Mixed Martial Arts Phenomenon (part 1)

Hi, kids. Gather 'round as I teach you the word of the year for 2008.

"Ka-Chkk."

No, it isn't the sound of a rifle reloading. It isn't the sound of the paparazzi snapping candid photos of the latest celebrity happenings.

It's the sound of fibers tightening and muscles tensing as teeth are rattled by brutal knockouts.

The sport to watch in 2008 is the controversial, bone-breaking spectacle of MMA.

See:

Boxing, Post Mortem

The days of fisticuffs and Marquess of Queensbury rules are over, my friends. Boxing may be the sweet science, but the algorithms are dated.

Let's face it: the main draw in boxing is watching two characters, the protagonist and antagonist, engage in a dramatic display of catharsis for 12 to 15 rounds.

...it's basically a soap opera inside nylon ropes. And, unlike boxing, at least professional wrestling admits it.

Boxing relies on the names to sell the events. Problem is, there isn't a Muhammad Ali anymore. There aren't epic matchups pitting two juggernauts weighing over 200 pounds clashing in a month-long verbal battle, all culminating in a vicious physical war.

Nope. Not anymore.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Ricky Hatton recently attempted to revive the spirit of boxing in a superfight. Guess what? They weigh under 150 pounds.

People don't watch fighting for a half-hour of dancing. Drop the pleasantries. People watch fighting to see someone get knocked out cold.

Say hello to mixed martial arts.

What is MMA?

Mixed martial arts is a necessary evolution to one-on-one contact sport. It's boxing with a twist.

Picture a street fight with rules, judges and supervision. It's boxing with knees, elbows and throws. Safe to say, things get rough pretty quickly.

In professional organizations like the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), combatants square off in three five-minute rounds unless it's a title fight. A referee and ringside doctors make sure nobody is seriously injured.

...but even I wonder how things stay safe when Mirko Cro Cop fires off a kick to the head, or Anderson Silva drives a knee into someone's eye socket. Somehow, it does.

If fighters cannot continue, the fight is called off. Unlike boxing, there are no second chances to get up after being knocked senseless. This keeps the brain from being overly battered during a fight after a combatant regains his senses enough to continue.

Fighters can win by submission, knockout, technical knockout or decision.

The Evolution of Pugilism

This isn't your mother's game of "slaps." The other guy across the ring (or caged octagon, as the UFC uses) wants to maim you. Two men enter -- one leaves with pride, the other with broken spirits (and sometimes bones).

As stated earlier, boxing's problem is the lack of personality to keep people interested. Mixed martial arts solves this problem by capitalizing on one of the lamest (but most effective) media tactics out there: a reality show.

All the drama of a bunch of fighters housed in close quarters is slimmed down into a weekly event on Spike TV. Each show focuses on the drama and emotion fighting brings out, with the final contender left standing receiving a $100,000 fight contract. Instead of voting people off an island like other shows, people are "voted off" with fists and armbars. The winner stays, the loser leaves...just like it should be.

MMA has individual organizations, but the "pros" are generally in the grandest MMA stage of them all: the UFC. You won't see a UFC champion brandishing a half-dozen titles like boxing. Until the unification of the Pride (a foreign MMA organization, now owned by Zuffa, Inc., also the owner of the UFC), there was only a single title per division. Now that the titles are unified, there's still only one "supreme" king of the ring in each weight class...just like it should be.

But what of the characters that boxing brings to the table? Doesn't MMA suffer the same problem?

Hardly.

What MMA lacks in character it makes up for in raw intensity. It's easy to love 44-year-old former-UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture because of his easy-going personality and sheepish grin, but you can also love him because he breaks people half his age in two.

Then there's Houston Alexander, a former construction worker and family man who donated a kidney to save his dying daughter.

MMA has character. Believe it.

Check in next time to hear how MMA is the currently the fastest-growing sport in the world and is quickly becoming one of the most profitable and successful comeback stories in entertainment and sports history!