The video below is a classic example of the mainstreaming of mixed martial arts. Since its inception in 1993, the UFC has steadily grown and become more popular than ever. In fact, the layperson has a hard time differentiating mixed martial arts from the UFC.

I’m getting quite annoyed with having to explain to people that the UFC is to mixed martial arts what the NFL is to football but alas, it is a small price to pay for the popularization of a sport that many have grown to love.

It’s hard to tell if the combatants seen below are actually trained in the martial arts or if they are simply the result of a society that has become desensitized by violence and emulate what they see on tv as well as what they play on their gaming consoles. My guess by the overall sloppy technique is the latter but it is entertaining to say the least.

With a mixed martial arts event being broadcast nearly every weekend we get to reap the results of that influence in backyards, school campuses, and streets all over the world. It would be unheard of 25 years ago to witness spinning maneuvers, elbows, head butts, and knees from the clinch in a street fight but due to the mainstreaming of mixed martial arts this is now common place. The fact that they are thrown with reckless abandon make them all the more entertaining!

Although the maneuvers are performed with less than perfect, or even adequate and effective, they provide an entertaining aspect to the fight that has gone previously unseen in your run-of-the-mill street fight compilations.

Jacob C. Stevens is a life-long athlete and cerebral martial arts enthusiast who is also skilled in the art of linguistic manipulation, his published work, Afterthoughts and Handgrenades, can be found here.