I've already wrote about this sport's cross-cultural charm, audience viewpoints and the business outlook. If you're reading this site, you understand that MMA's own culture has been developed by different things: reality television, internet forums, pro-wrestling, and so on. When I talk about "sport", I don't deny all those things have their effect.
MMA often shows the same cultural values as pro-wrestling such as nationalism and the admiration of bigger physical powers, ignoring smaller men and women in favor of heavyweights. These ideas are simple, and easy to understand. It's easier to excite people with them.
However, pro-wrestling isn't a sport, and MMA is. In a real sport, aggressive, abrasive promoters, big-money mismatches show how young the sport is. Normally the "youth" of MMA is celebrated, but it also means the sport is fairly immature. After a certain time, MMA won't be "young" any more, but it still might be immature.
Still, this game is new. That is a fact. But even if MMA sells itself on athletic merit, but it can't be sold that way forever.
In the sport now, people talk continuously about matchmaking, and what fighters are underrated and overrated. It's all about fighting, so I would never say tell anyone not to talk about those thing, but there is a lack of diversity in discussion topics. For now, those topics will provide enthusiastic debate, but at some people, people will find its limitations.
Why did I make a venue list for MMA events? Because it's interesting. There is a difference in quality as a fan in the audience. A good seat at a good venue allows you to see a fighter's footwork, down to his knee and ankle movement or submission transitions. If you have a ringside seat, you can see how a corner advises their fighter, and how they change their attack after that. I never found reviews of venues, or audience experiences based on seat price.
Sometime's MMA fans attack other martial arts people, who are part of MMA's grassroots. MMA can still learn from traditional martial arts: cultivating manners and discipline is a big part of martial arts. That doesn't mean MMA needs to get conservative; chaos is one of the sport's charms. But, MMA isn't only growing because of American culture -- television, media, and money -- other nations' cultures impact MMA, too. For instance, the different martial arts skills from different countries add new skills to regional fighters. This makes fights themselves more diverse, and a joy to watch.
"This is fastest growing sport in the world."
We need to show maturity as this sports grows. We need to talk about all aspects of the sport to do that.
SKILL MMA's Japanese MMA Scene venue list
Big thanks to Jordan Breen for English and editing.
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