Misconceptions.

SDTimeout

Maybe it's Dundalk, perhaps it's what I'm talking about has not evolved to the public eye just yet.

There's a Mixed Martial Arts event on Saturday night in Oriel park. It's cage fighting ( a bad label imo as someone who loves the sport )

Everyone i have explained it to thinks it's violent , bloodsport and should be illegal.

Is Dundalk behind with the times or has Mixed Martial Arts just not caught on everywhere yet. People think it's violent yet fighter safety is a must.

I know it could be considered the wrong forum, but the guys in the MMA forum understand it. I just want a blind perspective from it.

ShiverinEskimo

Depends on the age-group but the amount of 20/30 year olds I know that are 'into' MMA in Dundalk is staggering.

Not a huge fan myself but that's less to do with the violence and more to do with the fact I can't be arsed staying awake til 3/4/5am to catch a fight and have no interest in participating in martial arts myself.

Love my football too much.

shindig-jp

I lost interest in the sport when Andy (Fugu) Hug died . He invented the reverse ankle kick and have not seen it preformed much these days ,

The fight game becomes boring when opponents grab each other to the canvas and try to win on a yield or the ref stopping the fight .


But yeah, I'm all for the sport even though I'm tired of watching it and will walk on the sunny side of the street with the fans , the naysayers can walk in the shade or go to Knock for their kicks .

positron

SDTimeout wrote: »

Everyone i have explained it to thinks it's violent , bloodsport and should be illegal. Is Dundalk behind with the times or has Mixed Martial Arts just not caught on everywhere yet. People think it's violent yet fighter safety is a must.

..I just want a blind perspective from it..

Here's some blind perspective. I don't see any news about MMA on telly or on news papers like I would about say, Boxing. And I know MMA is not like say karate which is mostly training and sparing is just to score points. I have seen some MMA clips on youtube in the far-east, and it looks better organised there, but yet haven't seen (again in news, national or local papers) about such well organised MMA sessions here. So I tend to think MMA here is more like bare knuckle fighting attributed to the certain type of people.

Now, I already know that I am wrong in thinking like that - but that's what it reminds me of. If you want to change the MMA's image, you probably should make it more public and more mainstream by giving it more of good media converage, making it more family friendly (if that's possible at all).

Just my 2c.

shindig-jp

Good response and very good post positron now a standing count of 3 , Fight on .

tenchi-fan

If you call it mixed martial arts, it sounds absolutely fine.

If you call it cage fighting it sounds like a violent, illegal bloodsport.

Scotty #

It was 'marketed' as cage fighting years ago in the states when it trying to get in on the massive (at the time) boxing revenue but it's a tag they are trying to shake off now. It's far more popular than boxing now. Infact boxing is all but finished as a professional sport IMO. Could you even name the current heavy weight world champion without using Google? Years ago it would be a house hold name.

Is it violent? Absolutely!
Is it a bloodsport? If you watch it to specifically see people get hurt, then yes I suppose it is. If you watch to see two sportsmen compete then no, it isn't.
Should it be illegal? Absolutely not.

I do think one or two rules need to be looked at to make it safer - particularly the rules regarding punching someone who is clearly already knocked out.

Plenty of examples of what I am talking about here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV093T0vS1Q