cagefighting

ULTIMATE CAGE FIGHTING.

These days if you havent heard of it then you have been living under a rock for the last 4 years. It first hit the scene in 1993. The fighters who were brave enough to get in the octagon were only trained in one perticular art. The most dominating art was quickly identified as wrestling. With fighters such as Kevin Jackson, Mark Coleman and Mark Kerr truly seperating the wrestlers from the croud.

The Sport. Like any other full contact sport had it's many fans as well as it's many critics. In the beginning it was truly anything goes. So it really wasn't a big hit in the U.S.

However In Japan history was in the making. Pride was first fomulated as kakutougi revolutions Which eventually became Dream Stage Entertainment. The Pride organization was started with the idea of getting one fight together.

A match between Rickson Gracie and Japanese pro wrestler Nobuhiko Takada.

Pride Held it's event at the Tokyo Dome on October 11, 1997 With these two heading the card. Gracie winning via armbar. From their pride sky rocketed into the biggest MMA company in the world. Thanks to all the amazing Japanese fans. At a given fight their would be up to 50,000 fans in the stands.

On June 5th 2006 Fuji network announced that they were immediatley terminating their contract with DSE due to breach of contract.

At about the same time the UFC had been under new staff with Dana White being the president. They made certain changes. the biggest being the start of a new television series on spike called TUF (the ultimate fighter) and the finals would be held live on spike. Many americans still were not dialed in on the the rules and technique of the fight game. However the final fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonner Would Change the fight game forever. It was a three round slug fest with Griffin winning by split descision. Dana White gave Bonner a contract as well because it was such a good fight. With it being live on spike the whole world was in attendance and every fan wanted more.

Since then it seems like the whole world has become a fight fan.

My only dislike with the fight fans here in america is the lack of class that many of them show. Unlike vertually every fighter out their who has just that "class". Every fight that we watch on tv today you hear an unbeleivable ammount of booing. Which is sad because we were all taught at the youngest level that booing is the lowest form of sportsmanship. I'm not trying to gripe i'm simply saying we need to remember before we are so quick to boo a fighter because we don't think his performance is up to par. That 99% of these fighters have more heart and desire than a good number of us could ever imagine. So in closing I just want to salute every fighter who has ever stepped into the cage and shown any kind of heart because not everyone can do it. However it seems like everyone can take the back seat and point out any fighters flaws. So beyond the guts it takes to battle another warrior in the cage. I think it takes an equal ammount to deal with the criticism of some of our fans these days.

I wanna leave you all with one of my favorite quotes "IT'S NOT HOW TOUGH YOU ARE. IT'S HOW LONG YOU STAY TOUGH"