MMA TOTS HIT GYMS
Tough sport attracts youngsters looking to boost confi dence, body strength and self- discipline.
Since founding the first mixed martial arts school in Canada in Vancouver in March 1997, Chris Franco estimates he has taught and coached more than 10,000 children and teenagers in B. C. “There is rarely a bruise,” says the owner and operator of FXP MMA on Fraser Street.
Franco is so confident about the safety of the combat sport, which involves striking and grappling both standing and on the ground, he has enrolled his 3 1/ 2- year- old daughter Isla in his peewee program, where she works on a bit of wrestling, tumbling and hitting into pads.
“Her body gets a great workout and she loves it.”
With the glitzy, glamorous Vegas- style Ultimate Fighting Championship show, featuring top MMA fighters, returning to Vancouver today for its third visit to the city, the spotlight is back on one of the fastest- growing and most controversial sports in the world. It is steamrollering through Asia, India and North America, complete with flying sparks, dramatic takedowns and a cloud of sweat, spit, blood, guts, gore and glory being spewed wherever it goes.
It’s hard to imagine how a sweet little girl can be taking her first baby steps down the path of pugilism.
But Franco doesn’t see it that way. Isla, like all the youths who come his way, won’t engage in sparring or hard contact until her body matures.
“I concentrate on the athleticism of the grappling and the striking,” says Franco. “I don’t believe in any contact to the head with children because that just shouldn’t be done.”
He says that, as a general rule, contact sparring shouldn’t be introduced until at least age 18, and even then it should be done cautiously. With all the emphasis on sports concussions these days, “I don’t believe in heavy contact to the head. Those days are done.”
Age rule controversial
Under the rules of the sport, you must be 19 to enter the octagon, as it’s coined in UFC, for a professional match.
As with any evolving sport, this rule is also controversial with patriarchs like Franco and Bill Mahood, chairman of the Mixed Martial Arts Association of B. C., arguing for some flexibility in the rule.
Franco points to Puerto Rican boxing prodigy Wilfred Benitez as an example of an athlete who matured quickly in the ring. He earned his first of three career championships in separate weight divisions at age 17.
And at 20, boxer Mike Tyson, who made his professional debut at 18, was the youngest heavyweight champion in the world.
“To limit them to 19 and over is not the best way of dealing with it,” says Mahood, who was one of the original MMA fighters in Canada.
They might get some argument from the Canadian Medical Association, which in 2010 voted in favour of a ban on mixed martial arts prizefighting matches in Canada.
“MMA prize fighting, like commercial boxing, is distinct from healthy sport because the main tenet is to win
MMA prize fighting, like commercial boxing, is distinct from healthy sport because the main tenet is to win by deliberately incapacitating one’s opponent through violent bodily assault.
CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
by deliberately incapacitating one’s opponent through violent bodily assault,” the CMA wrote.
Heads at risk
Shelina Babul, a sports injury specialist with B. C. Children’s Hospital, wonders about the long- term impact of the repetitive head hits that seem to be part of the sport, adding not enough is known about the impact of such constant jarring to the brain.
Babul admits she doesn’t get MMA. “The whole ground and pound and kick and punch and fist fighting — I don’t quite get the satisfaction in that, but then I don’t do mixed martial arts.”
Paul van Donkelaar, director of the school of health and exercise sciences at the University of B. C. campus in the Okanagan, says martial arts are good for kids for the fitness, discipline and technique they engender.
His problem with mixed martial arts is the ultimate goal of training, which is “to make your opponent unable to defend themselves.” He adds: “If the premise of the sport is to knock people out, then we shouldn’t have kids doing this.”
A recent study from researchers at the University of Toronto underscored that, finding that roughly one- third of MMA fights are stopped because of knockouts or technical knockouts, which are likely to involve some form of mild concussion at the very least.
While the sport remains controversial, Mahood and Franco say they have coached many at- risk youth who might have otherwise been lost to the street.
It could be argued that these youths could just as easily have been helped by other sports, but that’s not necessarily the case. MMA has a certain edginess to it that appeals to such kids.
There is a disconnect between the bloody spectacle often churned up in UFC matches and the relatively benign origins of the sport as described by Mahood and Franco, who were on the ground floor when it started in B. C.
Before getting into mixed martial arts, Franco had trained in different martial arts like jiu- jitsu, judo, kickboxing and boxing but “there was never a school that offered just one complete style.” His goal was to combine the various martial arts under one roof, and in one sport.
“You have to remember that mixed martial arts is nothing but a mix of traditional martial arts,” says Mahood. “It’s just taking all those disciplines and putting them together in one room.”
Individual beginnings
The first card in the UFC, which has become one of the most successful sports franchises in the world, reflects this. Held in Denver, Colo., in 1993, it was designed to answer the age- old question of who is the most skilled in terms of individual combat sports. Out of matches between everyone from 320- pound sumo wrestlers to 150pound Muay Thai fighters, an ultimate fighting champion would emerge. The winner of UFC 1 happened to be a 170pound jiu- jitsu master from Brazil.
“It was more spectacle than sport,” says Tom Wright, UFC managing director for Canada who was hired about four years ago by the Las Vegasbased franchise spearheaded by Dana White to grow and develop the sport across this country.
But from those relatively innocent — however preposterous — beginnings, something happened on the way to the forum. MMA became violent. It’s a big part of the sport’s appeal in this modern age of short attention spans.
“There is violence involved obviously, and people like things that are exciting. They like things that have action,” says Mahood.
When Dana White, together with casino executives and brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, bought the UFC intellectual property and fighter contracts in 2001 , they immediately set about turning spectacle into sport by injecting weight classes and rules and regulations . While all of this was designed to give the sport great legitimacy, it also ramped it up.
When Franco was competing in the late 1990s, MMA matches were drawn- out affairs with one 30- minute round that often resembled a bodily chess match, with one pinning the other as the minutes inched by . Title matches are now five frenzied fiveminute rounds with one minute rests in between.
No injury rates for the sport compared with others could be located for this article, although Mahood says the No. 1 worst sport for traumatic brain injury is equestrian. He claims cheerleading is 10 times more injury prone than MMA or boxing .
Mahood says he has had arguments with city councillors opposed to MMA, which has referees, medical attendants and is overseen by athletic commissions, yet they are happy to fork out $ 300,000 for a skateboard park which is nothing but steel and concrete and has a high likelihood of head bashing.
MacDonald returns
So with all these arguments swirling, UFC will roll into town for a third time . Besides the main event featuring UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson against Russian contender Ali Bagautinov, B. C. native Rory MacDonald returns to the octagon in his home province after being beaten to a pulp here by Carlos Condit in 2010.
While Vancouver’s first event in 2010 was the fastest sellout in UFC history, tickets were still on sale this week for this one, perhaps an early sign of waning interest.
If so, it won’t be for lack of quality athletes.
“These are in fact very dedicated athletes who are putting an enormous amount of skill, time, energy and personal sacrifice into competing in this sport,” says Mahood.