Sunday 2 September 2018

The fascinating world of mixed martial arts

Recently I caught the MMA bug. It's all thanks to the live telecasts of One Championship on Okto.

Typically taking place on Friday nights, these live telecasts show the action from One Championship's mixed martial arts (MMA) events wherever they are in Asia.

One Championship bills itself as the largest MMA promotion in the world, and says it is watched in 138 countries globally.

I don't really know how true those claims are, as I am by no means knowledgeable about the MMA scene. My enjoyment of the sport is in its infancy and I'm only just getting to grips with everything that goes on.

But what I do know is that One Championship's product is wonderful to watch.

I'll admit that I wasn't always accepting towards MMA. Like many who are not fans of the sport, I used to sneer at how MMA was basically gay pornography, as it involves two sweaty same-sex people writhing together on the ground.

That's not exactly fighting, is it?

Well, a few months ago, I decided on a whim to tune into one of the Okto broadcasts just to have a look. I thought I'd give it a chance to prove itself. And I like watching things live on television for free, so I wasn't going to waste this opportunity.

Besides, live sports broadcasts go fantastically well with Pepsi, my beverage of choice.

What I saw surprised me. It was hugely entertaining from start to finish. The only draggy bits were when the fighters make their overly exaggerated and tacky entrances accompanied by epilepsy-inducing lights and cringeworthy soundtracks, but these are mercifully short.

And the quality of the action was great. It obviously won't be as thrilling as professional wrestling of course, because that is scripted and performed by trained actors and stuntmen. There are no "No Disqualification", "Street Fight", or "Falls Count Anywhere" matches where fighters bludgeon each other half to death with weapons.

But MMA has the one thing that professional wrestling will never have: an air of legitimacy. When the two athletes in the cage are slugging it out, you know that they're doing it for real. They're giving it everything they have.

And when somebody wins, it's because he/she really came out on top.

Regarding the comparison to gay porn, I have to say that although fighters do go to ground and grapple, they spend roughly the same amount of time on their feet trading punches and kicks. In MMA, there are many ways to win, and knockout is one of the fastest and most exciting. The fighters know that, so they try to finish their opponents this way if they can.

One Championship also introduced a new initiative not too long ago known as Super Series. Matches in this series are muay thai kickboxing bouts, meaning that they are purely striking and grappling is banned.

Even when the contest goes to the floor, it's still fun to watch if you know what to look for. Grappling is like a chess match, with each athlete constantly manoeuvring to gain an advantageous position. Many fighters have some form of training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), which emphasises the use of leverage in the arms and legs, so you'll often see them moving their limbs around a lot. It's a good mental exercise to take note of all these movements and guess what will happen next.

I also enjoy judging the fights in my mind by predicting who will win if the match goes to the judges' scorecards. Most of the time this doesn't happen and the match ends in a decisive finish such as through knockout or submission, but title fights tend to go all five rounds without a clear winner as the two contenders are equally strong. And I'm pleased to say that so far, I've got most of my judgments right, and the fighter I choose to win is often the one the judges pick too.

Football rules and refereeing is one area that has always captured my interest and I find myself paying attention to the referee in MMA too. The referees in MMA hold quite a lot of power as they can directly influence the result of a match by awarding victories through technical knockout, which happens when they think that one fighter has suffered excessive damage, or disqualification if they deem that an illegal move such as a suplex or soccer kick was used.

They are also responsible for keeping the fans happy by making sure there is enough action going on in the cage. No one likes to see two athletes circling round and round, posturing here and there without actually hitting each other, and if the fighters in One Championship do that, the referee will issue them with a yellow card, and the payment they get for taking part in the event will be reduced.

But the thing that most impresses me about MMA referees is their positioning and movement. They are exceptional at this. MMA cages are very tiny spaces compared to football fields, yet football referees somehow manage to get in the way of the players and the ball quite often. This wouldn't do in MMA. If a referee strays too close to the fight, he might catch a flying elbow with his face!

Having discovered the joy of watching MMA, I now tune in faithfully to every One Championship live telecast and strongly advise you to give it a shot too. Check when the next One Championship live telecast is scheduled at https://www.toggle.sg/en/channelguide/oktosports.

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