PERSONAL THREAD FOR @SABBATH, ET AL.

1) Where is everyone from?

2) What drew you to MMA?

@Moorlady

I'd love to see MMA in the Olympics but I honestly don't know how much difference it would make. I mean, I'm pretty sure Team GB has won some golds in Taekwondo? I think? It hasn't exactly helped to grow the other combat sports much over here. We take pride in our Olympic boxers but boxing is already a mainstream sport so it's not quite the same.

@moorlady I would love mma in the Olympics. They would alreayd have a baseline to follow with IMMAF. I don’t remember specifics but I remember reading an article about immaf and then doing something that would help them get in the olimpycs in the future

Oh nvm this was the article 



https://mmasucka.com/2022/01/01/mma-closer-to-olympics-immaf-wada-testing/amp/

Love it’s always sunny but haven’t seen it in a minute. The little TV time I have had been dedicated to sports and Viking shows like The Last Kingdom and Viking Valhalla. Gotta catch up on Ozarks. 

My problem with MMA in Olympics is my lack of faith in judging to not simply award slap touch and run sparring over actual damage and power…well sounds like how they **** up now too but idk. I’d certainly watch. 

Liked Vikings.  Gotta watch Valhalla.  I tell my dog that's where he's going someday.

Frankly I always found the perception that MMA is too violent of a sport to be pretty ******* ridiculous. I’ve learned to enjoy getting punched in the face for the sake of becoming a fighter and I still think football is terrifying by comparison. Bunch of grown heavyweights slamming into each other head first risking high amounts of CTE and breaking their tibulas with such haste you’d think they were trying to beat eachother’s world records. Then you got the drug addictions, the psychological meltdowns and the stress of how much money is being put into their schools…I’ll take a one-on-one cage fight any day. 

Fun fact, ballet has more fatalities than MMA does. Weird. 

* Edited at 03.14.2022, 11:23 PM ET *

Yeah it’s actually shocking how mma is “safer” than a lot of other sports. Even boxing is more likely to give you CTE because the padded gloves rattle your brain more. Crazy stuff. Plus I think there been one recorded mma death ever iirc

I don't think it has to do with the gloves and I don't think there's much in it. Probably we observe more CTE in Boxing because it's the sport of punching your opponent in the head, and you're ostensibly allowed to get KO'ed or horribly concussed three times in a fight. That and there's a lot more Boxers in the world and it's been around a lot longer.

You don't have to look far to find an MMA fighter with virtually no Boxing background who has CTE. 

* Edited at 03.15.2022, 3:48 AM ET *

@AyyLmaonnaise

There have been a couple.  There was one in Korea and the most famous is probably Doug Dedge.  He died after getting KOed in an Ukraine event in 1996.  He was blacking out before the fight yet they still let him compete.

It's quite a mystery but many fighters have suffered career ending injuries, to protect the sport they don't usually come out about brain damage. Mark Hunt is a perfect example of pure CTE, that dude has taken so much head trauma.

But I mean watch BigFoot vs. Cain Velasquez I and tell me this isn't one of the most violent sports on Earth, we are just so use to it as fans. Not to mention, you may get knocked out in MMA quick but with the amount of kill shots guys go for, ala Dan Henderson style or Jeremy Stephens, etc, that's where the real injuries occur. 

Stephens almost ruined Josh Emmett's entire career, his comeback from that fight was terrible for him marred with many problems and broken facial bones, etc. 

@rappinpapsoda

If I'm not mistaken, that fighter attempted an absolutely ridiculous weight cut for the fight and it was more the lack of water in his brain that made him much more susceptible to the punches. I'd say that there's a solid argument to be made that weight cutting is the most dangerous aspect of MMA as if it's done wrong it can completely **** up your vital organs. I for one absolutely hate seeing fighters looking like they're about to (and often enough do) collapse at the weigh ins. It seems so stupid to put your body through so much before the fight even starts and knowing that your opponant is doing the same so you'd likely be outsized if you don't. 

* Edited at 03.15.2022, 10:51 PM ET *

Growing up boxing was always a topic of discussion and a sport we played. I can’t pin point the exact moment I started watching MMA but I think what got my initial attention was Lyoto Machida’s knockout of Evans. I found his background very interesting. That led me to watching Rampage vs. Evans season of TUF, which really got my interest in the sport. Since my friends only watched boxing and sort of looked down upon MMA, it was a like a secret I had. The first PPV I watched live was Rampage vs. Evans, which was rather lack luster event. From there on I slowly realized that MMA was much more entertaining than boxing. UFC cards delivered from the beginning of the card, while I was struggling to stay awake during boxing PPVs. Finally UFC 196 catapulted MMA to my favorite sport. 

I usually get my friends into MMA by telling them the backstories of my favorite entertaining fighters. For example for UFC 196 I told my friend about Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor. Than the fight delivered so good there is no way they weren’t going to be invested.