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Today’s MMA; Top 10 Reasons for the Success of Modern MMA
July 30, 2008 |
The rise of mixed martial arts has been meteoric over the last five years, and showed steady growth for ten years before that. Mixed Martial Arts, or Vale Tudo (everything goes) as it was known in the 1920’s, has been around for quite some time, but has only recently taken off and reached mainstream audiences. So many of the sports fans admit to being recent additions to the fan base, which begs the question, what’s the draw? Anyone who is familiar with MMA knows the three letters, UFC, the sports unquestioned largest and most recognizable promotion, but the rise in popularity of the sport cannot be singularly a result of UFC popularity. Over the next few days we are going to explore the top ten reasons for the success of MMA, in order from the tenth most important reason to the first most important reason for success. Without any further waiting, here’s reason number 10…
10. Chuck Liddell & Tito Ortiz
Just like an old western movie, you know who the “good guy” and “bad guy” are. You can identify 
with the good guy, and you like him, while you despise everything about the bad guy. You cheer when the good guy wins, and you scream, yell, and cuss when the bad guy comes out on top. In the rise of MMA, two men were recognized as the two most polarizing characters in the young sport. Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell was quickly the man fans gravitated to, for so many reasons. He was charismatic, funny, and he could knock the snot out of anyone with his devastating, sledge hammer-like punches. Fans flocked to Liddell, the man with the Mohawk and tattooed head.
For as much as they loved Iceman, they hated Tito Ortiz. Ortiz, an arrogant, brash, but excellent fighter, was the one man that everyone wanted to hate. His attitude was abrasive as anything could be, his mouth was vulgar, and what made all this worse, he was good, damn good. Ortiz, known as “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy,” would rile up opponents with his taunting and disrespect, and then he’d beat them to a pulp in the middle of the cage. The fans hated him, the other fighters hated him, and even the president of the UFC hated him. He was the stereotypical “bad boy.”
With these two playing the roles, fans flocked. In 2002 these two were scheduled to fight, finally. The fans salivated at the thought of their favorite fighter kicking the ass of their least favorite, and the sport’s most cocky fighter. The fight ultimately didn’t happen until two years later. In the end, the good guy always wins and Liddell did win against Ortiz…twice, but not before millions and millions of fans were lured in, hook, line, and sinker.
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