To begin with, I think that it is worth noting that women competing in MMA matches have been around much longer than most people realise.  It is not the relatively new sport that people believe, only materializing to join its male counterpart in the last three or four years.  In reality, women’s MMA has existed for as long as men’s, and possibly even longer.  There have been competitions held in Japan and Latvia since 1993.  One organization, White Dragon, held three events in Latvia, featuring both men’s and women’s MMA bouts.  Their first show was held in October 1993, a month before the UFC debuted on the scene.

So why has it taken this long for women’s MMA to become mainstream?  If you ask many of the professionals, it is due to the fact that, until recently, fighting was not something that women were “supposed” to do.  In fact, to many people, it still isn’t.  It doesn’t take much research to find scores of comments criticising the sport.  Notable fighters such as Matt Hughes and Karo Parisyan have spoken out against women fighting in the sport, and comments like this do little to improve the credibility of these competitors.  The notion of men’s and women’s roles should be something that has long since become outdated, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.  Fighting is considered unladylike and brutal, which is currently causing more harm than good.

You must remember, however, that as men’s MMA became more main stream, it received a hail of criticism from members of the public, right up to member of the U.S. Senate.  Senator John McCain went so far as to call the sport “human cockfighting”. This was a comment that was echoed by the media and anyone else opposing the sport. It is only now, fifteen years later, that the sport has become more widely accepted, and Senator McCain has changed his opinion.  The same cannot be said for people’s opinions on female competitors.

The fact still remains, however, that women in MMA are genuine athletes and competitors just like men.  Regardless of people’s beliefs and morals, these women put in just as much effort as their male counterparts.  Due to the popularity of some of the female competitors, women in the sport are becoming more widely recognised, although in some cases it is more for the way they look than there fighting ability.  Some fans see these women as nice people to look at, but don’t really see them as fighters, which many women find offensive.  There are many interviews with fighters such as Gina Carano and Julie Kedzie, where the women almost plead to be taken seriously as an athlete.

In fairness, some people do take these women seriously.  Fighters such as Randy Couture and Josh Barnett have long been advocates of women’s MMA, training female fighters at their gyms and helping them train for fights.  Barnett often appears in the corner of his female fighters when they are fighting, and Couture even goes as far as training his wife Kim, and helping to find her fights to further her career.

It is fair to say that female MMA is becoming more widely accepted, but there is still a long way to go.  Companies like Elite XC are doing a stellar job of showcasing the talent emerging from the female side of the sport. Their Saturday Night Fights on CBS have done wonders for these women, especially their latest event featuring two fights with a wealth of talent. Gina Carano’s fame continues to grow with the help of Elite XC, and fighters such as Kelly Kobald-Gavin and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos have become much more recognised with their help.

Companies like the UFC, however, refuse to embrace women’s MMA, with their President Dana White publically stating that the UFC will never fights between women.  This is a huge blow to the progression of the sport, as the UFC a household name in the MMA world, and their lack of support can only hinder the spread of women’s MMA.

So what is the problem with women’s MMA? Why is it not as popular as men’s MMA? The answer here is time.  Men’s MMA has taken more than fifteen years to become as popular and widespread as it is now.  Whilst women’s MMA has been present for the same length of time, it has not been as prominent and as well advertised as its counterpart, and this is what has caused the damage.  Given time, and the right promotion, women’s MMA could be just as strong.  If the marketing and publicity isn’t done as well as it should be, it could mean the end of mainstream women’s MMA, forcing it back behind closed doors.  The MMA world needs to think very carefully about their next move with such a fragile sport.

Prediction: This will be a close fight, and it will not be a quick knockout for Liddell. I see Evans keeping it close with his wrestling ability and strength, but eventually (late 2nd round), I have Liddell winning by TKO.

Rich Franklin vs. Matt Hamill: Yet another intriguing matchup. This one pits a veteran of the octagon and former middleweight champion Rich Franklin against TUF competitor and decorated wrestler Matt Hamill. There are certainly a few storylines to talk about in this one: Franklin stepping up to 205 lbs, Hamill getting his shot against a big name opponent. Also, I'm eager to see how Franklin comes back after his devastating losses to Anderson Silva. As a fan, you have to love these fights because both of these guys have a hell of a lot to prove. Hamill is fighting to prove that he belongs among the elite of the UFC, and Franklin is trying to prove he can get it done at 205 and that there are no ill effects from his two knockout losses to Silva. It should be a good one.

Prediction: Rich Franklin is just too good all around to let Hamill out-wrestle him (which is exactly what Hamill will try to do). I see Franklin with a KO in the late first/early second round.

Karo Parisyan vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida: A matchup of Judo specialists! This fight has the potential to be highly entertaining or incredibly boring. Both of these guys are well versed in judo, and this could turn into a clinching war with each guy trying to manipulate the weight of the other unsuccessfully. Hopefully, however, that doesn't happen and these guys just let it loose in the middle of the cage. Yoshiyuki has some underrated standup and ground game as well, so I'm excited to see what he can do against a UFC vet.

Prediction: I'm going with Yoshida by decision. He'll nearly submit Karo, but just miss a few times. Otherwise, the fight will have a ton of clinching and any fighting outside of the clinch will clearly go to Yoshida.

You always learn new ways on how each martial art tackles each different situation and then "stealing it" to incorporate your own way to express one's self through the martial arts. Some practitioners in the martial arts say that entering tournaments means that the martial art has turned into a sport and not a discipline. I guess they're right in a way but I reckon one should test their abilities against other in order to show how much they need to improve on.

Being a MMA practitioner also means your wide range in the knowledge of martial arts from throwing grapples, joint manipulations, different types of punches and kicks and what designated target they hit, to different types of kata's of which different martial art has.

At the MMA club I'm at now has a grading system which starts off from white, yellow, orange and green. These ones take about three months each to earn, from there, blue to black takes three months extra each time you grade. For example blue would take six months to earn because the previous belt took three. So that means to get to the next belt from blue will now take 9 months. Why it works this way because there's so much stuff to go over in a short period of time. Plus the grading examinations get longer each time.

One of my mates there said that it took 3 days for a black stripe to finish his grading.

At the moment I want to try out Taekwondo at a local club at a high school nearby my place to see what they have to offer in their tournaments since my mixed martial arts club only has a tournament once a year.

I think if one wants to become a great fighter they must incorporate more than one style martial art to the one they're doing now to see the ups and downs of their martial art and how can one fix that with the other.

Right now I've been doing MMA for about 7 months now so I'm still a newbie but I recommend doing it if one wants to get fit but also learn some street self defense.

The fight highlighted what most fight fans would consider an excellent pay-per-view card (many talented fighters were featured from a variety of different weight classes - e.g. Joe Stevenson, Josh Koscheck). In the end, though, the outstanding five-round fight may have caused more controversy than anything else.

The first round of the fight saw a fairly even exchange of stand-up. Forrest probably landed more punch and kick combinations, but when Rampage landed, he undoubtedly did more damage. He rocked Forrest late in the round and almost had the fight won, but Griffin was able to survive and fight another round. These rounds are probably the hardest to score in MMA. One fighter does more work, but one fighter does more damage. Where do the judges draw the line? Who actually wins the fight - the busier fighter or the more damaging one?

The second round was much more clear cut. Forrest dominated the stand-up with devastating leg kicks that obviously affected Rampage's movement. This eventually led to Forrest taking down Rampage and dominating the remainder of the round on the mat. I scored this round 10-8 because it was clearly Forrest dominating the action and doing more damage.

This is where it starts to get really fun. Rounds 3, 4, and 5 were all very close rounds. Many fight fans could have seen these rounds go either way. Personally, I had Round 3 to Rampage and 4 and 5 to Forrest. But I could completely understand if somebody disagreed with me.

The main issue is the lack of certainty in the decision - a problem that has not come up for the UFC too much, one that has forever tainted boxing. The UFC needs to somehow come up with a way to make clear and definitive winners in their big-ticket fights. This will keep them as the “fastest growing sport on the planet” and keep UFC fans everywhere happy.

After the fight, the Dana White - Tito Ortiz saga continued when Tito Ortiz was not allowed into the formal UFC press conference. Details are still emerging on this situation but sources tell me that Dana White was quoted saying “ The press conference is for winners only”. This was a low blow to Tito Ortiz as we all know that yes, even the losers, are allowed in press conferences and have been in past UFC bouts. Dana White was also recently quoted from more than one source as stating “Tito's heart is not in fighting anymore and he wants to be a star”. If there is any statement that will build a foundation in disagreement with Dana White , that would be it. Just because Ortiz can be seen on The Apprentice and dating Jenna Jameson does not mean his heart is not in the sport anymore. Of all sports, UFC is not one that you can half-heartedly stagger into. To say Tito Ortiz is the same fighter he once was would be a lie, but in reality all of the fighters in the octagon train, and train hard. I am sure Tito put a lot of heart into this considering this ongoing dispute between he and the president of the UFC.

This article was not to serve as a play-by-play of the fight or any of the fights, this article is to say as an avid UFC fan I was sad to see Tito Ortiz go down for the second time in his last three fights. Yeah, it does happen especially in this sport, but a part of me was routing for the comeback of Ortiz, as I am one for comeback stories. It didn't happen and I am not sure it will happen , at least in the UFC. To say Tito Ortiz has not already built a name for himself that is able to be marketed in another MMA league would be misleading. He does still have a name for himself , but his name will also always carry the “almost factor”. He never defeated Chuck Liddell and Machida got the best of him and unfortunately this is what fans will remember. That is life as a professional athlete I suppose and the industry is just as much of a “what have you done for me lately” industry as there is.

The growing number of veteran fighters that end up in a battle with Dana White can be seen from two lights, like all disputes. On one end you have Dana White, who came from nothing, and knows what financial distress is. I am sure every bit of this man is pushing to ensure that his days of financial woes as a person, and for the UFC as a business will never come about again. He has business interests and who can argue with that. I can totally side with Dana on the issue of sponsors and sponsors clashing with those of the UFC itself as all fighters must put the brand ahead of themselves. Come on, this is fighting! To think that these fighters want to put their own egos and sponsor deals aside for the good of the UFC would be speculative at best. Who can blame them, as they literally put their life on the line ever time the lights come on for a UFC event. They want to be compensated and rightfully so but in all fairness let's shed the light from another angle. Let's assume that a John Q. Public works for Corporation Big and Corporation Big just signed a deal to give Ford vehicles to it's workers, fully clad in company advertisements. John Q. Public does so much business with his best customer who also owns a Chevy dealership and he wants to drive a Chevy not only because this customer gives him a great deal but because he wants to advertise for his customer by pulling up in a Chevy since this customer puts food on the table. Who would be right? I doubt you would get hired at Corporation Big if you side with John Q. Public but it is certainly debatable. Of course the second you signed up to work for Corporation Big, you know that the good of the company is first and foremost. While that may seem a bit off track, there are several fighters who sacrificed large sponsorship deals for their fights, because of clashes with the interest of the UFC. From the fighter's perspective they are losing the chance to be compensated fairly and from Dana White's perspective this act would certainly not be in the best interests of the sponsors cutting the large checks to fly their brand name on fight night.

While the UFC must do what is in the best interest of the UFC , these world-class athletes deserve to be compensated fairly as well. After all they are the building blocks of this industry, no matter how fast the turnover ratio is or how many bigger, faster, stronger guys are in line to knuckle-up in the octagon. The fact is that fans get attached and acquainted with big names like Ortiz, Lidell, Couture, Arlovski and such. While fans want the most competitive blood-hungry athletes that their $50 can buy, they also are paying to see their favorite fighters. If you look at any of the major sports, their roster is the largest franchise overhead. While profits are important, so is justice. I venture to guess that there will always be unhappy athletes and pushy bosses. To be honest it is fun to watch, read and buy!

In summary I have watched the UFC since it's original days and I just think the list of greats that are finding a problem with the way business is transacted by the UFC is exactly that, a list of greats. Greed seems to be a common word when these fighters express their feelings. While some of these fighters are still under their old contracts, this is not the UFC of old.

I can't speak for anyone else, but this fight was everything that I wanted it to be and hoped it would be. All in all, the whole thing lasted two minutes, tops. And that's including the time out taken by the ref after Lesnar landed illegal hits to the back of the head. This may have been the saving grace for Frank Mir who had spent less then ten seconds on his feet before he was on the long end of Lesnars arms. As a Mir fan, admittedly, it was looking really bad for Frank. He's six foot three and weighs in about 255 and was being totally dominated. Once on his feet again he was able to get his bearings and form a bit of a plan, grab his arm and move him into an arm bar. Have you seen the guns on Brock Lesnar? These things are weapons of mass destruction. Smartly, when the arm bar was obviously not going to happen, Mir moved over and got Lesnar in a heal lock and Goliath tapped. One minute and thirty seconds of one of the most action packed, clash of the titans that the UFC has seen in quite some time. I stood and cheered and made an enormous noise.

I loved this fight because it showed what the UFC is about, physical, action packed fights. I loved this fight because it was so hard to predict. I had seen Lesnar in action in the WWE and even though we all know that circus is completely rigged, a lot of those guys are legitimate athletes who put their body on the line for the sake of entertainment. Most people believed he would win the fight and establish himself as the new guy in town. I loved this fight because it proved, once again, as the Gracies set out to prove, that martial arts and especially mixed martial arts, are superior to brute force. Brock came out like a bull out of the gate, in better shape, and fighting with more passion and aggression but he lost the fight. This is why martial arts were made in the first place, to give a smaller, weaker man an advantage over his enemies and this fight proved to me, once and for all, technique is better then brute strength and aggression. Even though Lesnar lost, I'm looking forward to see him as he continues to fight in the UFC. Eventually he will probably face Mir again and by that time, he will probably work on his technique. Then Frank will really be in trouble. And now that the Mir/Lesnar fight is over, on with the main event.

Criticism: What two viewpoints do you think you're referring to? "Telegraphed" vs. "non-telegraphed"? Do you really believe that there are systems out there where "telegraphed" is something they strive towards?

Response: Of course no one strives for telegraphing, nor did I ever say anyone did. You have misunderstood the point of the article.

Criticism: The "big movements" you describe with knife defenses are more often than not the result of people teaching the knife without any real background in the weapon.

Response: Sometimes this is the case, other times not. When the techniques come from systems which were developed in times of violent conflict or otherwise for battlefield use, as you find for example with a number of Chinese, Southeast Asian, Indonesian, and Philipino arts, you cannot automatically assume the developers of these systems didn't know what they were doing. You have to look a little more deeply into why they may have come up with the particular training methods/techniques they did, rather than simply assume they are useless because they don't look like whatever your idea of "realistic" is on the surface. You have to look at the situation from the point of view of an instructor who understands how a student learns movement, develops understanding and perception, and engrains reflex, and how these processes progress over time. Not all arts are geared toward attempting to make a fighter battle-ready in just a few months. Often times (depending on the particular system) they are oriented toward producing a much more in-depth level of understanding of the sort which can take a number of years for the trainee to reach. There are no shortcuts to this. Many "classical" weapon techniques, regardless of the weapon used, are not assumed to be applied as exact responses to exact attacks, but instead are intended to give the fighter a set of principle-based tools which can come into play as a situation develops, with any moment-to-moment modifications necessary. It takes time for the trainee to develop to the point of spontaneously responding effectively according to principles rather than according to specific techniques. The rule "begin large, refine small" very much applies, and is an intentional and effective approach to long-term training.

Criticism: In some cases it starts when people intentionally expand the range in a demonstration in order to give the audience a better view, but never makes it clear that nobody in their right mind would fight that way.

Response: Generally speaking, public demonstrations are not meant to convey advanced levels of skill, but are instead largely meant to appeal to potential beginning students, and therefore must be done in a way in which the untrained observer can see the weapons and as much of what is being done with them as possible. In this sense, demonstration techniques are much like movie-fight choreography. This is obviously the opposite of how a highly-skilled fighter would approach real fighting, where you do not want your opponent(s) to be able to easily track with your moves or see exactly where your weapon is. When you begin, you have to start from the level of understanding and perception you have as a beginner. Thereafter, things become more and more refined as the trainee's hands-on understanding of the underlying principles deepens. This holds true regardless of whether the training involves weapons or not. For an effective demonstration, you have to play to the audience's level of understanding. If you play to a level that is too far over their heads, you will lose their attention. Of course, it is possible that if the demonstrator takes his own demonstration-level technical presentation too seriously, he can end up in error and may not be teaching effective skills. However, this sort of issue is not what I was intending to address in the article.

Criticism: In other cases it comes from people watching movies. In still other cases, it comes from people who's only "training" with the knife is what they assume will happen based on what they're doing with a practice knife; in which case what they're doing tends to be less about fighting and more about playing a game of "don't get touched by the training knife" - the difference is subtle but important.

Response: There are likely cases where all of these are true. I never said everyone trains in a realistic or practical manner. I thought it was clear in the article that I was addressing the origin of some of the larger movements that occur in handed-down "classical" techniques, instead of those developed in recent times by people who may have questionable knowledge of what they are doing or who do not fully understand the aim of "classical" training methods.

Criticism: Your assumption that the average untrained knifer will attack with broad, long range movements because they see it on movies is simply unfounded.

Response: I was only using that as an example of how some people might have their perceptions of knife fighting influenced by what they see in movies. I never said or implied it was any sort of blanket assumption regarding the "average" untrained knifer. It is best to completely throw out any preconception of what a so-called "average" knifer will do because there is really no way to know ahead of time exactly what will be thrown at you in what manner. The attack could literally take any conceivable form. This is in fact one of the main points I was trying to convey in the article.

Criticism: And frankly, in this sort of area if you're going to pass yourself off as an expert of some kind (and publishing articles on a website means that is what you are doing) then you ought to make some effort to be sure that what you are saying is at least valid.

Response: I have made no claims about myself, and writing an article is no more a "claim" to be an expert than the criticisms of someone who has apparently not read the article carefully enough or has otherwise misunderstood the aim of the points that were made. Anyone can read what I am saying and assess for themselves whether they think I know anything about what I am talking about, and I have no problem with that. I could just as easily say that if you are criticising my points in public, that is at least as much a de facto claim to your own supposed expertise as my publishing the article you have criticised.

Criticism: I would pull my gun on a knife attacker. [This in various forms has so far been the most common criticism directed at this article.]

Response: OK, if the knife attacker pulls his knife out and lets you see it from a distance which allows you to pull out your gun and shoot him before he reaches you with that knife, this might indeed work. Or it might not. However, if the knifer is already in range before you have any idea he has a knife or that an attack is about to take place, you might be stabbed before you can even reach for your gun. It is also possible that your gunshot, even if it hits him before he reaches you (and this is a big "if" considering the much greater percentage of misses than hits in a typical gun fight), may not stop his attack at all. There have been many cases where even multiple gunshot wounds failed to slow an attacker down, much less stop him, even if the attacker died from the gunshot wounds after the attack was over. A realistic survival orientation must allow for this possibility, since to assume otherwise could well be fatal. In addition, statistics reveal that a higher percentage of knife wounds result in death than gunshot wounds largely due to the more prevalent bleed-out factor with knife wounds, so if he stabs you once and you shoot him once, he may well have more chance of surviving than you. It is even possible that you could shoot him six times while he stabs you once, and you could still be the one who dies while he survives. Having a gun and being ready and able to use it is naturally good from a survival standpoint, but since it can never be a guarantee of any sort regarding the outcome of an unpredictable situation, it is absolutely vital to avoid a complacent attitude simply based on having a gun.

"Is UFC Fighting Realistic?" criticisms and responses:

Criticism: By your logic a professional basketball player would be easily beaten by ghetto ball players who do their thing on glass-strewn inner-city courts, and who are good at fouling their opponent.

Response: I never said a survival fighter could easily beat a professional sport fighter; in fact I pointed out that an experienced sport fighter could in fact do well in a street fight, and there are those who have. Others have not. You have obviously missed the point, because equating it to a street basketball player beating a pro basketball player doesn't apply in the slightest. Applying a survival-fighting attitude to a street basketball approach would entail tactics that altogether reject the sport goal of making baskets as completely irrelevant and instead would be more in line with exiting the basketball court as quickly as possible before the pro sport guys could score any points. The pro sport guy and the street survival guy are not in any way competing for the same goal; in fact their goals are completely different.

Criticism: I'm aware of Alex Gong - victim of a freak accident coupled with bad judgement. It had nothing to do with skill or technique or even fighting prowess. After all, a baby can poke his finger in your eye.

Response: No, it didn't have anything to do with fighting prowess per se, but it did have everything to do with survival prowess. Because of this, Gong's situation actually proves my point very well. Because the sport fighter had not adequately trained in the kind of mental and tactical outlook that a survival fighter needs, this is exactly why he was shot. As a sport fighter, he spent loads of time training with the attitude of going after the opponent and beating him. However, this kind of response got him killed on the street. An example of a survival-oriented response would have been to let the other motorist go and report the incident to the police afterward.

Criticism: As you know sport fighting is derived from 'Vale Tudo' which is no-holds barred fighting. Though terrain and environment is a factor, the effect of such factors is mediated since both combatants are positively or negatively affected by it.

Response: You cannot count on this since it is the attacker who chooses the ground the attack takes place on, instead of it being agreed to by both parties beforehand as in a sport fight of any kind. The attacker may know every inch of his territory, whereas the defender may not. The attacker may already have mapped out in his mind how he can use the local environmental factors to his advantage in his attack. Even if this is not the case and both opponents are equally at risk from these factors, this will not guarantee that the defender will not be the one who trips over the curb, or who falls with his kidney impacting the sharp corner of the desk, or whatever. Other things being equal, the fighter who is the most environmentally aware, and whose environmental awareness effectively engages first, is going to have the advantage. Training in a way which specifically includes engraining this kind of awareness to the level of effective reflex can provide an edge over an opponent who hasn't so trained. Remember the old boxing adage: "The way you train is the way you'll fight".

Criticism: The fighting experience of the sport fighter will trump most other factors.

Response: If this were reliably true, Alex Gong would still be alive. It only has to fail to trump one single factor one time for the pro fighter to get killed, as Gong more than amply demonstrated. This is not a lesson to ignore.

Criticism: In the case of multiple opponents, no fighting art is preparatory for a coordinated attack.

Response: On the contrary, there are arts that do train for this. There have been times in the history of certain countries where this particular training development became a necessity.

Criticism: Here attributes may be the deciding factor and we know that sport fighting develops the right attributes.

Response: Sport fighting does not develop all the relevant attributes for survival, as proven by Alex Gong's example. Possessing the right mental outlook for the situation at hand is an extremely important attribute. In addition, the simple fact is that for widely varying reasons not everyone can put in the kind of training a pro sport fighter engages in, so they by necessity have to develop a different balance of attributes than a pro fighter does.

Criticism: I can teach a sport fighter to be aware of environmental and supplimentary factors in a single seminar. However it takes years to teach an RBSD fighter how to really fight.

Response: You mean it takes years to teach a survival fighter how to successfully sport fight. Well, it generally takes years to teach anyone how to successfully sport fight. And yes, you can make a sport fighter aware of survival fighting factors, but unless such tactics and attitudes become as engrained as their sport-fighting tactics and attitudes, it is unlikely that they will become effective reflexes, and this could well end up being a deciding factor.

Criticism: So you're saying that MMA guys should train more outside and get used to curbs and trash?

Response: If their goal is survival fighting, yes, whether they're specifically into MMA or not. If you're used to dealing with survival-relevant factors in training, they will be less likely to hinder you in a real situation.

Criticism: I don't think it will affect their training that much, after all, they're still capable of rational thought and of improvisation, just like any of the Reality Based Self-defense (RBSD) guys.

Response: It's not always about rational thought and improvisation because an attack may not leave you time for that. You may only have time for sheer reflex to save your life in the initial moment of a surprise attack, and for this you need to already have the right reflexes (mental and physical) for the job so you don't have to "switch gears" in order to respond differently than what your years of training have specifically targetted. Remember that a sport fighter gains points by aggressively and relentlessly going after his opponent, whereas the goal of survival fighting frequently aims at just the opposite: getting away from the opponent asap so you have the best chance of surviving. It doesn't matter at all if your opponent is far superior to you in physical skill, conditioning, or aggressiveness if you're not there for him to score on.

Criticism: The Pro BB'er is going to beat the streetball guy no matter what the venue, inside, outside, environmental aspects or not.

Response: Only if the streetball guy stays in the court and tries to compete with him. That is exactly the opposite of the approach of a survival fighter.

Criticism: Same with the MMA guy who actually fights. Should the MMA guy or pro fighter find a deficiency in 'environmental factors' or in point of view they could train that up in a matter of days.

Response: It takes more than a "matter of days" to engrain reflexes effectively, and this is true for mental reflexes as well as physical ones. Any experienced martial artist, indeed anyone significantly involved in any sport, should know this first-hand.

Criticism: The 'street fighter' is going to have to spend years getting up to speed with the profighter's ability to actually fight. Fighting is 70% aggression and conditioning, though, so if either is lacking in these they're in for a long night. ;-)

Response: Survival fighting is only about actual fighting during moments when fighting itself is unavoidable. Do you really think a pro sport fighter who has had ten years of sport-fight training, and then has had a few days of "survival awareness" training, is going to have better street-survival skills/reflexes than someone who has had five years of true survival-oriented training? Pit them against each other and allow them to proceed according to their respective training goals, and the sport fighter may well get nowhere because the survival fighter may simply not be there long enough. The sport fighter is trained to go for a clearly defined win over the opponent, whereas the survival fighter only has to survive the situation no matter how he accomplishes it. The sport fighter can only be assured of winning if the survival fighter tries to compete with him at his own game. Meanwhile, all the survival fighter has to concentrate on to "win" is to end up still intact. The mentality is completely different, and the survival fighter will know that if he goes toe-to-toe with the pro fighter there is a good chance he may be trashed in a very short time, so he will resourcefully do anything and everything to avoid it, which opens up all kinds of possibilities that the pro fighter may either be unaware of or otherwise less inclined to seriously consider or act on for various reasons than the survival-trained fighter. Therefore from a survival viewpoint, if the survival fighter gets away without any direct contact being made at all, however he manages it, he has accomplished his objective at the highest possible level.

But can it really be said to equate to a sport version of survival fighting? What is the balance between the similarities and the differences between UFC fighting and survival-oriented fighting? Let us examine the relevant factors and see what conclusions emerge.

Respective goals

The first thing we should consider is a comparison of their respective goals, since this one factor exerts the greatest influence on how each type of fighting is conducted. The goal of a UFC fight is, as with any professional sport, to win a contest and thereby gain status within the context of the sport as well as earn a cash prize. In order to achieve this, the contestant trains intensively as a high-level althete in order to sharpen his skills, power, tactical savvy, and other attributes. In addition, he is able to study the tactics of his opponent has used in past fights in order to help determine what his game-plan should be in the upcoming match. Winning the match is achieved by knocking out the opponent, causing him to submit, or otherwise bringing him to a state where the fight will be stopped to protect his well-being, or by judges' decision at the end of the match.

The goal of survival fighting or self-defense is very different from this. The real goal of survival fighting is to survive the situation intact, and in some cases to help someone else survive it intact, such as protecting a loved one. For the majority of people who desire to learn self-defense, spending several hours per day training as a professional athlete is simply not an option, so there are a number of attributes that the survival fighter is very unlikely to develop to the degree that a professional sport fighter typically has access to. This means realistic survival-fighting training must take a somewhat different approach than professional sport-fighting training. Different attributes must come to the fore.

Environmental differences

Just as in other sports, the sport fighter peforms in an arena designed specifically for the sport. The UFC octogon consists basically of a chainlink fence with padded posts enclosing a shock-absorbing surface which makes impact with the floor a little more forgiving than most ground or floor surfaces one encounters in daily life. This overall design is for the safety of the fighters as well as the audience. There are no dangerous objects to collide with, nothing to trip over, nothing to grab and use as a weapon, overhead space is entirely unobstructed, and the surface is treated to prevent slipperiness.

It goes without saying that none of these safety factors can be counted on in a self-defense situation. A real attack can occur on hard pavement, gravel, mud, ice, broken glass, stairs, uneven surfaces, slopes, slippery leaves, ankle-deep in water, or any other ground or floor conditions imaginable. Get thrown onto the edge of a curb or into/onto some other dangerous object, and the resulting injury could be fatal in and of itself, or render you vulnerable to your opponent's continued attack.

In addition, there are all kinds of other environmental factors that can easily become hazardous in a survival fight. Telephone poles, mailboxes, garbage cans, the corners of buildings, moving vehicles, sudden drops in height, thorny vegetation, furniture...the list is endless. Finally, there are potentially all kinds of items that can be picked up and used as weapons at any time by either you or your opponent. Any of these factors can suddenly and completely change the outcome of a survival fight.

In the octogon, the goal is to go after the opponent, whereas in a survival fight the goal is often to escape intact at the first available opportunity. Therefore, one more environmental factor to consider is escape routes. In the octogon there is no escape route, but none is needed because escaping from the match itself would be absurd. In survival fighting, you never want to be trapped with no way out, and this requires a somewhat different kind of awareness of your surroundings than a professional fighter needs to think about.

Interactive differences

The most basic and obvious interactive difference between sport fighting and survival fighting is that in sport fighting you always know that you only have to deal with one single opponent. In addition, you always know well ahead of time who that one opponent will be and what his favored fighting style is. Opponents are often matched up based on their current status within the sport.

In survival fighting, you have no prior control or knowledge of who your opponent is, what they know, how they fight, or how many of them you will have to deal with. You have no control over whether any opponent has a weapon. Attacks are often by surprise, or with little warning even if your awareness tells you something unpleasant could be about to happen.

What you do before a potential attack takes place could be every bit as much a deciding factor as anything that could happen in the fight itself. By this I mean how aware you are of the people around you, their "casual" movements relative to your position, their body language and facial expression, their possible focus on you or behavior toward you potentially leading to an attack, and so on. An attacker could also remain completely hidden from your view, planning a surprise ambush. The factors of this sort simply do not exist as such in sport matches. An attack could come at any moment, from any direction, from any potential attacker, whether you've detected any clues to an impending attack or not.

In a survival situation, you cannot depend on getting the chance to assume any sort of on-guard position to fight from, so it is wise to emphasize dealing with attack/defense interactions from literally any body position you happen to be in, whether standing, sitting, bent over, twisted around, etc. For instance, if in training you depend too much on a boxer/kickboxer-style on-guard stance from which to generate your strikes, kicks, footwork, or other movements, you can end up in trouble on the street. If there's more than one opponent (and in survival fighting you can never afford to assume there isn't), you obviously cannot face all of them at the ideal angle for your favorite on-guard stance, and naturally you cannot expect that they will be courteous enough to take turns coming at you on a one-by-one basis. Most likely, one will occupy your front while the others flank you and/or come at you from the rear.

Tactical differences

The kind of sparring often seen in martial arts schools and the way sport fights often begin has something in common, which involves the two opponents spending some time moving around each other in their on-guard positions, sometimes throwing jabs or the equivalent, as a sort of feeling-out process by which each one assesses the likely tactics and reaction habits of the other. This gives the fighter some potential information by which to make adjustments to his game-plan when dealing with that particular opponent on that particular occasion. In addition, the fighters know they have three five-minute rounds (five five-minute rounds for a title bout) to achieve a knockout, gain a submission, or score points on the judges' score cards, so they have more than enough time to make any "feel-out" assessments they need to make before launching their heavy guns.

In survival fighting, you simply cannot afford to waste time making these kinds of assessments. Even if you only see one opponent before you, you have no control over whether additional ones might join in. Therefore, you must deal with any opponent as quickly as humanly possible. The more time you spend on any one opponent, the more time you give others to join in, and the more potentially tired you will become as the time drags on. In a survival fight, your personal danger potentially increases with literally every moment that goes by until you are out of danger altogether. Since you cannot afford to count on being able to "spar around" with any attacker, the relative realism of spending a lot of training time sparring in that particular manner can come into question. Perhaps then a greater nod toward realism in sparring is, instead of expending time moving around feeling the opponent out, to go in on him immediately and learn how to deal with things from that perspective.

Another potential disadvantage of the feeling-out tactic is the exactly the same as the supposed advantage: each opponent gets to see how the other moves and reacts. In other words, while you are assessing your opponent, your opponent also gets to assess you! Just standing there in your favored on-guard gives plenty away as it is, although some perhaps do not realize this. Even if your on-guard is one the opponent has never before seen, if his level of understanding/experience is sufficient, he may still make a useful assessment. One way to avoid this problem, if it is efficacious to assume any sort of on-guard at all, is to be in a state of constant relaxed motion that does not settle on any particular position. Even then, in case your opponent is especially astute, it is best to avoid falling into any kind of pattern he can detect. If there is more than one opponent, the need to remain in constant motion is even more critical. For individuals with limited training time available to them, choosing what to spend time practicing on can end up being a vital deciding factor in a self-defense situation.

Ground grappling

One favored tactic of many UFC contestants is to take the opponent to the ground and go for a submission. Royce Gracie became famous early on for his ability to win UFC matches in just this way. As time progressed however, methodologies were created specifically for countering the Brazillian Jujitsu tactics which Gracie's participation in UFC exposed to the world. An often-repeated saying states that most fights end up on the ground, and tactics like Gracie's are unquestionably effective. Does that mean a survival fighter should spend a lot of time training in these methods?

The single greatest factor which makes these ground-grappling tactics work so well in the octogon is the fact that there is only one opponent! In a survival situation, if you are tied up with one opponent on the ground for more than the slightest moment in any way which does not allow you to change your position instantly, you are unavoidably vunerable to any additional opponent's actions. In addition, wrestling on the ground can become very fatiguing in a very short time, making it harder to deal with additional opponents, or even with a single opponent whose physical condition happens to be in a better state than yours at that moment.

Here again is where environmental factors can become critical. In an unexpected attack, you do not get to choose what kind surface the attack takes place on. If you go to the ground, you can land on rocks, broken glass, or other potentially injurious objects. Just hitting hard pavement alone can potentially render you unable to fight effectively. In other environments, you can become tangled in blackberries or other plantlife which has sharps points of some kind, make hard contact with jagged rocks, etc. On a slope above a street, you can end up rolling down right into oncoming into traffic. There is no shortage of factors in a survival situation which can make ground grappling very dangerous, factors which simply do not exist in the UFC octogon, nor in any typical martial arts school for that matter. In short, ground grappling in a survival situation can get you killed.

Is ground grappling skill then valueless for the survival fighter? Certainly not, since going to the ground with your opponent(s) can at times happen despite your best efforts to avoid it. Perhaps the training emphasis should then be on escaping from such situations as quickly as they occur. Making any attempt to "win" with an opponent on the ground is foolhardy at best and fatal at worst. Work on tactics that keep you mobile even if you take your opponent down and lock him there. Maintain the ability to keep your surroundings constantly scanned while being able to let go of your locked opponent at any moment if need be so you can instantly change position to deal with additional opponents. Some kinds of locking positions will enable you to quickly manuever your downed opponent between you and any additional opponents. If you can't do this, be ready to let go completely and use a quick disabling tactic, such as stomping some part of his body, to keep him from rejoining the fight. Any time there is more than one opponent, don't hesitate to be vicious, because your life is in danger.

Conclusion

It is clear that there are so many vital factors which are different between UFC fighting and survival fighting that training for most people must also reflect that difference. Certainly a UFC-level fighter should be able to aquit himself well in a survival fight, considering the attributes gained in his training, but even then he is wise to be aware of the important differences that factor into the situation. Making the wrong mistake can be fatal for anyone, no matter how they've trained. For most people however, training according to these differences is far more essential, and can even make a life-and-death difference. This author must therefore conclude that UFC does not equate to being a sport version of survival fighting, but in fact contrasts sharply with it in some very important ways.