This is the third piece by Underground Blogger DeLeon DeMicoli.
If you or somebody you know trains in martial arts and has an interesting story they would like to share, please email deleon365@gmail.com
DeLeon DeMicoli writes and trains in San Francisco, CA. He is currently writing a novel on Mixed Martial Arts.
What happened to the days of watching MMA fights so we could see how martial arts styles played out against each other, regardless if we knew the professional athletes by name?
After Rhonda Rousey submitted Sarah Kaufman via armbar headlines began popping up asking: Is Rhonda the greatest female MMA fighter of all time?
Not so long ago pundits asked a similar question when Gina Carano was active in the sport, same for Cris Cyborg Santos. When Gina Carano lost to Cyborg claims were made that WMMA was over. Then Cyborg wielded her Thor hammer on a win streak until she was popped for PEDs. Again the sport was considered dead like a used Sony Walkman.
With Rhonda Rousey on a current tear, she has become the new face of WMMA and MMA. But does the sport need a face to claim mainstream dominance? Shouldn’t the sport be able to stand on it’s own?
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a standout athlete to promote a sport like they have in other professional organizations, the difference being the sport is usually the focus and not necessarily the athletes.
When Michael Jordan retired from basketball was the sport considered dead? When Barry Sanders walked away from the NFL was there protests from fans claiming to never purchase season passes ever again?
Those sports continued to produce and live on without talks of cancellation after losing their star athletes.
Recently an entire UFC event was cancelled due to an injured Dan Henderson not able to compete in the main event. Why wasn’t the rest of the card aired? Although it wasn’t considered pay-per-view quality, the show should have gone on.
Before the Ultimate Fighting Championship became the UFC we purchased MMA events without knowing most fighters by name. Our interests lied elsewhere like having the chance to see style-versus-style. That’s what was important to us, seeing which martial art took the reigns and clobbered the rest: muay thai versus jiu-jitsu, wrestling versus boxing, karate versus sambo.
Is it time for MMA to experience a renaissance? Return to our roots and pay attention to style-versus-style instead of focusing on fighters and their personalities?
Too often we are disappointed when athletes fall victim to a personal struggle that make headlines or a fight is cancelled due to injury. We cry out in protest against the fighters without considering other fights on the card that could deliver just as much as the main event, regardless of who’s fighting. It seems the sport comes second to the athletes when it should be the other way around.
MMA is a great sport and I believe will be the biggest sport in the world some day. But if we continue to focus solely on fighters instead of the sport, we will face disappointment once another card is cancelled or falls short of producing a main event.
