July 29, 2007
Mixed Martial Arts: A New Kind Of Fight
MMA Is Becoming One Of The Fastest Growing Sports In America
-
Play CBS Video
Video
A New Kind Of Fight
Mixed martial arts was once deemed too vicious for decent society. The sport has modified its rules and is becoming one of the fastest growing sports in America. Scott Pelley reports.
-
Video
Fight Clubs Go Mainstream
A martial art that combines boxing, wrestling and jujitsu is one of the fastest growing sports in America. Scott Pelley reports on an activity that was once considered too violent for society.
-
Video
Pelley's 'Fighting' Notebook
"60 Minutes" Scott Pelley discusses the popularity in the United States of mixed martial arts, which has combatants battle with different fighting techniques.
-
Photo Essay
Celeb Sports Fans
You may be in some pretty celebrated company when you sit in the bleachers cheering on your favorite team
Walk into any neighborhood and if they’re playing football on one corner, basketball on the next, baseball on the third and a fight breaks out on the fourth, everybody’s going to run and watch the fight. Hand-to-hand combat is strangely irresistible.
These days the national street corner is on TV, where millions are now being drawn to a new kind of fight called "mixed martial arts" or MMA. Not long ago the sport was banned as too vicious for decent society. But mixed martial arts came back swinging. In April, a fight on the Spike cable channel was watched by more young men than the NBA playoff game broadcast at the same time.
Correspondent Scott Pelley reports how a contest, once reviled and banished, has become one of the fastest-growing sports in America.
Pat Miletich, one of the greatest coaches of the sport and Brazilian Renzo Gracie, who helped invent it, are among the pioneers of mixed martial arts in America.
"You cannot hide who you are once you step on the ring. If you're a coward, they will show it," says Gracie. "You can't hide. It doesn’t matter how much money you’re getting paid. On the moment that that bell rings … you forget about everything else. You think about survive, and you think about beating up the other guy."
The name Gracie is to mixed martial arts as Ford is to cars. In Brazil in the 1920’s, the Gracie family invented a new jiu-jitsu. They challenged all comers and nearly always won. They brought their challenge to the U.S. in the 1990’s in a contest of styles – boxers, kick boxers, wrestlers and jiu-jitsu masters – to find out who was the ultimate fighter.
"What do you say to people who watch an MMA fight and say it's barbaric?" Pelley asks.
"For them to understand my sport, I know it's gonna take a little bit, you know, for them to accept and understand," Gracie says.
"What's to understand? You're pounding a guy, choking a guy into submission," Pelley remarks.
"It goes far beyond that. The first impression is, hit him, knock him out, hurt him, but believe it, it goes far beyond that," Gracie explains. "There's so much technique involved, that I, to be honest, I think when I see a good fight, I think it makes a Russian ballet look like a uncoordinated body movements."
He admits that it can sometimes be a bloody ballet. "But the blood is the source of the whole thing. Believe – it's not blood that's coming out, it's a little bit of pride that you're putting out."
To prevent too much of that kind of "pride" spilling onto the mat, fights can end in a number of ways. There’s a knock out or a submission, a throat squeezing or bone straining hold that would do real harm if the loser didn’t tap his opponent to signal surrender. And if the tap never comes, the referee can always jump in.
"It used to be boxers were called – 'Okay, this guy's the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.' Now it's, 'No, you're the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.' These guys are the best pound-for-pound fighters," Miletich tells Pelley.
Miletich blended all those combat styles into one.
"Look, most people are more familiar with boxing. So how do you compare MMA to what we're used to seeing?" Pelley asks.
"I would compare boxing to MMA as – you know jeez, checkers to chess. You know?" Miletich. "If you take the branches of a tree, all the techniques, if I do one submission hold on you, you have three different ways to escape. That's three more branches. And I have three more moves off of each one of those branches. And then it just keeps going from there. It's very complex."
This entire sport suffered a stone cold knockout just a few years ago. Back then, there were virtually no rules. Fighters could stomp, kick to the groin, there were no time limits, and no weight classes. Critics called it human cockfighting. It was barred in many states and banned on TV.
"In the late 90s, the reputation of the ultimate fighting championship was what?" Pelley asks.
"Uneducated gorillas that liked to go in there and basically kick the crap out of each other," says Dana White, a former amateur boxer who thought the fights might be just the thing to draw an audience that advertisers often want most – men, ages 18 to 34.
That group has been disappearing from TV audiences. White convinced investors to buy a league, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC. He adopted rules for the safety of the fighters and got 18 states to sanction the fights.
Produced By Solly Granatstein
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Recent Segments
Scroll Left
Scroll Right
I just want to thank you all for putting together something that (from what I have seen) has made MANY MMA fans very happy. Great work
I started watching the sport because of The Ultimate Fighter and have been a fan ever since.
Like Pat Miletich said, it's like checkers to chess compaired to boxing. The multiple choices and ways a match can be fought make it interesting. Usually fans are more upset about stopages being to early than too late. The refs and the major Organizations really do try and protect the fighters. It's a great SPORT.
The owners of the UFC should have been scrutinized (in my opinion). They got a free pass.
The UFC had rules and sanctioning BEFORE the current owners bought the company.
These and other of the several inaccuricies could have been cleared up with a modicum of research.
I found your presentation honest w/ no hint of an objective which is rare the words mixed martial arts are mentioned.
I also feel that doing articles like this may also help bring in a younger viewing market as I know at least 20 people who tuned in to watch the piece.
I look forward to hearing more on this subject hopefully from you you guys.thanks again
The failure to address this casts doubt on other stories featured on "60 Minutes."
Also, as stated earlier, Tim Sylvia is the UFC heavyweight champion and he was on the show. Why not bring up his involvement with steroids? If you guys had Barry Bonds on a baseball segment, you'd have mentioned illegal drugs as many times as you could, and Bonds has NEVER tested positive for an illegal drug.
Here, on this show, you have a guy who is a KNOWN steroid violator and you do and say nothing.
Fluff piece.
Most offensive was that you slyly mention that the UFC is regularly seen on a cable network. It is not JUST a cable network, it is Spike TV, a network owned vy VIACOM just like CBS NEWS! Spike TV's success is owed to UFC. I doubt CBS is going to be critical.
This is just like when 60 Minutes features and promotes EVERY anti-Bush book that fellow VIACOM company, Simon and Schuster, publishes.
It is a shame that 60 Minutes has lost so much credibility. In my mind, it is nothing more than a poltical and economic shill
Most offensive was that you slyly mention that the UFC is regularly seen on a cable network. It is not JUST a cable network, it is Spike TV, a network owned vy VIACOM just like CBS NEWS! Spike TV's success is owed to UFC. I doubt CBS is going to be critical.
This is just like when 60 Minutes features and promotes EVERY anti-Bush book that fellow VIACOM company, Simon and Schuster, publishes.
It is a shame that 60 Minutes has lost so much credibility. In my mind, it is nothing more than a poltical and economic shill
They were almost the entire size of his corneas, making his eyes appear BLACK!!! This man was high on some sort of speed (crystal meth or whatever) during this interview. Did NO ONE see this??? And what does this say about this sport?
rgabriel01, I think you are right to chastise CBS for their one-sided reporting and their hidden agenda. They have done themselves and their viewers a great disservice. Mixed martial arts is certainly a very controversial subject and should be treated as such by agencies purporting to be news sources. Honest discourse between credible sources is the only reliable way for society to work out what it is comfortable with and what it should treat as undesirable.
That said, I do believe that eventually MMA will and indeed should be accepted as a legitimate form of competition and entertainment. In order to explain this belief, I would like to gesture at a few facts which tend to show that MMA as a sport and as a spectacle comports with contemporary morality in the USA.
1.) Despite your legitimate concerns about the credibility of those who claim that the MMA is safer than boxing, it isn't clear that those claims are false. While it's true that you see more blood in MMA, this isn't necessarily a sign of more (or more serious) injury. Consider high school wrestling. Wrestling matches often include several bloody noses. Does this mean we should ban wrestling? In other words, is the presence of blood enough to warrant a ban on a sport? Obviously not.
2.) Even if the sport produces relatively high rates of injury, it is inconsistent with our society's moral values to ban the sport. Consider professional football. Football has one of the highest rates of serious injury in all of professional sports. Yet, as a society we consider it a great achievement to play in the NFL. Furthermore, we have no qualms about watching the game as a form of entertainment, notwithstanding the fact that many football fans are attracted to the sport because of the possibility of "huge hits". If this sounds unconvincing, imagine how popular football would be if the NFL abolished tackling and replaced it with two-hand-touch. The point here is that, even if there is a substantial risk involved in participating in a sport, and even if the crowds are attracted by that risk, we aren't justified in banning the sport.
Why are there so many steroid cheats in the game? UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia is one, as is a previous UFC heavyweight champion, Josh Barnett. Former UFC light heavyweight champion Vitor Belfort recently tested positive for steroids as well.
Want me to go on?
Stefan Bonnar was busted for steroids after a recent UFC fight. Nate Marquardt was also busted after his UFC fight against Salaverry.
It goes on and on.
Making sure to comment about this as it relates to the story presented on 60 Minutes, I'll again point out that the current ownership and management of the UFC has perpetuated the lie about the advent of rules in the cage. The rules were in place BEFORE the current ownership was in place. It's all over the internet, so I can't imagine that the fact-checkers couldn't have found out about this.
Fluff piece.
To answer your steriod concerns, consider this, why were those men caught? Because they were tested. Every main event fighter in America is tested before and after the fight, along with a random sample of half the card. AND, they are duley punished, suspended from fighting for up to a year. The aforementioned Silvia, was suspended and since cleaned up his act (he's been tested every main event, since he is currently the champion), and has won several bouts since his suspension. Moreover, you mention Belfort, and Bonnar, both of which have been suspended!
In it's infancy, MMA has surpassed many manstream sports with the handling of this issue. I.E. BASEBALL, TRACK AND FIELD, even Boxing....Shall I go on?
To answer your steriod concerns, consider this, why were those men caught? Because they were tested. Every main event fighter in America is tested before and after the fight, along with a random sample of half the card. AND, they are duley punished, suspended from fighting for up to a year and fined. The aforementioned Silvia, was suspended and since cleaned up his act (he's been tested every main event, since he is currently the champion), and has won several bouts since his suspension. Moreover, you mention Belfort, and Bonnar, both of which are currently suspended!
In it's infancy, MMA has surpassed many manstream sports with the handling of this issue. I.E. BASEBALL, TRACK AND FIELD, even Boxing....Shall I go on?
Please understand that what I wrote was in defense of the sport of MMA, not CBS news. I will again state that I agree with your criticism of CBS. They have failed miserably as a news agency and it is clear that they haven't fact-checked to any reasonable standard. You are absolutely justified in calling this a "fluffpiece."
Regarding steroid use, I don't see why the transgressions of some individual athletes should impugn the entire sport. As dunedain11 said, the UFC has dealt with the infractions as it should, and hopefully more rigorous standards of testing will be introduced in the future. However, it would be naove to assume that athletes in other professional sports don't use steroids, so why pick on the UFC? Shouldn't pro baseball or professional cycling be held to the same standard? So the answer to your question ("Why are there so many steroid cheats in the game?) is: The same reason there are so many steroid cheats in any other professional sport - steroids make you stronger.
(continued above...)
Rgabriel01, my purpose in responding to your initial remarks was to point out that MMA is a legitimate sport and that your criticisms of the sport itself (as opposed to individual athletes or the sport's promoters) were unfounded. If you have responses to any of the arguments I set forth in my initial response, I would be very eager to read them. Otherwise, I am not really sure why you would bother responsing to this. No one disagrees with the claim that steroid use is bad. No one can deny that CBS's story on MMA was a self-promoting "fluffpiece." So what is your point? Should MMA be banned because of these unrelated facts?
Apologies. I mistook EurosportFan's post as yours.
However. UFC can't hide it's violence and intentional injury ,though many of its' fans and promoters try to have it both ways as well. On one corner of their mouth they like to stress how real and damaging and hardcore and street it is, then the other corner of their mouth tries to stress how safe and sportsmanlike and mainstream it is. Your argument is wierd as you try to validate the violence and injury of MMA by pointing to other violent sports. UFC is just a cleaned up streetfight. That is what they promote and a ground-and-pound and snapped arms are what the fans pay to see.
60 minutes prostituted itself AGAIN by having NO opposing viewpoints, unattributed safety claims and by NOT mentioning that another Viacom television wing airs UFC. Hey Scott Pelley - it isn't just 'a cable network', it is SPIKE-TV, a network owned by your company. Why hide that?
Again, this story was just like all the anti Bush stories 60 Minutes promoted in support of books published by Viacoms' publishing arm.
Would Don Hewitt have accepted this infomercial disguised as a new story?
Edward R. Murrow is spinning in his grave.
-
by costandino1
July 29, 2007 10:37 PM PDT
- gracy family did not start the brazinlian gracy juijui.the kodokan judo instatute from japan sent an instructor to brazil to teach the head of the gracy family judo .it stemed from that.
-
Reply to this comment
-
See all 36 Comments