Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
MMA leader hopeful sport will have its day
RIO DE JANEIRO — The sight would send Brazilian fans into a frenzy: Jose Aldo landing knees to the chin and kicks to the head in an Olympic fight. Aldo could bathe in the glory from his home country — fans swarming him in celebration after a medal is placed around his neck.
But mixed martial arts is still angling for an Olympic home even though it’s a worldwide hit and the components of the sport are already etched into the games elsewhere.
The submissions of judo, the strikes of boxing and taekwondo, and strategy of wrestling are summer staples, and karate is on the way to Tokyo in 2020. Top promotions are filled with stars from around the world like Conor McGregor of Ireland and Joanna Jedrzejczyk of Poland. Several fighters have even been Olympians, like UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier and Ronda Rousey, the sport’s biggest crossover superstar and a judo bronze medalist in 2008.
Despite that backdrop, MMA has been locked out of medal competition amid concerns similar to those held by U.S. states that once banned the sport. It’s violent. Bloody. Unsafe. Densign White, chief executive of the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation, said the sport’s universal appeal should make it attractive enough to IOC officials to make it an official sport in 2024, though 2028 seems more realistic.
White concedes even 12 years could be a stretch as the organization treads through the political minefield of convincing an old guard of decision makers that MMA is not only good for the games, it’s good for business.
“It’s the politicians that don’t understand the sport,” White said. “We’ve been trying to get France to accept MMA and the politicians there say if we get rid of ground and pound, then we’ll allow the sport to take place. Ground and pound is what they find really objectionable.”
No ground and pound? They may as well get of rid of dunking in basketball.
Still, there’s no doubt MMA would look strikingly different in a condensed Olympics setting than the format fans know well from spending $60 to watch UFC’s payper-view cards.
“I think there’s a place for it. I just don’t know that the physical makeup of mixed martial arts will allow it,” UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier said. “Look at boxing. It’s three or four fights but it’s 10-ounce gloves. We only get 4 (ounce gloves). It could work, but we’d have to make some pretty significant changes.”
The mixed martial arts federation has a plan it believes would work: 32 athletes per class. Fights would be three rounds of 3 minutes each (down from 5 minutes each in UFC).
Fighters would wear shin guards and 7-ounce amateur gloves.
Fighters would be limited to one bout a day, with the entire tournament finished over four or five days.
The use of elbows, knees to the head, heel hooks or pressure on the spine would be prohibited.
The question that dogged boxers for years at the Olympics has shifted toward medal winners in judo, boxing, and the other combat sports: chase more medals or start going for title belts?
Kayla Harrison, a two-time Olympic gold medalist judoka, worked as a training partner with Rousey during the Beijing Games and the two have remained tight. The UFC superstar even gave Harrison contacts if she wanted to pursue an MMA career. Harrison said she would consider an MMA career because it comes with perks that amateurism can’t match.
“It potentially could be very lucrative for me,” she said.