The public’s perception on Mixed Martial Arts in the UK
Whilst interviewing Paul Sutherland recently I asked him this question. If you could change one thing in mma what would it be and why? His reply was “I would change the public’s perception on MMA or Cage fighting as it gets called. We need to bring it more into the mainstream, we need to educate people that it has rules and it has regulations. All the fighters are proper athletes and aren’t just Neanderthals that just come out and start swinging. It’s the perception of what we do and we should be taken equally as any sort of professional athlete”
Whilst on the train journey back from Trojan’s gym Paul’s answer to the question did get me thinking on how about we could change the current British public’s perception of mma. As mma fans we know the sport isn’t full of Neanderthals looking to have a brawl. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some of them out there in the local shows.
But we know that most mma fighters are highly skilled and highly conditioned athletes. So why doesn’t mma get the recognition it deserves? I believe that current public opinion still stems from the sports early days when it was marketed as a no holds barred sport, anything goes and cage fighting.
We know how hard Dana White and the Fertitta brothers worked to change the opinion in the USA. As you had Senator John McCain call mma “Human Cockfighting” from the early days of the sport. As most of us will know the turning point of the ufc and mma in the USA was the first season of The Ultimate Fighter and its premier on the television network spike.
5 weeks ago on Tuesday saw the premier of The Ultimate Fighter season 12 on Sky Sports in the UK. So far we don’t know what affect this will have on growth in mma in this country. But it is definitely a move in the right direction.
So where do we go from here. Obviously last week was the first UFC fan expo in this country and ufc 120. I’m not going to say what I thought about those two events because that will be in another article. What I am going to say though is I thought the expo and the ufc event would have been marketed alot more into the mainstream and not just in the usual places like espn, mma websites and mma magazines.
I know the event sold out totally which shows there is a massive loyal fan base in the UK already. But if the ufc want to exponentially grow even more in the UK then some mainstream advertising campaign needs to be done.
I did notice Randy “The Natural” Couture was on the one show for all of about 30 seconds. He got asked to punch chocolate and called an ultimate fighter. Surely having him on there and talking about mma would have been alot better than punching chocolate for the last 30 seconds?
So where do we go from here? Currently Alex Reid is supposedly the poster boy for UK mma. We all know it’s Michael Bisping, so isn’t it about time that he was a guest on chat shows such as Soccer am etc? Before Bamma 4 all I saw was Alex Reid on Various chat shows. So surely the poster boy for British mma deserves that, just look at how many boxers have been on soccer am.
I also think there should be an insight to their training. A bit like the ufc all access programmes but focusing on UK based mma gyms. This will show the general public how skillful mma really is, how physically and mentally fit you have to be. It could also show the different rules and regulations used in mma.
Twitter @danyoungmma
Email: danyoung_1985@hotmail.com
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