Watching any sport you aren’t familiar with can feel like a chore, and we can often dread these events. It’s not pleasant knowing you’re going to be surrounded by people throwing around jargon specific to that sport, discussing past events, and even worse, asking you questions to which you don’t know the answer. You can do a few things to reduce the stress of times like this. In turn, these steps might also help you get into MMA itself too, making future events with your friends something to look forward to instead. It should be noted that MMA is a very intricate sport and can be incredibly exciting and fun to watch, no matter your level of knowledge of the sport. To help with your first viewing session, however, we’ve put together some steps to help you prepare and have the best time possible.
Know Who Is Fighting
Your first step is to get a good idea of which fighters you will watch. There are many MMA fighters in many different competitions across the world. There are plenty of local competitions with amateur fighters, which you’ll likely only see in person. These smaller fights can be just as exciting as some of the big fights and can make for a great night out with your friends. If you’re going to be watching on TV, however, the chances are you’re watching a UFC fight between a couple of well-known contenders.
Understand The UFC
It’s important to get to grips with what the UFC really is. You’ll likely have heard this in conjunction with MMA and often get the two confused as being the same thing. However, UFC is actually a specific organization that promotes and organizes MMA fights. The UFC was founded in 1993 in Las Vegas and is jointly owned by a selection of companies. While it is part-owned by these different companies, the president of the organization is a man known as Dana White. This large enterprise turns over more than $600m every year, separate from the huge media deals that the organization offers exclusive rights to certain media companies.
Make Things More Interesting
Watching any sport without any skin in the game is naturally going to be less interesting than if you were watching with something to lose. This is why a huge majority of people either support a specific fighter to share in their success story or place a bet on particular fights in the hopes of winning some money. There are many online betting sites that you can make use of, as well as casinos to enjoy some online games during any downtime between fights. Betting sites and casinos often offer newcomers special bonuses, providing things like free bets, deposit bonuses, and free slot spins. For example, you can find a range of different casino bonuses via OnlineCasinos.co.uk.
Things To Learn About The Sport
When watching a sport like this, you can make things much more interesting simply by better understanding the fight. To help with this, here are a few important things to learn about before you watch your first ever fight.
- What Is MMA?
First off, you will need to know what MMA is. MMA simply stands for Mixed Martial Arts and includes, as the name suggests, a wide mixture of different fighting styles which can be used against opponents. That means you might see someone using taekwondo techniques vs. someone using standard boxing techniques, for example. That’s not to say that the boxer won’t be throwing some kicks in, but there will be a stark difference between these two fighters. - Is Being On The Floor Normal?
You have to remember that MMA is not like boxing. Fighters will often wrestle on the floor to try to pin each other and make the other submit. While many will agree that once two fighters are scrapping on the ground, it isn’t exactly the most visually thrilling part of the fight, it’s no less important than the time they spend jumping around in the ring. In fact, it’s a very technical aspect of MMA fights and can be where fighters score the most points. - How Does A Fight End?
There are quite a few ways that a fight will end with a winner being declared. The more simple and arguably the most exciting end to a fight is with one fighter being KO’d or knocked out. While it can elicit gasps and groans from the crowd as people empathize with the fighter being KO’d, it makes for an impressive win in a fight. There are also TKO’s, which stands for technical knockouts, which are often called by a team’s doctor, the referee, or the fighter’s team if they’re obviously delirious after sustaining a blow and can no longer fight safely. Sometimes a fight comes to an end without either fighter being KO’d, and then a decision will be made by judges on the overall winner of the fight - What Weight Classes Are There?
Similar to other fighting competitions, there are specific weight categories for fighters to make bouts somewhat fairer. Pitting someone like Francis Ngannou, a heavyweight who weighs around 118kg, against lightweight Islam Makhachev, who weighs just 70kg, is going to be a very unfair fight. Weight classes range from the highest, which is heavyweight, all the way down to atomweight. For comparison, the heavyweight category is for fighters that weigh between 102.2kg and 120.2kg. In contrast, atomweight fighters are between just 47.7kg and 52.2kg. In the middle, you have featherweights and lightweights. These come in between 65.9kg and 70.3kg and 70.4kg and 77.1kg, respectively. - Why Is There A Cage?
This is one of the primary reasons MMA fighting often gets a bad rap from the public. The chain-link octagonal ring looks as though fans are watching an illegal fight, pitting two fighters to the death, but it’s actually in place for the overall safety of the fighters. Fights in the Octagon are generally far more intense than a boxing match, with fighters being thrown and kicked hard into the perimeter. Without the fence in place, unconscious fighters, and conscious ones, for that matter, could fall out of the ring quite easily and sustain far worse injuries than if they fell inside the ring.
As you prepare to watch your first fight, keep some of these tips and information to help make watching your first MMA Fight an enjoyable experience.