people watch for is not the point though. The point is that from now on every month millions of people from the world over tune will tune in to watch the UFC. It has all the hallmarks of any great sports brand, from the sell-out computer game (2million+ copies gone to date) to the celebrity fans (Jay-Z, Jason StathamJason Statham, Mike TysonMike Tyson are recent attendees). Still certain stuffy old-fashioned media outlets and journalists refuse to see it as a true sport.

There are no longer the beer-belly-bar-brawler types such as Tank Abbott. Nor are one dimensional fighters ever successful any longer in the octagon. Its fighters are some of the best athletes in the world, include Olympic Wrestlers, Ju-Jitsu world champions, former kickboxers/boxers and all of these pugilists will make sure they are well versed in all aspects lest they want to be knocked/tapped out. The days where it was seen as ‘human cock-fighting’ should be well behind us, with each fighter having a solid background in martial arts and a winning MMA record before fighting in the UFC. Those who see the brutal fights as unsafe should be aware there has never been a fatality from an MMA fight anywhere to date, while the kind of vicious knockouts that see men unconscious before they hit the canvas are apparently safer then taking consistent blows to the head like in boxing.

For a few years it was seen as a direct rival to boxing, now it is its own whole entity that does not even acknowledge the other combat sport. It sells more pay-per-view figures (over the course of a year) and now has just as many fans. Its premier fighters are fast becoming international celebrities. The build up to events already make column inches in the back pages of newspapers over the world. UFC 100 was the event where this runaway monster rose on its hind legs and roared that it is hear to stay, forever. It was the dawning of a new era, where finally MMA will be seen as a legitimate sport. In years the UFC will look back at their centenary and see this is when they had truly landed.