should mma have a black belt system?

**searcher66071** · Posted On: 10/08/2009 3:58pm

What would a belt system do for MMA? Nothing.

There is no set of movements that are standardized for MMA. A belt system would be crap at best.

**tideliar** · Posted On: 10/08/2009 5:27pm

Why the **** would you need a belt system? MMA is a rule set...how the **** can you grade a set of rules?

**Yoj** · Posted On: 10/08/2009 5:36pm

it would be like having a degree in university.

**DSL** · Posted On: 10/08/2009 6:57pm

We already have a belt system for MMA...
Amateur and Pro, one for each weight class...

To the OP, no. There are too many different disciplines rolled into MMA to give ONE belt for it.

**Diesel_tke** · Posted On: 10/08/2009 7:44pm

Yes! MMA absolutely should have a belt system. Just like Sambo.

***battlefields*** · Posted On: 10/08/2009 7:49pm

I'm going to say yes. Because it would not require a lineage I could then start a gym called Battlefields MMA and say I am a black belt in MMA. When asked of my lineage I would laugh heartily and say, "MMA doesn't have lineages, you are thinking of the limited and vastly inferior traditional martial arts, where you learn," here I would snicker uncontrollably, "how to kick the air," now I would start to really crack up, "and you'd have to call me, Sir (or a variation)."
What the guy doesn't realise is I have now undermined his faith in TMA without him realising it and I will be above questioning! I will take over the world!
Now, where is my medication?

**Deadmeat** · Posted On: 10/08/2009 9:07pm

I train at and am an assistant instructor at an "MMA" gym, which has produced many successful national & international competitors in the sport, and we have a belt syllabus.

The philosophy of our club is that while we compete in MMA, we are still a martial art, and have core competencies that form landmarks on the way to mastery of that art.

Do I believe "MMA" should have a unified belt system? Not for a second. That would kill the sport IMO. However, I feel that gyms which train people with the intention of putting them into mixed martial arts & have their own systematic approach to the sport, and can justifiably apply belt rankings to the hierarchy of their own system.

I'm hoping to grade for my brown this year (which will mark 9 years of training for me), and if I am successful I will be able to say that I am a brown belt in our particular martial art system. I would not be able to say that I have a Brown belt in MMA, however, as that would be idiotic.