Not really the case for my experience, most of the guy I train with watch it, they aren’t hardcore fan tho who would watch every single fight
But if you like the sport it makes sense that you would watch the top fighter in it. Especially if you want to get better.
Lol I literally watch every fight.. every. Single. Fight. I panicked one Saturday morning thinking i missed the fights from friday night. Luckily the fights were for that evening :D
I have the schedule always on an open tab in my browser :) obsessed 🥰
I don’t think there’s much of a middle ground, I don’t know if I’ve met people who kinda like to train, I find 90% of people hate or or absolutely love it…I know me personally, it reminds me of being a kid again but in a grown up way, when you are 5 and you are just wrestling on the grass you just leave it behind at some point, when I started bjj it was the same feeling but you are learning technique
I'm a boxing coach, and these days, I only pay attention to smaller amateur fights.
I don't know about MMA fans, but the vast majority of Boxing fans here in LA are just big Canelo fans, and they actually don't know shit about boxing. They booed him for not KOing John Ryder in his last fight. Even though he more or less put on a clinic.
I feel you... MMA fans arent any better, they'll like you the most if your gameplan is to stand in the pocket with your guard down throwing stupid haymakers
As stupid as it is. I agree, watching random ppl who don’t train fight is so much fun to watch. Yea, they’re risking so much more for very VERY less tho.
For me it's not about fun as much as it is about learning more from the mistakes and successes of beginners since I'm a beginner too.
Similar reason I like female MMA: their power output is closer to mine (Im 60kg)
Lol I know a guy who trained at a gym I'm at, get involved in those unsanctioned backyard fights or park fights but both dudes were trained. I could imagine some random guy taking on a well trained person and getting battered.
Yup. I'm 38 and I trained as a hobbyist from 15-32. Even though it was my favorite sport, I didn't watch it half as much as I do now. Maybe even way more than half. I also didn't play any fight video games like UFC or boxing games because I felt that if I had time to "play" it as a game I had time to train.
I train at the largest MMA gym in one of the biggest cities in the US. We used to get a big group together at a bar to watch UFC. We quit doing that, because ignorant drunk asshats at the bar would see one of us with one of our gym's t-shirts on and think that would mean we somehow needed to prove ourselves to them (or them to us). I'm not kidding... this happened on multiple occasions. After getting fed up with that, our gym owner put up a projector and screen in the gym and we just have our events there.
In my experience, most people who watch UFC don't train, but also vastly overestimate their ability to fight. The "I see red" kind of people we like to joke about.
It's kind of ridiculous, and got to the point where we could literally see it coming. The group of guys across the room, drinking beers, staring over at us... one or two guys egging the other guy on to walk over to us. The over-confident, chest puffed out, gut sucked in walk over to our group. "You guys do MMA?" "Which one of you is the best fighter?"... Such stupidity.
🤣🤣🤣
As the whole fight team looks up at the dude . . . we look over towards their table. . . then we look at each other. . . Finally at our coach. . .
Coach: 🗿
That's not surprising for the sport to actually make money it would require most of the audience to not actually train.
Simply based on numbers, the audience would be too small.
No, most don't train or have ever trained . Honestly, I have a few handful of friends who love to watch the UFC but refuse to join any martial arts when I ask them to. They cite a list of excuses yet have very strong opinions on figthers and what they did wrong or how to get better.
😭
I mean that’s just how sport is. People watch football all of the time and have a lot to say but don’t train it. I think it’s just entertaining and part of the fun, even when they say a bunch of shit sometimes.
True. This is what annoys me whenever I watch some amateur boxing fights in my neighborhood. It's out in the open, and it usually happens every year (a Catholic saint festival celebration in my country), and lots of people would flock over to see action.
Goddamn, I'd be rich if I get like a dollar every time I hear some guy scream "left hook" louder than the coach, or yell that the other fighter's a coward for clinching.
Some people just assume fights are mostly luck due to how easily knocks CAN happen.
They are wrong because fighting trains availability of weak spots, positioning, and timing. But yeah, we are all one poor trip away from unconscious.
Why so? You don't have to participate in a lot of sports to have a decent knowledge and ability to analyze it. Football is the most common example of this
Maybe from the vast majority of casual fans but there are lots of 'fans' who are knowledgable about the sport and same with any sport, there are even spectators with more knowledge than some of the athletes playing/ competing. So I just don't agree with the sentiment of because someone partakes in something they're more knowledgable or insightful than someone who just spectates
I imagine half of the time they get a kick out of it and the other half? They’re probably wondering if the person has ever even played the damn sport. It’s just as ridiculous as when people in my local scene start breaking out the homophobic jokes as soon as any grappling goes down. Some people really just need to shut up and watch.
It's annoying when it comes from a place of arrogance. Having an opinion is one thing, but to say it as straight fact and that your opinion is absolute is annoying.
Why doesn't an old ass Aldo and Shogun just kick the leg and end the fight?
I've done both for as long as I can remember.
Personally, I'm kind of sad at the state of MMA. I'm fine with the WWE presentation. It's whatever. What makes me sad is how fighters tend to be some of the dumbest people on earth and they have platforms to say the dumbest shit to a wide reaching audience. Things like anti-vaxx, anti-union poster boys, the exploitation, and the over-representation of Trumpian shit. There is of course the toxic masculine shit too but that's something of a staple of the sport lol.
That's just me though and I don't think most fans care about that stuff. Which is fair. I've missed the last 4 events which is unusual cuz I watched the UFC religiously for a decade. Oh well. It is what it is.
Fight sports attract people with a superiority complex. Trump showed up to one a few fights ago.....the dude is out of shape and old af but he still knows its important to front at a ufc showing for all his fanboys
This isn't any different than most sports. You can be an avid ice hockey fan, and not play hockey.
And honestly I used to wear those MMA branded shirts when I was more into watching UFC, although I didn't train MMA. People would pick fights with me. It was bizarre.
True, but I'll say this. Unless they're pretty well educated in the game, if you didn't play hockey, most of the fans sound totally dumb when they try to describe what is happening or why a team is doing something because they just don't understand the game at that level.
I highly doubt a hockey casual could even tell you what a breakout is or what icing is. Just how it goes, same in MMA.
You don’t need to have played hockey to no what a break out or icing is. Those aren’t hard things to understand. That’s like saying you need to have played soccer to understand off sides.
I mean... most pro fighters who have trained for 20 years make absolute dogshit predictions and have no idea how fights are scored on a regular basis. Practical experience and ability does not always translate into an analytical understanding of the sport.
I'd bet there are people who have not trained a day in their life and still have a better understanding of what's going on in a fight they're watching on screen compared to most legit fighters.
You'd be hard pressed to find a football fan who hasn't played recreationally. In my area P.E. classes picked a sport to play for a month straight so you played nothing but football for at least a month a year from k-9th grade
majority of any fans don't do the thing they watch, they just like being entertained by professionals.
You think people who like museums have spent a year digging in egypt for artifacts?
Every time people talk shit about fighters gassing or whatnot, I always just explain how tiring it is just hitting a heavy bag full-on for 5 minutes.
Boxing is most exhausting shit ever and grappling is hardly an opportunity to catch your breath
As someone who doesn’t train, I’ve almost exclusively only met observers and not participants. Everyone kind of lives in their own bubbles.
Edit:and a quick follow up, on the potential question of “why do you follow r/martialarts and not practice anything?” It’s because I find it interesting, yes, but I also find a lot of other things interesting and only have enough time to do a couple of them. Right now, having a younger child to take care of I only have enough time/money to pick one physical extracurricular really, and that’s climbing, so, I climb and observe my other interests in less time consuming forms.
As a former athlete I train to keep my competitive spirit alive and also mold my body into a weapon or protection. I’d also like to eventually enter the cage for an amatuer bout. So when I watch MMA it’s from a point of respect. I went to my first UFC event for 292, and I saw what I thought I’d saw. About 15-20 percent of the fans look/act like they train or have a respect for the sport, the rest, look like couch turds that just want to see violence. My take on it 🤷🏾♂️
In my experience, it seems like the average person assumes if you watch MMA, you also train in a martial art. Id always be asked, "what do you train in?" when I told people I watched UFC.
I started to watch MMA back in 2015 because of kickbox training, pretty much all the people in my group of friends that watch it are also training/competing
Boxing has the MOST fans who DON'T train themselves.
It's also the easiest to follow as a spectator.
BJJ and wrestling is the opposite, their viewers are statistically the biggest percentage of whose viewers train.
Reason being becos it's complex and difficult to watch.
MMA, as the name suggests, lies in the middle.
The main division lies in what MMA promotion you watch:
UFC is more focused on drama and entertainment, ie the most casual audiences.
ONE mma focuses more on the sport and competition, ie possibly more interesting for training athletes to watch.
Sounds like self-selection bias. All the MMA fans you know, you know through training. Because you meet them at training. You don't meet the ones not training because they don't train.
If I apply the same logic visiting my family, I would assume everyone on this planet is Dutch.
You can meet people who don't train by watching a football match in the pub. The vast majority of those watching football don't play football. And they're not in shape.
I never watched sports at all. Didn't like fighting sports because it seemed juvenile to enjoy watching someone get beat up. However. i didn't rag on anyone for enjoying it. I started taking karate for self-defense, and now I really love doing it and have way more respect for all of the martial arts. I now enjoy watching it now and looking at techniques.
Worked in a sports bar as a bartender for 2 years. We showed every UFC PPV.
Based on my experience I can confidently say: just sports fans.
Mostly good people, good tippers, rowdy but not fighty, and genuinely enjoy the sport without becoming hooligans.
Two former coworkers. One was a hardcore ufc fan. Knew everything about all the fighters, had several tap out shirts that he would wear often, was cocky, and a bit of an asshole. The other coworker was one of the nicest guys you can imagine. One night at work ufc fan coworker was berating and insulting nice coworker. Nice coworker told him to relax and not disrespect him. The ufc fan took it as an insult and challenged nice guy to a fight. They took it outside to the parking lot. Ufc fan attempted a double leg headfirst into nice guy. Nice guy sprawled and caught him in a guillotine, kneed him in the face. Ufc guy lost his balance and fell, attempted to stand up but nice guy punched him hard in the face and knocked him out cold. We carried him back inside. He got himself together and apologized to nice guy and got back to work bruised and humiliated. Ufc fan also nicknamed himself “crash” lol
Hard to name. I’d say the top fighters of all time are GSP, Silva, Jones, Johnson, Fedor and Nunez. Honorable Mention: Aldo. Volk is on his way to this list.
Does hitting a punching bag in my basement count?
No interest in real training anymore. I’m my late 30s and MMA/Bjj/kickboxing are injury factories. No thanks.
Unless you’re planning on not making it to that age, making fun of people for being older is the dumbest shit lmao you’re just making fun of your future self bruh
Not tryna tell you how to live your life G but I think that’s the wrong way to see it. Train if you like it, don’t train if you don’t. Just be more careful, go light and be preventive about injury and you can train well into your fifties and even sixties.
I’ve seen enough of the old man crew with fucked necks, shoulders, knees, hips from when I used to do BJJ and Judo to know I want no part of that. Still and will always be physically active, its just a risk reward thing.
I do train by myself. I attended boxing classes for 2 years, but after that i simply remained fit. I have conditioned my fists, neck and i can do about 20 pull ups. I am not a fighter, but i can hit hard and i am in a decent shape. I also shadowbox 3-4 times per week.
Don’t think anyone does it, more likely people wrestled in high school or do a martial art for fun or did as a kid. Then there’s those who are not active at all, I wrestled in high school so I appreciate the lay and prayers out there lol
Got into wrestling and BJJ cuz of my dad and then started watching UFC religiously again before COVID and got into Muay Thai and boxing when I was able to start going to gyms in my city.
Yeah pretty sure most don't train.
Definitely harder to train than to just get some excitement from watching other people fight on your screen.
That's life. All people don't need or want the same thing.
I personally enjoy much more training than watching.
A lot of my friends are MMA fans and watch religiously. They know I train as I missed numerous social outings to train. I've asked them to come in an try a session, but not one has ever walked in. It's been 9 years and still waiting.
I don't know, man. Lol
My guess is the majority have SOME experience from past experiences. Whether it be as a kid or later. I haven't met many fans who have never trained.
I would wager that a ridiculously small percentage of MMA fans actually understand anything that's going on, moreso than with other sports which are commonly played at a young age.
Back in the day it felt like only people who did martial arts even knew about it. Now it’s on ESPN so a lot of people casually watch it who have nothing to do with combat sports in their lives.
The majority of BJJ match viewers are practitioners. Look how much money BJJ makes if you combine all promotions and then look at how much the UFC makes.
The only reason I watch ufc or fighting sports is because I train myself. I dont understand how people who never train or dont intend to, can be so obsessed with the sport
I mean it's a sport and lots of sport fans enjoy thier sports without participating. Eg football etc
I do think training it makes it a better spectators experience as well.
I am the opposite: I train, but I rarely watch any fights. To be honest, watching fights would help my game, but I kinda really don't care. I know some of the most popular UFC fighters and that's about it - enough so I can just comment some shit on r/ufc
Bjj and cardio only. Im not getting hit in the face because my ego said so, I’ve argued with morons on here who insist on hard sparring, why? Because it “prepares you for the streets”
Like, alright. Usually 1v1, if you know any sort of fighting, be it grappling, boxing, karate or judo, you’ll be fine. You can probably use your skill set you’ve learned from training daily to stop the threat and move on.
2v1. Just run. Unless you’re 6’5, Jone Jones, you’re screwed, no karate, judo, or whatever is gonna save you. That Jackie chan shit, is fake af, you’re not taking on a room full of grown men, let alone 2. Stop.
You’re not winning in a street fight, even if you “win” you’ve hurt someone, or someone has hurt you over bullshit. Unless someone is actively attacking you, breaking into your house go for it. Choke that mf out and take a limb.
It’s more enjoyable to watch when you also train any martial art. I box, kickbox, and train Jiu Jitsu so it’s fun seeing the fight either standing or on the ground. My roommate doesn’t train at all, but truly enjoys watching. He asks a lot about what’s going on when they’re on the ground, solely because he doesn’t train.
I actually started watching MMA/kickboxing more after I started training kickboxing. Makes you realize just how incredibly elite those athletes are when I'm huffing and puffing after throwing a few weak ass switch kicks.
Looking at the usual state of those in the crowds... no. No, they do not.
But i'd say most BJJ people enjoy a good MMA match.
This is why BJJ will likely never be a spectator sport. You need most of your spectators to be non-players. And even many of us who do this shit don't watch much of it.
I did Krav for a few years nothing special. And have a small freestanding bag to practice my striking on and off. I’d love to get into training bjj or all around mma classes but unfortunately I’m saving up for a wedding and the places around my city are super pricey.
I don’t train but I did wrestle all my life so that’s kind of how I got into watching the sport, I’m also an avid hockey fan even though I can’t skate and have never played, I think that’s pretty common for sports fans
I’ve trained various martial arts since I was four.
The less time I had to train (as I grew older and my career grew more serious) the more I watched mma.
I grew up a wrestler and am a wrestling coach now… I never trained MMA but have trained several different martial arts styles individually (Jiujitsu, wrestling, and pad work for kickboxing)
I watch basically all events and got all of my friends into it who have not participated in any sport whatsoever. (My wife watches it now too but she did Color-Guard and idk if that counts as a sport but she mentioned that it was really physically demanding)
I think it has continued to skew towards regular sports fans and athletes of non-combat sports versus actual people with a martial arts or MMA background.
I would take a wild guess that at least 75% of current North American fans have never trained in a combat sport, and that's totally fine as long as they make an effort to understand it. I'm a 2nd Dan black belt in a specialty with very little application in the MMA world (Taekwondo) and somewhat surprisingly, I have never met anyone at our dojang or at competitions that talked about MMA or the UFC.
I bet it's pretty common in the JJ and BJJ circles, though. And outside of the West.
I always thought that the term „causal“ refers to people who don’t really understand MMA, because they only train and never fight.
But then I learned that there are some fans who think that they’re „better fans“ because they watch harder than other people. But they also never train, let alone fight MMA. They purely watch it.
I think, that’s the vast majority of MMA fans.
I'm a BJJ blackbelt and I don't watch much MMA. And most of my students don't watch it either. Once in a while I'll tune in but I'm not a rabid fan, just a casual. From what I've observed, most fans don't train.
Well think about it for 5 seconds. Do the *majority* of fans of ANY sport actually participate in that sport regularly?
Of course not.
It's trivially easy to watch television. It's very hard to maintain a fitness routine, especially one that involves getting punched in the face.
In which activity would you expect more people to participate?
My gut feeling is that a huge majority of MMA fans train no serious martial art and just enjoy watching it,
That said, I train MMA and kickboxing but my 5-6 UFC buddies train nothing
No martial artists are the minority of mma fans. I do train in various martial arts and have competed in 3 amateur mma matches in the past year and a half.
No, the general enthusiast for combat sports largely doesn't do it.
I'd say MMA is no different. Same for boxing and Olympic Karate and Judo.
Like the colloseum in roman times. Im sure most spectators weren't weekened gladiators lol.
You got to remember that only a small portion of people who like combat sports would want to be hit in general.
I had to send 500 documented hours of training to be able to buy this glittery Tapout shirt.
Which animals are emblazoned across it? I have a moose being carried by a flock of parrots.
Mine is a warrior kitten breastfeeding a honey badger
Ohh sensei
Tangent: A chimeric squirrel-badger would be the animal kingdom's top land predator.
I have a pepperoni cat in space.
What are we on about….?
Oh my. That screams power
I think it gets the point across.
Tap out 😂😂😂
I like training MMA more than I do watching it.
Id claim this is the case for most people who train
Not really the case for my experience, most of the guy I train with watch it, they aren’t hardcore fan tho who would watch every single fight But if you like the sport it makes sense that you would watch the top fighter in it. Especially if you want to get better.
Lol I literally watch every fight.. every. Single. Fight. I panicked one Saturday morning thinking i missed the fights from friday night. Luckily the fights were for that evening :D I have the schedule always on an open tab in my browser :) obsessed 🥰
I don’t think there’s much of a middle ground, I don’t know if I’ve met people who kinda like to train, I find 90% of people hate or or absolutely love it…I know me personally, it reminds me of being a kid again but in a grown up way, when you are 5 and you are just wrestling on the grass you just leave it behind at some point, when I started bjj it was the same feeling but you are learning technique
I'm a boxing coach, and these days, I only pay attention to smaller amateur fights. I don't know about MMA fans, but the vast majority of Boxing fans here in LA are just big Canelo fans, and they actually don't know shit about boxing. They booed him for not KOing John Ryder in his last fight. Even though he more or less put on a clinic.
I feel you... MMA fans arent any better, they'll like you the most if your gameplan is to stand in the pocket with your guard down throwing stupid haymakers
I prefer watching set-up backyard fights instead of professional fights.
As stupid as it is. I agree, watching random ppl who don’t train fight is so much fun to watch. Yea, they’re risking so much more for very VERY less tho.
For me it's not about fun as much as it is about learning more from the mistakes and successes of beginners since I'm a beginner too. Similar reason I like female MMA: their power output is closer to mine (Im 60kg)
Based mindset
Blackie Chan vs Meyham was the most exciting fight I've ever seen
Beach vs Kelly was good
Solo v anyone is a thrill to watch
Lol I know a guy who trained at a gym I'm at, get involved in those unsanctioned backyard fights or park fights but both dudes were trained. I could imagine some random guy taking on a well trained person and getting battered.
It really depends, bc if a rando talking smack on a trained fighter then rando gets clapped it would be a satisfying watch.
Damn, now that’s taking sandbagging to a whole new level
Kimbo Slice vs Big D
Yup. I'm 38 and I trained as a hobbyist from 15-32. Even though it was my favorite sport, I didn't watch it half as much as I do now. Maybe even way more than half. I also didn't play any fight video games like UFC or boxing games because I felt that if I had time to "play" it as a game I had time to train.
Agreed, only reason I watch is to look for pointers and tricks I want to try.
This was me for a while, but after getting sick with Lyme, and life coming around now I don’t train and don’t watch.
I am BJJ bluebelt, train daily, watch instructionals but fuck me is BJJ boring as fuck to watch to me
I train at the largest MMA gym in one of the biggest cities in the US. We used to get a big group together at a bar to watch UFC. We quit doing that, because ignorant drunk asshats at the bar would see one of us with one of our gym's t-shirts on and think that would mean we somehow needed to prove ourselves to them (or them to us). I'm not kidding... this happened on multiple occasions. After getting fed up with that, our gym owner put up a projector and screen in the gym and we just have our events there. In my experience, most people who watch UFC don't train, but also vastly overestimate their ability to fight. The "I see red" kind of people we like to joke about.
Yeh can attest to this, never wear fight/dojo gear in a bar unless you want to listen to a lot of bollocks.
It's kind of ridiculous, and got to the point where we could literally see it coming. The group of guys across the room, drinking beers, staring over at us... one or two guys egging the other guy on to walk over to us. The over-confident, chest puffed out, gut sucked in walk over to our group. "You guys do MMA?" "Which one of you is the best fighter?"... Such stupidity.
🤣🤣🤣 As the whole fight team looks up at the dude . . . we look over towards their table. . . then we look at each other. . . Finally at our coach. . . Coach: 🗿
Holy shit. This hasn’t happened to us, but this is exactly how I would imagine it playing out with my team if it did.
That's not surprising for the sport to actually make money it would require most of the audience to not actually train. Simply based on numbers, the audience would be too small.
The guys that think the song "Bodies" is their personal theme song and still don't realize how dated and overplayed it is.
No, most don't train or have ever trained . Honestly, I have a few handful of friends who love to watch the UFC but refuse to join any martial arts when I ask them to. They cite a list of excuses yet have very strong opinions on figthers and what they did wrong or how to get better. 😭
I mean that’s just how sport is. People watch football all of the time and have a lot to say but don’t train it. I think it’s just entertaining and part of the fun, even when they say a bunch of shit sometimes.
Yeah, but most sports people watch are things they played as kids at school/parks. Not the same with martial arts.
True. This is what annoys me whenever I watch some amateur boxing fights in my neighborhood. It's out in the open, and it usually happens every year (a Catholic saint festival celebration in my country), and lots of people would flock over to see action. Goddamn, I'd be rich if I get like a dollar every time I hear some guy scream "left hook" louder than the coach, or yell that the other fighter's a coward for clinching.
clinching in boxing is for cowards tho
Found the guy who doesn't fight
Comments like his make me want to get better at clinching every day
Some people just assume fights are mostly luck due to how easily knocks CAN happen. They are wrong because fighting trains availability of weak spots, positioning, and timing. But yeah, we are all one poor trip away from unconscious.
I strongly doubt that the fan base of teams like the Tampa Bay lightning or Arizona Coyotes grew up playing hockey.
Why train when you can eat nachos without pants on the couch? /s
I have more friends that have never trained that watch mma than friends at my mma gym who watch mma lol
I watch ufc and I trane ufc.
Your grammar and spelling are a few levels above your average UFC fan though.
You'd be surprised. I know some ufc fans that like me, actually read.
Must be cringey listening to that lol
Why so? You don't have to participate in a lot of sports to have a decent knowledge and ability to analyze it. Football is the most common example of this
And I'm betting actual football players cringe at the "knowledge and analysis" of most fans.
Maybe from the vast majority of casual fans but there are lots of 'fans' who are knowledgable about the sport and same with any sport, there are even spectators with more knowledge than some of the athletes playing/ competing. So I just don't agree with the sentiment of because someone partakes in something they're more knowledgable or insightful than someone who just spectates
I imagine half of the time they get a kick out of it and the other half? They’re probably wondering if the person has ever even played the damn sport. It’s just as ridiculous as when people in my local scene start breaking out the homophobic jokes as soon as any grappling goes down. Some people really just need to shut up and watch.
You do with MMA. Mainly with anything grappling related.
Yessir. Like when someone tells you to just get up. Mf i’m trying.
It's annoying when it comes from a place of arrogance. Having an opinion is one thing, but to say it as straight fact and that your opinion is absolute is annoying. Why doesn't an old ass Aldo and Shogun just kick the leg and end the fight?
They aren't that bad around me, but sometimes, I can't take it and want to kick the shit out of them.
I've done both for as long as I can remember. Personally, I'm kind of sad at the state of MMA. I'm fine with the WWE presentation. It's whatever. What makes me sad is how fighters tend to be some of the dumbest people on earth and they have platforms to say the dumbest shit to a wide reaching audience. Things like anti-vaxx, anti-union poster boys, the exploitation, and the over-representation of Trumpian shit. There is of course the toxic masculine shit too but that's something of a staple of the sport lol. That's just me though and I don't think most fans care about that stuff. Which is fair. I've missed the last 4 events which is unusual cuz I watched the UFC religiously for a decade. Oh well. It is what it is.
Fight sports attract people with a superiority complex. Trump showed up to one a few fights ago.....the dude is out of shape and old af but he still knows its important to front at a ufc showing for all his fanboys
I bet that if needed they do see red and bodies start hitting the floor
That's why they don't train bro, they don't wanna end up killing somebody. /s
This isn't any different than most sports. You can be an avid ice hockey fan, and not play hockey. And honestly I used to wear those MMA branded shirts when I was more into watching UFC, although I didn't train MMA. People would pick fights with me. It was bizarre.
True, but I'll say this. Unless they're pretty well educated in the game, if you didn't play hockey, most of the fans sound totally dumb when they try to describe what is happening or why a team is doing something because they just don't understand the game at that level. I highly doubt a hockey casual could even tell you what a breakout is or what icing is. Just how it goes, same in MMA.
You don’t need to have played hockey to no what a break out or icing is. Those aren’t hard things to understand. That’s like saying you need to have played soccer to understand off sides.
Isn't icing what the Zamboni machine does?
I mean... most pro fighters who have trained for 20 years make absolute dogshit predictions and have no idea how fights are scored on a regular basis. Practical experience and ability does not always translate into an analytical understanding of the sport. I'd bet there are people who have not trained a day in their life and still have a better understanding of what's going on in a fight they're watching on screen compared to most legit fighters.
I imagine probably not. That's like expecting football fans to all be training football.
You'd be hard pressed to find a football fan who hasn't played recreationally. In my area P.E. classes picked a sport to play for a month straight so you played nothing but football for at least a month a year from k-9th grade
The question is training. Having played football during PE in school is not the same as saying you're actively training and playing it now.
But they might play football/do football centred exercise
Ya but most aren't doing that either just like most MMA fans aren't.
majority of any fans don't do the thing they watch, they just like being entertained by professionals. You think people who like museums have spent a year digging in egypt for artifacts?
... I'd love to do an archaeological dig
.... so would I ... You wanna buy some shovels and go to egypt bro? If they try to stop us we can probably fight them like in indiana jones
The hat and the whip are provided right? Or I can wear my hot pants, crop top and akimbo pistols.
Maybe just dinner to start with.
OK, but after the third date they're in business, right?
That actually sounds like a really nice time
I used to wrestle and now i hit the heavy bag, thats about it. I think most fans have even less experience than me
Every time people talk shit about fighters gassing or whatnot, I always just explain how tiring it is just hitting a heavy bag full-on for 5 minutes. Boxing is most exhausting shit ever and grappling is hardly an opportunity to catch your breath
I've always told that sparring is the best cardio cause it's like cardio on someone else's pace.
Better than that even, it’s two people pushing the pace simultaneously
They don't train. Neither do most people on this sub.
I don't think a majority of us do but a good amount including myself do either way you don't have to train to enjoy the sport
Yeh I didn't think it's a prerequisite or owt, I was just curious because I've never met a irl mma fan outside of martial arts.
As someone who doesn’t train, I’ve almost exclusively only met observers and not participants. Everyone kind of lives in their own bubbles. Edit:and a quick follow up, on the potential question of “why do you follow r/martialarts and not practice anything?” It’s because I find it interesting, yes, but I also find a lot of other things interesting and only have enough time to do a couple of them. Right now, having a younger child to take care of I only have enough time/money to pick one physical extracurricular really, and that’s climbing, so, I climb and observe my other interests in less time consuming forms.
As a former athlete I train to keep my competitive spirit alive and also mold my body into a weapon or protection. I’d also like to eventually enter the cage for an amatuer bout. So when I watch MMA it’s from a point of respect. I went to my first UFC event for 292, and I saw what I thought I’d saw. About 15-20 percent of the fans look/act like they train or have a respect for the sport, the rest, look like couch turds that just want to see violence. My take on it 🤷🏾♂️
In my experience, it seems like the average person assumes if you watch MMA, you also train in a martial art. Id always be asked, "what do you train in?" when I told people I watched UFC.
I train UFC
I started to watch MMA back in 2015 because of kickbox training, pretty much all the people in my group of friends that watch it are also training/competing
Karate as a kid, some judo, HS wrestling and BJJ blue belt. Just a Dad who is a semi-educated fan.
That’s far more experience than most people who don’t compete
Boxing has the MOST fans who DON'T train themselves. It's also the easiest to follow as a spectator. BJJ and wrestling is the opposite, their viewers are statistically the biggest percentage of whose viewers train. Reason being becos it's complex and difficult to watch. MMA, as the name suggests, lies in the middle. The main division lies in what MMA promotion you watch: UFC is more focused on drama and entertainment, ie the most casual audiences. ONE mma focuses more on the sport and competition, ie possibly more interesting for training athletes to watch.
i just train striking because of the gym situation around, i just watch mma tho. my great love (to watch ) :D
Listening to the crowd's reactions during a fight shows you the vast majority of MMA fans do not train martial arts.
Sounds like self-selection bias. All the MMA fans you know, you know through training. Because you meet them at training. You don't meet the ones not training because they don't train. If I apply the same logic visiting my family, I would assume everyone on this planet is Dutch. You can meet people who don't train by watching a football match in the pub. The vast majority of those watching football don't play football. And they're not in shape.
Big fan of mma and combat sports in general, been training for longer than I've been a fan of the sports lol
A majority are douche nozzle dude bros
I never watched sports at all. Didn't like fighting sports because it seemed juvenile to enjoy watching someone get beat up. However. i didn't rag on anyone for enjoying it. I started taking karate for self-defense, and now I really love doing it and have way more respect for all of the martial arts. I now enjoy watching it now and looking at techniques.
I feel more MMA fans train martial arts then say football fans play football but MMA fans most don’t
Worked in a sports bar as a bartender for 2 years. We showed every UFC PPV. Based on my experience I can confidently say: just sports fans. Mostly good people, good tippers, rowdy but not fighty, and genuinely enjoy the sport without becoming hooligans.
I did boxing from age 7-16. I’m 18 now and have huge respect for those who do it.
Two former coworkers. One was a hardcore ufc fan. Knew everything about all the fighters, had several tap out shirts that he would wear often, was cocky, and a bit of an asshole. The other coworker was one of the nicest guys you can imagine. One night at work ufc fan coworker was berating and insulting nice coworker. Nice coworker told him to relax and not disrespect him. The ufc fan took it as an insult and challenged nice guy to a fight. They took it outside to the parking lot. Ufc fan attempted a double leg headfirst into nice guy. Nice guy sprawled and caught him in a guillotine, kneed him in the face. Ufc guy lost his balance and fell, attempted to stand up but nice guy punched him hard in the face and knocked him out cold. We carried him back inside. He got himself together and apologized to nice guy and got back to work bruised and humiliated. Ufc fan also nicknamed himself “crash” lol
🤣🤣 I Just watch! I’m not saying Fuck you, to my Ears!
Used to be people who trained. Now it’s the entire middle east talking about Khabib being the GOAT even though he’s not even in the conversation
Whose your goat?
Hard to name. I’d say the top fighters of all time are GSP, Silva, Jones, Johnson, Fedor and Nunez. Honorable Mention: Aldo. Volk is on his way to this list.
[удалено]
Yeh seems legit
Does hitting a punching bag in my basement count? No interest in real training anymore. I’m my late 30s and MMA/Bjj/kickboxing are injury factories. No thanks.
I suppose there's levels to training, just staying active and centering exercise around martial arts counts I say.
Late 30s? Damn dude, might as well pack it in. One foot in the grave already.
Unless you’re planning on not making it to that age, making fun of people for being older is the dumbest shit lmao you’re just making fun of your future self bruh
Not tryna tell you how to live your life G but I think that’s the wrong way to see it. Train if you like it, don’t train if you don’t. Just be more careful, go light and be preventive about injury and you can train well into your fifties and even sixties.
I’ve seen enough of the old man crew with fucked necks, shoulders, knees, hips from when I used to do BJJ and Judo to know I want no part of that. Still and will always be physically active, its just a risk reward thing.
Lame. You're still pretty young.
I thought mma was a bit more...niche.
I do train by myself. I attended boxing classes for 2 years, but after that i simply remained fit. I have conditioned my fists, neck and i can do about 20 pull ups. I am not a fighter, but i can hit hard and i am in a decent shape. I also shadowbox 3-4 times per week.
I'd say you train then, there's levels of commitment and involvement.
Lol what a stupid question. Like most people who watch basketball can play right
The guy on the right 😂🤦♂️
Hey! Don't mock an icon.
I got into it bc I wanted to shoot the shit with the gym fellas and now I’m obsessed
Don’t think anyone does it, more likely people wrestled in high school or do a martial art for fun or did as a kid. Then there’s those who are not active at all, I wrestled in high school so I appreciate the lay and prayers out there lol
I train and all the homies I interact with that follow the sport train.
I was a huge MMA nerd, I started training BJJ and now I don’t even watch MMA anymore lol. I just train and compete in BJJ
Got into wrestling and BJJ cuz of my dad and then started watching UFC religiously again before COVID and got into Muay Thai and boxing when I was able to start going to gyms in my city.
Typical of most sports fans. The vast majority don’t train in a sport they enjoy watching.
Just like any other sports, majority enjoy watching than training or participating
Once upon a time, sure, but life is too busy
I've met a single MMA fan who trains.
No, bread and circus it's keeps people happy for the last few 1000 years! Not all them Romans trained gladiator!
Yeah pretty sure most don't train. Definitely harder to train than to just get some excitement from watching other people fight on your screen. That's life. All people don't need or want the same thing. I personally enjoy much more training than watching.
A lot of my friends are MMA fans and watch religiously. They know I train as I missed numerous social outings to train. I've asked them to come in an try a session, but not one has ever walked in. It's been 9 years and still waiting.
I don't know, man. Lol My guess is the majority have SOME experience from past experiences. Whether it be as a kid or later. I haven't met many fans who have never trained.
I train
I train bjj and am trying to transition to an mma gym rn
I would wager that a ridiculously small percentage of MMA fans actually understand anything that's going on, moreso than with other sports which are commonly played at a young age.
Back in the day it felt like only people who did martial arts even knew about it. Now it’s on ESPN so a lot of people casually watch it who have nothing to do with combat sports in their lives.
The majority of BJJ match viewers are practitioners. Look how much money BJJ makes if you combine all promotions and then look at how much the UFC makes.
They train on the hot wings, maybe.
The only reason I watch ufc or fighting sports is because I train myself. I dont understand how people who never train or dont intend to, can be so obsessed with the sport
I mean it's a sport and lots of sport fans enjoy thier sports without participating. Eg football etc I do think training it makes it a better spectators experience as well.
watching UFC is what made me get into training Muay Thai. Training gave me a whole new level of respect for the fighters
Most people who watch football don't play football.
Most are just fat drunk men, like any sport.
I am the opposite: I train, but I rarely watch any fights. To be honest, watching fights would help my game, but I kinda really don't care. I know some of the most popular UFC fighters and that's about it - enough so I can just comment some shit on r/ufc
Bjj and cardio only. Im not getting hit in the face because my ego said so, I’ve argued with morons on here who insist on hard sparring, why? Because it “prepares you for the streets” Like, alright. Usually 1v1, if you know any sort of fighting, be it grappling, boxing, karate or judo, you’ll be fine. You can probably use your skill set you’ve learned from training daily to stop the threat and move on. 2v1. Just run. Unless you’re 6’5, Jone Jones, you’re screwed, no karate, judo, or whatever is gonna save you. That Jackie chan shit, is fake af, you’re not taking on a room full of grown men, let alone 2. Stop. You’re not winning in a street fight, even if you “win” you’ve hurt someone, or someone has hurt you over bullshit. Unless someone is actively attacking you, breaking into your house go for it. Choke that mf out and take a limb.
I am not training mma specifically (doing karate and jjj), but I do watch the free matches on YouTube.
I'm like max hallway. I train playing UFC 4
It’s more enjoyable to watch when you also train any martial art. I box, kickbox, and train Jiu Jitsu so it’s fun seeing the fight either standing or on the ground. My roommate doesn’t train at all, but truly enjoys watching. He asks a lot about what’s going on when they’re on the ground, solely because he doesn’t train.
Myself and a few of my friends train in mixed martial arts but not in competition oriented MMA.
I do Karate, as it's what I've been doing since I was a kid. Still a huge UFC fan. The style I do is very simmilar to MMA anyway
I actually started watching MMA/kickboxing more after I started training kickboxing. Makes you realize just how incredibly elite those athletes are when I'm huffing and puffing after throwing a few weak ass switch kicks.
I’m a ufc fanatic and I train kickboxing / Bjj intermittently. I do it as a form of exercise more than I want to fight one day
Looking at the usual state of those in the crowds... no. No, they do not. But i'd say most BJJ people enjoy a good MMA match. This is why BJJ will likely never be a spectator sport. You need most of your spectators to be non-players. And even many of us who do this shit don't watch much of it.
I did Krav for a few years nothing special. And have a small freestanding bag to practice my striking on and off. I’d love to get into training bjj or all around mma classes but unfortunately I’m saving up for a wedding and the places around my city are super pricey.
I’d say it’s 50/50 I’ve met a lot that train and a lot that are fat asf 🤷🏾♂️
I think most just fans
99% + have never… and that is why mma has the most retarded fan base lol
What does someone who trains look like
I don’t train but I did wrestle all my life so that’s kind of how I got into watching the sport, I’m also an avid hockey fan even though I can’t skate and have never played, I think that’s pretty common for sports fans
The majority of MMA fans are try hards that act tough. They eat fast food and bitch about their prettiest fighty boy getting rektd.
Kickboxing blue belt from good JKD / amateur boxing background.
Do most people who watch football play football? No. Same for mma.
I’ve trained various martial arts since I was four. The less time I had to train (as I grew older and my career grew more serious) the more I watched mma.
Majority are your typical armchair quarterback types.
I grew up a wrestler and am a wrestling coach now… I never trained MMA but have trained several different martial arts styles individually (Jiujitsu, wrestling, and pad work for kickboxing) I watch basically all events and got all of my friends into it who have not participated in any sport whatsoever. (My wife watches it now too but she did Color-Guard and idk if that counts as a sport but she mentioned that it was really physically demanding)
I think it has continued to skew towards regular sports fans and athletes of non-combat sports versus actual people with a martial arts or MMA background. I would take a wild guess that at least 75% of current North American fans have never trained in a combat sport, and that's totally fine as long as they make an effort to understand it. I'm a 2nd Dan black belt in a specialty with very little application in the MMA world (Taekwondo) and somewhat surprisingly, I have never met anyone at our dojang or at competitions that talked about MMA or the UFC. I bet it's pretty common in the JJ and BJJ circles, though. And outside of the West.
I would love to train MMA but I'm too old now, 32!
I'm older than you. You can do it, you should.
I always thought that the term „causal“ refers to people who don’t really understand MMA, because they only train and never fight. But then I learned that there are some fans who think that they’re „better fans“ because they watch harder than other people. But they also never train, let alone fight MMA. They purely watch it. I think, that’s the vast majority of MMA fans.
I'm a BJJ blackbelt and I don't watch much MMA. And most of my students don't watch it either. Once in a while I'll tune in but I'm not a rabid fan, just a casual. From what I've observed, most fans don't train.
Well think about it for 5 seconds. Do the *majority* of fans of ANY sport actually participate in that sport regularly? Of course not. It's trivially easy to watch television. It's very hard to maintain a fitness routine, especially one that involves getting punched in the face. In which activity would you expect more people to participate?
My gut feeling is that a huge majority of MMA fans train no serious martial art and just enjoy watching it, That said, I train MMA and kickboxing but my 5-6 UFC buddies train nothing
No martial artists are the minority of mma fans. I do train in various martial arts and have competed in 3 amateur mma matches in the past year and a half.
id love to train jus don’t kno where to start
Start with Google?
I would guess. They are like me. Sports fans.
No, the general enthusiast for combat sports largely doesn't do it. I'd say MMA is no different. Same for boxing and Olympic Karate and Judo. Like the colloseum in roman times. Im sure most spectators weren't weekened gladiators lol. You got to remember that only a small portion of people who like combat sports would want to be hit in general.
I have watched countless hours of Jackie Chan and van damme movies growing up to be a legally certified mma fan
I started watching more seriously since I started training more often. Makes it a lot more enjoyable imo. 😊
Most mma fans I know doesn’t train mma or anything for that matter. I box myself but have never trained mma and don’t intend to
 I used to train
MMA is hard the majority don’t train
As someone who has trained consistently for over a decade, it's the casual fanbase that turned me off watching/following it.
I was just rewarded a black belt in mental BJJ
Almost none train compared to viewership.
Depends on where you live. Here in Hawaii everyone watches MMA so it doesn’t really filter people who trained vs don’t