Everything about MMA/UFC

Mixed Martial Arts is an extreme sport by anyones standards, but not a lot of people know the roots of this fast growing sport.
In order to fully understand the emergence of mixed martial arts, it is necessary to take a brief look at the history of the Gracie family of Brazil. In 1801, George Gracie immigrated to Brazil from Scotland, and settled in the Para province of northeastern Brazil. His family grew and flourished, and in the early 1900s, a Japanese man named Mitsuyo Maeda immigrated to the same area. The Japanese government had plans to establish a colony in the area, and Maeda was a representative of the Japanese government. He quickly became close friends with Gastão Gracie, a political figure in the area, and grandson of George Gracie. Gastão used his power and influence to assist Maeda and his agenda of establishing a Japanese colony.

In addition to Maeda's political prowess and skills, he was also famous in Japan for another reason: Maeda had been a renowned champion of the Japanese martial art of judo. Maeda, or Count Koma, as he was known in Japan, offered to teach Gastão's son the art of Judo. Maeda trained Gustão's son, Carlos, in judo from the time Carlos was 15 until he was 21, when Maeda returned to Japan. With Maeda gone, Carlos began to teach his brothers, Helio, Jorge, Osvaldo and Gastão, Jr. the art as Maeda taught it to him. The Gracie brothers were not bound by the tradition that Japanese practitioners of the art so rigidly upheld, rather the brothers began to adapt the art to suit themselves, and to make it more practical. It was in 1925 that Carlos took his brother Helio, who was 11 years younger than Carlos, to Rio de Janeiro, where they opened a jiu-jitsu academy.

As Carlos and brother Helio continued to advance Carlos concocted a brilliant marketing scheme to draw attention to the fledgling academy. He issued what is now famously known as the "Gracie Challenge." As he explained, "I had to do something to shock the people." He began the "Gracie Challenge" by taking out an advertisement in several Rio newspapers. The advertisement, which included a picture of the slight Carlos Gracie, information on the academy, and stated "If you want a broken arm, or rib, contact Carlos Gracie at this number." This effectively began the revival of professional mixed martial arts in the Western world, as Carlos, and later his younger brother Helio, followed by the sons of both men, would take on all comers in vale-tudo matches. These matches closely resembled the pankration matches of Ancient Greece, and were participated in by representatives of area karate schools, professional boxers, capoeira champions, and various others that sought to prove that they were better than the Gracies.

As word of these matches spread through Rio de Janeiro, the public craved these matches. The first of these professional fights was between Brazilian Lightweight Boxing Champion, Antonio Portugal and Carlos' younger, smaller, and much frailer brother Helio. Helio won the match in less than 30 seconds, effectively elevating himself to the status of Brazilian hero.

As word of these matches spread to Japan, the great martial arts champions of Japan sought to participate in this new form of competition against the Gracies, who the Japanese thought were defiling their traditional arts. Japanese champions flocked to Rio de Janeiro to do battle with Helio Gracie, who was always out weighed by his opponents, often by more than 100 pounds. He defeated many great Japanese fighters, and in a trip to the United States, Helio defeated the World Freestyle Wrestling Champion, American super heavyweight Fred Ebert. One-hundred-thirty-five pound Helio continued to defend the Gracie name and their martial art, often against opponents weighing as much as 300 pounds, from 1935 until 1951, fighting over 1000 fights, until Carlos' son, Carlson, and later Helio's sons Rolls, Rickson and Rorion took over the roll of family champion in upholding the "Gracie Challenge."

The new combat sport of vale-tudo fighting became immensely popular, quickly rising to become the second most popular sport, in terms of ticket sales, in Brazil behind soccer. This is a status that the sport still enjoys today. Leagues and organizations were soon formed and events began to be held regularly all over Brazil. The fights featured practitioners of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay Thai kickboxing, luta livre wrestling, boxing and various other styles. As these events, and as a result, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, grew in popularity in Brazil, the Gracies branched out to the United States.

In the early 1980s, Helio's oldest son Rorion, came to the United States to teach Brazilian, or Gracie jiu-jitsu as he preferred to call it, in California. Like his father and uncle before him, he issued the infamous "Gracie Challenge" in his new home, but added a new twist. Rorion offered $100,000 to anyone who could defeat him, or one of his brothers, in a vale-tudo match. These matches again brought Brazilian jiu-jitsu much popularity. As Rorion realized the potential this style of fighting offered to spread his family's art, he sought to create an organization that would promote this sort of fighting in the United States.

After years of hard work, and promoting his family's art and his idea for an American vale-tudo league, Rorion Gracie met Art Davie, a salesmen who had first become interested in this style of fighting during a trip he took to Thailand where he witnessed an underground mixed martial arts event. Davie utilized his connections in the television industry to set up a meeting for himself and Rorion Gracie with Bob Meyrowitz, who was president of Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), a corporation that specialized in putting on live pay-per-view sporting events. Together, the three men established the "Ultimate Fighting Championship," which held its first event in 1993. The first "Ultimate Fighting Championship" (or UFC as it is more commonly known) event sold 86,000 pay-per-view buys, and by the third event, the buy rate was up to 300,000 pay-per-view buys per show. This secured a place for the sport of mixed martial arts in the United States, but this place was not a reputable one.

Many people thought it was a very brutal sport, and dont get me wrong it was far from pretty when you watch the early fights,mixed martial arts consists of a huge mixture of fighting skills and techniques including Boxing , Kickboxing, jujistu, greco roman wrestling, karate,judo, kempo and mui thai , after the sucsess of the Ultimate Fighting Championship the sport has seen a massive boom in popularity from all around the world.
Bringing UFC to the mainstream audience meant having to tone down the violence a little, well i say tone it down all they really did was drop the no holes barred tag and implemented a few basic rules to increase the safety of the athletes.
Since 1993 nine different weight classes have been introduced ranging from flyweight at 125 LBS to super heavy weight at 265 LBS with no upper limit for weight!!!
if you are unsure on any of the rules then ill give you a quick list of big no no's
Head butting
Eye Gouging
Hair pulling
Fish hooking
Groin attacks (Ouch)
Stamping a downed apponent
Stricking downwards with the point of the elbow
avoid them and swing for your life and you should scrape through :-)
There are a number of ways to win a contest:
Knockout
Submission
TKO
Disqulification for the above rule breaks
Referee stoppage
Your corner throwing the towel in.

Attire:
Approved shorts Blitz Sport Bad Breed MMA Shorts
No shoes
No shirt
Light gloves (4-6) ounces Adidas - MMA Gloves

The UFC has become one of the most exciting and highly anticipated sports of modern times... in my opinion anyway, wat beats watching a good old brawl!
Now people like me and you can get involved too without getting our pretty little faces destroyed, well i say we can get involved, playing on the computer counts doesnt it :) Following in the recent success of the UFC the whole computer game community has gone mad for a slice of the action.. heres some of the best and most extreme fight games out today:
UFC Sudden Impact PS2
UFC Throwdown PS2

....::::UFC EVENT SCHEDULE::::....

///UFC Fight Night 15
Date: Sep 17, 2008
Location: Omaha, Neb.
Venue: Omaha Civic Auditorium
Broadcast: Spike TV

MAIN CARD

* Nate Diaz vs. Josh Neer
* Mac Danzig vs. Clay Guida
* Houston Alexander vs. Eric Schafer
* Alan Belcher vs. Ed Herman
* Kyle Bradley vs. Joe Lauzon
* Drew McFedries vs Mike Massenzio
* Rob Kimmons vs. Dan Miller
* Wilson Gouveia vs. Jeremy Horn
* Alessio Sakara vs. Joe Vedepo
* Jason Brilz vs. Brad Morris

Yamma pit fighting is the newest fight series in mma, this fight series has taken mma and the ufc slightly more back to its original form.
It was created by the original UFC promoter Robert Meyrowitz.
The yamma cage is different to the ufc cage as it has sloped edges which are meant to protome not being able to trap an opponent, there for creating more action.
There are currently two divisions. There is the one night tournament, which pits 8 men in a single elimination tournament to see who is the best fighter and YAMMA heavyweight champion. Then there is the "Master's Division", which brings two legends of MMA together in the YAMMA pit to relive old rivalries or solve unanswered questions, or perhaps even start a brand new feud.
the rules in this sport are the standard MMA rules just tweaked slightly.
This new generation of fighting is growing quikly, the first yamma event was just on April 11th 2008 in Atlantic City showing on pay per view through out America and Canada.
Travis "the diesel" Wiuff was the Yamma 1 Heavy weight champion.
No doubt this will grow rapidly so i suggest keeping your eyes peeled and seeing what the hype is all about.