Cage Fighters Look For Respect Despite 'Cockfighting' Claims
Mar 14 2008 By Brian Mciver
IT'S been described as human cockfighting or a physical game of chess, but the controversial phenomenon of Mixed Martial Arts combat is coming to Scotland this weekend.
The sport, also known as cage fighting or extreme fighting, mixes elements of boxing, wrestling and oriental martial arts.
It has attracted criticism from politicians and anti-violence campaigners, but attracts huge audiences and TV figures as the fastest growing sport in the world.
In America, events like the Ultimate Fighting Championship have created some of their biggest sporting heroes and it is even beginning to outstrip boxing in pay per view income and popularity.
The sport is on the rise in the UK too, with more local fighting clubs opening all over Scotland, and sell-out events taking place in every big city in the UK, including events at the massive O2 Arena in London.
The controversial events come to Scotland tomorrow, when the MAX Xtreme Fighting event is held at the Braehead Arena near Glasgow.
When the first Scots Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) bout was staged last year, it sparked criticism from campaigners who condemned it as violent and barbaric, with the BMA calling for a ban.
But the event organisers and Scottish fighters have defended themselves, insisting it is heavily regulated and the safest combat sport in the world.
And while the event, which involves two contestants squaring off for either two or three rounds of five minutes each, may look like a no-holds barred scrap at times as they go at each other with kicks, punches and elbows, the people involved in the sport say it is intelligent and safe.
Scots contender Anthony Thompson, 24, from Bargeddie, is one of the fighters at the MAX Xtreme event on Saturday, and he says it is much safer than people think.
"There is not as much damage as is caused in boxing," said Anthony.
"If I get dropped in an MMA fight, I don't get a standing eight count and then get shoved back into it. If I go down and I'm not intelligently defending myself, then the ref will stop the fight.
"There are lots of rules to stop people getting hurt, and I've never had anything worse than a few cuts and bruises and a cauliflower ear from the wrestling part, but you'd get that in rugby.
"People get the wrong idea with the cage around the octagon, they think it's some sinister violent thing, but it's there for safety, to stop you falling through the ropes or hurting yourself on them, as I once did during a fight in a ring."
Surprisingly Anthony, nicknamed Cougar, is a philosophy student at the University of Glasgow and says almost everyone he has ever fought or trained with at the Griphouse Gym in Glasgow, are highly-educated graduates.
He said: "It's not a big deal for me to be a philosophy student. The guys that run my gym, Paul McVeigh and James Doolan, both have sports science degrees and one of the other guys is an astrophysicist, which makes him a rocket scientist. Another guy is an engineer who builds submarines.
"To do MMA, you need to be a thinker. It's very technical, it's about how well you manage the three aspects of fighting and interchange between them, so the more intelligent you are, the better you get at it."
The sport began in America in the early Nineties, and was billed as 'no holds barred' fighting between contestants of different combat backgrounds.
The early incarnations were incredibly violent and gladiatorial, and it was virtually banned after opposition from Republican Senator and now presumptive presidential candidate John McCain, who coined the term 'human cock fighting'.
In 1998, 31-year-old American Douglas Dedge took part in an unregulated fight in Ukraine and died afterwards and last year, Texan Sammy Vasquez died when he suffered a blood clot after an MMA fight.
By 2000, the sport's promoters had reorganised their set up and introduced a series of stringent rules and regulations which allowed more events, under the corporate banner of Ultimate Fighting Championship, to be staged across the US.
Even Senator McCain dropped his opposition to the restructured sport, claiming it had "grown up" and as bans were lifted and licences granted again, it went on to become a billion dollar industry in the last few years.
Jonny Burrows, of CageWars Productions, the firm behind this Saturday's MAX Xtreme Fighting event at Braehead, said: "We've been doing this since 2002, and held the first cage event in the UK. This is my 35th event.
"It is the fastest growing sport in the world. It is exceptionally exciting, it can be over in10 seconds or 15 minutes. It is a see saw spectacle, a human chess match. You're thinking four or five moves ahead.
"Thugs and brawlers do not last in this sport, you need to be clever to do it and the guys at the top are very intelligent."
Jonny, a former MMA fighter himself, is quick to defend his sport. He said: "Safety takes paramount importance. We look after our fighters like no other sport.
"We have doctors and medical facilities, and qualified referees who are all martial artists and fighters themselves.
"Fighters have to go through a strict medical. We had to pull a fighter from our show in Belfast last week because he had been knocked out three weeks prior.
"Our doctors had gone away with the fight card and researched every fighter on the bill and found out he'd been knocked out, and told him he could not fight, that's how strict we are.
"If you are knocked down, the referee is on top of you and if you are not defending yourself intelligently, the fight is stopped.
"In our event, the worst injury we have had has required four stitches. The critics don't know what they're talking about, which is the unfortunate thing.
"This is a combat sport, but I played rugby and the worst injuries I have ever had were playing that.
"One criticism levelled was that the loud music, flashing lights and smoke, would whip fans into a frenzy and elicit crowd violence, but that's insulting people's intelligence."
Sandra White MSP has been one of the most vocal opponents of the events.
The SNP Member for Glasgow said: "I am very much opposed to it, it's nothing to do with martial arts in any form, it's pretty violent and very much hyped up. It's more like cock fighting or badger baiting in an arena, and I'm not keen on it at all.
"It's the violent nature of it, but also the fact it's billed as family entertainment.
"The strobe lighting and loud music are geared to get you all uptight and excited and my worry is how people spend that energy which is geared up inside them when they come out of the arena.
"I find it concerning that it is becoming so popular, with all the advertising and hype.
"I got invited to go along the first time it was appearing, but I looked it up on the website and that was enough.
"I thought it was very hyped up and anything goes.
"I know they talk about rules but the BMA have said it should be banned because of the health and safety aspects."
'You need to be a thinker. It's about how you manage the three aspects of fighting'
