Sillanpaa: Watch out, UFC has the recipe to be a hit

If you think boxing is a ridiculous excuse for organized violence, hold on. You ain't seen nothin' yet!

I've seen it and got a kick (and a punch and a head lock) out of it. If you can't stomach boxing, you haven't seen Ultimate Fighting Championship shows on television.

UFC is going to be wildly popular, a mainstream sport, in the near future.

It's violent.

It's bloody.


The fighters are, for the most part, maniacal without the theatrics they adopt to attract the attention of viewers who like a little circus with their sport.

And, you know how kids like to walk around the mall thinking up reasons to use low-level profanity? Well, these UFC fighters are going to be a bonanza for youngsters practicing to really curse because every single guy is an absolute bad ass. And, sorry, there's no other way to describe them. Parents will just have to accept it.

UFC isn't anything like boxing, but it would like to be so it could attract people like me - and most of you.

They fight in an octagon, an eight-sided cage. The fighters could usually make due in a telephone booth, though, because there's not a lot of strategy involved in UFC.

Well, there's strategy because it involves mixed martial arts, boxing tactics and amateur wrestling holds. Deal is that the strategy goes out the octagon the second one guy busts the other in the chin . . . or the nose. They wear gloves, not intended to soften blows, but to protect their own hands. So, when a punch lands damage is done. Every single time.

To the credit of the folks who are trying to sell a bunch of athletes we've never heard of, they make the most dangerous sport as safe as it can be. When a guy gets knocked down, the fight's over the second he shows he can't fight back.

And, there isn't really more than a second available to respond to a kick to the ribs or an elbow (or punch) to the jaw. Once a guy hits the deck, his opponent does one of two things:

a) He leaps on him, landing on his chest, and starts pounding the living bejeebers out of the guy's face.

Or . . .

b) He gets the guy on the ground in some arm lock or head lock, often a choke hold, intended to entice the fallen fighter to give up or, in extreme cases, gasp for air until he passes out. (When a fighter's body goes limp and his eyes close, the fight's over.)

See, the UFC guys are doing the same thing Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard were trying to do in their heyday. They're trying to beat up the guy opposite them. The difference is that Ali and Leonard were stuck in a sport that some lord or lady back in the day decided needed rules and gamesmanship so that two men trying to knock each other senseless could be called an art form. It had to be called an art form so that the lords and ladies who watched boxing could feel a bit more civil watching an uncivilized activity.

UFC guys make an opening. Kick. Jab. Then, KA-BOOM! You can't count how many punches a UFC battler lands on because the guy in trouble is either punching back or trying to save his soul by ducking and covering.

In one UFC pay-per-view event, a middleweight was on the ground in an elaborate choke hold. (It came after a martial arts move had decked him.) His eyes were rolling back in his head when he somehow broke free and got to his feet. The minute he became erect, he ran at his stunned foe, picked him up . . . slammed him to the ground with a wrestler's suplex and beat his face to a bloody pulp. Fight over.

Martial arts. Boxing. Wrestling moves. And, an amazing ability to recover from a near-death experience to win. That's a bad-ass deal!

The other night on a Fox Sports Net UFC show in which old bouts are replayed periodically, a guy on his back had control with an arm-lock. His opponent let the fighter keep the lock - as he picked him up with one arm and slammed his head into the mat. Weird . . . the guy let the arm-lock go and didn't seem to feel any of the dozen punches that him him.

UFC. A violent society. Kids who like to say "ass."

It's going to be the rage.

Reach Ted Sillanpaa at 427-6969 or tsillanpaa@dailyrepublic.net
http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2005/07/17/sports_top_stories/sport03.txt


A condescending tone, an ignorant writer, an article containing errors.
Good thing boxing isn't violent or bloody like this UFC thing. Real men punch each other until Alzheimer's sets in.

Wow. That may be the most unconvincing article I have ever read. I think I spent more time trying to figure out exactly what stance the author (notice that I do not use the term writer) was taking than actually reading the article.

So in summation:

1.) MMA/NHB = Cussing. And no skill. And cussing. Lots of cussing.

2.) Boxing = art designed by lords and ladies

3.) MMA/NHB = Violent Society. And the word "ass."

I'm not sure what political views this guy has (my guess is far-right, but he could easily be the opposite), but I feel safe assuming that he is an idiot.

Hooray for sensationalist crap journalism! What a fucking idiot that author is.

HEhahaha, Sillanpaa (correctly Sillanpää), is 100% surely a Finnish name; damn us bastards.

(& yeah seems like retard; must be a Swede with a Finnish name.)

" In one UFC pay-per-view event, a middleweight was on the ground in an elaborate choke hold. (It came after a martial arts move had decked him.) His eyes were rolling back in his head when he somehow broke free and got to his feet. The minute he became erect, he ran at his stunned foe, picked him up . . . slammed him to the ground with a wrestler's suplex and beat his face to a bloody pulp. Fight over. "


Ok so, we have an "elaborate hold" and we have a "martial arts move" ( obviously not a hold, because holds aren't MA moves), we have an erection after 1 minute, and we have some slamming, and a face beaten into a bloody pulp.

Everyting we have in the WWE !!

"

Ok so, we have an "elaborate hold" and we have a "martial arts move" ( obviously not a hold, because holds aren't MA moves), we have an erection after 1 minute, and we have some slamming, and a face beaten into a bloody pulp.



It's like they wrote an article on my sex life

Absolutly pathetic.

This man should be ashamed of himself.

Hey now, my joke wasn't that bad

LOL @ feedback.

What a douche this dude is. Maniacal? No strategy? Pah!

Maybe he should watch again, except this time with a fighter so they can point out what he's missing. In fact EVERYONE should do that...

...yeah, right.

Well, I hope that not too many people took his writing to heart.

Good one feedback.

I hope he got run over by a bus.

PL

What a moron. This isn't the WWE. That article was so lacking in fact or discription I really can't respond beyond calling him a moron.

Glad to see a journalist taking the time to research and write a well thought piece for submission.

-Brian

i wrote this guy a pretty mellow email. he isn't going to sway boxing and wrestling fans, but i don't think that's his intention. he is going to dissuade people unaquainted with boxing/wrestling/mma, which i believe was his intention. hmmm . . . fears of a violent society where people say 'ass'. maybe the world would be a better place if we would all fear and smear what we don't understand.

Nice. I'd love to see more people write emails to nimrods like this.

That was weird. At one point he was talking about how bloody and disgusting it is, and the next he is pointing out how fast the referee jumps in and how they are concerned about fighter safety.

We do have to realise that it is a shock when you first see it on TV.
I've lent tapes to people I've sparred with who have been suprised at the violence level. One big bastard - who knocked me flat on my back and gave me a headache for 3 days with a right hook - gave me the tape back and said, 'I was shocked at how violent it was'.

It is a shock to the system the first time you see a full on UFC bout. But when your UFC/PRIDE collection is bigger than your movie collection, you kind of forget that. :)