I’ve been a fan of the Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC for you lazy typers, for a some time now. I catch it on TV whenever’s it’s on and have researched it on the web considerably as well.
What is the UFC?
The official website has an good history page, giving you a very brief run down of the origins and current state.
===============
“The UFC organization follows a rich history and tradition of competitive MMA dating back to the Olympic Games in Athens. About 80 years ago, a Brazilian form of MMA known as Vale Tudo (anything goes) sparked local interest in the sport.
Then, the UFC organization brought MMA to the United States. The goal was to find “the Ultimate Fighting Champion” with a concept to have a tournament of the best athletes skilled in the various disciplines of all martial arts, including karate, jiu-jitsu, boxing, kickboxing, grappling, wrestling, sumo and other combat sports. The winner of the tournament would be crowned the champion.
Once the UFC brand was launched, MMA popularity surged in Brazil, followed by immense interest in Japan where these bouts became major events. ”
===============
The point here is that they weren’t legal in the US, and that’s where Zuffa, LLC comes in to play. New owners, new rules, wide spread success.
===============
“Recently, a UFC event in Las Vegas attracted more than 14,500 people—the largest audience ever to witness an MMA event in North America. Since then, UFC popularity has reached new heights as the first season of the hit reality series The Ultimate Fighter™ delivered record ratings for the Spike TV cable network. As a result, the UFC organization and Spike TV secured a two-year strategic partnership to present The Ultimate Fighter Season 2, as well as six live Ultimate Fight Night™ events and 26 taped programs of UFC: Unleashed™.”
===============
The website has a good section on rules and facts. Here’s some of the basic rules…
===============
Weight classes:
Lightweight - over 145 lbs. to 155 lbs.
Welterweight - over 155 lbs. to 170 lbs.
Middleweight - over 170 lbs. to 185 lbs.
Light Heavyweight - over 185 lbs. to 205 lbs.
Heavyweight - over 205 lbs. to 265 lbs.
Bout duration:
All non-championship bouts shall be three rounds.
All championship bouts shall be five rounds.
Rounds will be five minutes in duration.
A one-minute rest period will occur between each round.
Fouls:
1. Butting with the head.
2. Eye gouging of any kind.
3. Biting.
4. Hair pulling.
5. Fish hooking.
6. Groin attacks of any kind.
7. Putting a finger into any orifice or into any cut or laceration on an opponent.
8. Small joint manipulation.
9. Striking to the spine or the back of the head.
10. Striking downward using the point of the elbow.”"
===============
Good stuff. The official website is well organized and works well in Firefox so I can generally give it a passing grade. It has a pretty good video gallery, and a well thought our layout in general (bonus points for the Octagon Girls page).
You buy tickets through Ticketmaster here and run from $100 nosebleed to $700 for one row closer. Don’t even bother as the next two events are sold out anyways, the only way to see it is on Pay Per View.
The schedule is here, and check out some of the fighters here.
Wikipedia has a slightly better history blurb…
===============
“Early UFC events were eight- or sixteen-man tournaments conducted by the organisation Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG) in association with WOW Promotions (headed by Art Davie and Rorion Gracie), wherein participants were required to beat three opponents in a single evening to be crowned Ultimate Fighting Champion. Reportedly no other event matched fighters of different style to prove which was the best (though events like the Vale Tudo No Maracanãzinho, held in Brazil on November 30, 1984, would appear to contradict this claim[1]). Fighters were typically skilled in one discipline only (for example boxing, Judo, Jiu Jitsu) and had little experience in battling against opponents with different skills of their own. In addition, some competitors were given falsified ranks in traditional martial arts in order to legitimise their presence (for example, Kimo Leopoldo was erroneously touted in UFC III as a ‘third degree black belt’ in taekwondo[2]).”
===============
Vale Tudo by the way is where UFC came from, Wiki is helpful to describe it as “anyting goes”…
===============
“Vale tudo is a Portuguese term meaning “anything goes” used to describe mixed martial arts competitions with minimal rules. First popularized in Brazil, vale tudo has since spread around the world, and is considered an evolution of the challenge matches and a more brutal contemporary to competitions such as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Pride Fighting Championships and Pancrase”
===============
If you want to see some video of UVF in action, search Google video for UFC, or maybe Yahoo video.
One of the best ways to get in on some UFC action is to buy one of the DVD’s or you can just subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date if you’ve already seen the action.
If you’d like to pretend you’re in the UFC, don’t attack your brother, sister or wife, just buy the Video Game on PS2 or Xbox. Neither of the versions got a great review from Gamespot (6.0 for the PS2 and 6.7 for the XBOX), but if you have to have that virtual action, you can probably find them pretty cheap in the used section at EB.
