Mixed martial arts as a sport has been getting a lot of attention lately and it is actually one of the fastest growing sports in the States right now
. I see new mixed martial arts gyms popping up all over the place and there are constantly new talent entering the scene.
What I really enjoy about this awesome sport is that it is like the old gladiator traditions where people from all kinds of different backgrounds and cultures would meet and only the best would be left standing. Back in the Roman times however a loss would equal death, whereas now you can just get back to the drawing board and improve your weaknesses.
Mixed martial arts has grown a lot in the last couple of years and the added regulation has been really good for the sport. In the beginning it was a little too violent for myself and other people's taste, but this was dealt with by setting up rules that would properly protect the fighters. They have actually done studies that show that MMA is historically safer than boxing, however we have to take into consideration that boxing has also been active for a lot longer time than MMA.
What is really great is that we get to see different styles collide inside the ring and what quickly became evident is that you need to have some kind of ground game when it comes to organized fighting. These days wrestlers pretty much dominate most matches as they have the choice of whether they want to keep the fight standing or take their opponent down to the ground. However, this sport is still very young and therefore constantly evolving and we are just now starting to see fighters that have actually trained to be mixed martial artists and are not just people that came from different backgrounds and then changed their game to MMA.
If you have been following the traditional styles of combat for a while it is sort of an eye opener to watch these matches and you realize what really works in sports combat and what doesn't. Obviously there is a lot of difference between sports combat and self defense and therefore you should keep the two separate. If you want to check out some cool matches you should take a closer look at UFC as they are the number one organization in this style.