by Jason Kelly

In the young sport of mixed martial arts we are still in the infancy stage of labeling pioneers, legends, and innovators. With the sport being approximately 20 years old we are just starting to figure out our Babe Ruth, our greatest athletes and best ambassadors for the sport while also realizing what a prospect should look like. MMA has a long way to go before getting the support baseball, basketball, football, or hockey gets. This is largely due to the fact that the general population is still under the consensus MMA is human cock fighting; that will change over time though, the same way all sports mature.

In the beginning we witnessed a small Brazilian man wearing a white Gi, dominating much larger opponents with his tactical submission offence, right then and there we were taught it’s not about size rather, skill, knowledge, and patience; that man was Royce Gracie, the pioneer most people remember. A lot of “freakshows” were available at that time for instance, the guy with one boxing glove, also having your typical bar room brawler in the likes of Tank Abbott it was a sport that needed much direction but, with Gracie and other fighters such as Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn we had some skill in the cage, enough to make people stick around and watch. The years progressed and so did the fighters.

Now, that MMA is old enough to make comparisons to other sports, we’re aware how much different MMA is. No sport compares to any aspect of MMA. This is a sport that incorporates getting punched in practice, a relentless training regiment, specific dieting to maintain a certain weight and even though you have a team, it’s really all on you in the end. When a fighter gets tired in a fight they can’t call timeout or have a team mate substitute in for them while they rest like they do in basketball or hockey, they must keep fighting or lose, as when a fighter is older and doesn’t move as quickly. They can’t pass the fight the way a basketball player can pass the ball when he knows he can’t beat a younger opponent with speed and agility. We are witnessing our first tier of superstars falling off and it looks much different than other sports fallen heroes.

Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Mirko Cro-Cop, these fighters aren’t what they used to be, we’re seeing that generation move on and a new generation come in. Like Jordan, Magic, and Bird moved on and we saw Kobe, Iverson, and Shaq occupy the superstar handle, now we will see Jon Jones, Jose Aldo and Cain Velasquez own those rights. We notice the dilapidation more because fighters don’t have team mates to take the burden off their shoulders like other sports do. We have seen Chuck get knocked out quite a few times recently, and it looks bad but, if Wayne Gretzky didn’t have someone to pass to once he aged, maybe he would’ve looked a lot worse too in his later years.

Fans already call active fighters such as Couture a legend, imagine what he’ll be touted as in 60 years. This sport is young causing fans to make immature statements but in 60 years, people will consider Liddell’s era as pioneering. I think MMA is far too young to announce legends in comparison to Muhammed Ali however, we know who will go down as a legend 30 years from now. In just 20 short years the skill level and fan education has grown rapidly, correct me if I’m wrong but, Aaron Simpson looks a little more skilled than Teila Tuli did. In 20 years we have determined our legends and pioneers, we must have forgot a car isn’t even considered a classic until its 25 years old, if MMA provided that much in its first 20 years, I for one can’t wait for the next 2 decades… see you in 20 MMA ZEALOTS!

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