New To MMA: What You Need To Know

By Rod Bourgoine


As far as sports go, MMA is still fairly new, but the roots of this sport go back many hundreds of years. Mixed martial arts is a sport that includes moves from the earliest Greco-Roman wrestling as well as martial arts from all over the world. This sport allows fighters to use a variety of skills to overcome an opponent, which makes MMA an exciting spectator sport. If you are new to the world of MMA, here are a few facts you should know.

First and foremost, don't confuse MMA with WWE. MMA is real, WWE is not. MMA fighters are actually competing against one another in real fights. If you want to watch a bunch of guys pretend to fight, head to a WWE event. If you want to see skilled athletes actually competing, then stick with mixed martial arts.

The mixed part of MMA is the idea that fighters can use a variety of different martial arts in order to win a bout. There is no one style required for MMA, but most fighters learn at least one of the following martial arts: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Muay Thai, boxing, and different types of wrestling. Having a full arsenal not only provides you with offensive skills, but important defensive skills that allow you to escape from chokes and holds. So while you might have one style you favor, it is wise to master some other skills as well. There is a reason why Anderson Silva is so effective in a fight; he is a black belt in four different forms of martial arts.

There are those who think the letters UFC and MMA can be used interchangeably, but that is definitely not true. There are many mixed martial arts organizations around the world, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship is just one of them, albeit the most prominent. There are other large organizations such as Bellator MMA, as well as plenty of smaller groups that host MMA bouts. So if you want to see a live MMA battle, just about every city in the country has fights going on from time to time.

You might be living under the delusion that MMA is the deadliest professional sport, but this is far from true. While deaths sadly have occurred, since the introduction of unified MMA rules in 2001, the number of fighters who have died from MMA fights is three. This certainly is tragic, but nothing compared to those lost during the same period of time due to bicycle racing accidents or surprisingly soccer, which has had more than a dozen deaths since 2001.

There are plenty of other facts you'll need to learn, but you can start by simply watching some fights and reading some blogs and forums about the sport. If you want to take a look at some of the top names in the sport today and in the past, look up names such as Carlos Gracie, Royce Gracie, Randy Couture, Fedor Emelinenko, Anderson Silva, Vitor Belfort, BJ Penn, Matt Hughes and Georges St-Pierre just to name a few of the important figures in MMA.




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