Don’t LOL at the UFC, it’s MMA!
Couture
UFC 102 is tonight1 and if you already know who Randy Couture is, then you probably can skip this post.
UFC stands for Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the UFC is the most popular organization of MMA (mixed martial arts). Started in 1993, the UFC was banned in many states, had very few rules and was frowned upon by 95% of moms nationwide. Thanks to new ownership in 2001, the UFC and MMA in general were restructured with many more safety features for the fighters. Penalties for head butting, eye gouging, throat strikes, knees to the head of a grounded fighter, etc. are now in place, as well as a boxing-style set of judges who score the fight according to a 10-Point Must System. Weight classes and equipment rules (gloves!) help keep the sport on the “up and up.”
Since the rules changes, MMA went from a sport with a cult following to one with almost mainstream status. Don’t get me wrong – I still wouldn’t be caught dead in the ring – but knowing the sport is state-sanctioned and not so “underground” has lured many casual sports viewers other than just the non-squeamish kind.
The main events like tonight’s UFC102 are on pay-per-view and do a great business at homes and local bars. The UFC televises about one pay-per-view event each month2, along with the normal programming schedule usually found on Spike TV and other stations. One of the main events is Couture vs. Nogueira but again, either you already know that or you’re not going to remember it. At least you understand a little MMA history now, though.
One name you should remember for tonight is Brock Lesnar. He’s the current heavyweight champ, so if the subject of tonight’s event comes up, at least you can say “neither of these guys stand a chance against Lesnar.” I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but at least you’ll sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Read on:
Wikipedia – mixed martial arts
- I’m guessing there wasn’t a lot of confidence that the UFC would be around long enough or they would have come up with a better naming system for their events (although the numbers still beats Roman Numerals for the Super Bowl which is downright idiotic for a sport played primarily in the United States with no connection to the Romans) ↩
- tonight’s event can be viewed many different ways (UFC.com, Yahoo!, etc.), but most viewers will shell out for the standard PPV fee on cable or satellite, which is about $45 ↩
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