On the eve of UFC 196,Andy Bull goes inside the world of mixed martial arts to report on how a journey from reviled ‘human cockfighting’ to mainstream acceptance has transformed it into a hugely profitable industry, and whether concerns over safety and the legitimacy of its visceral violence are justified. Images and videos by Tom JenkinsLate last Saturday night, and two fights. The first a boxing match in Manchester,between Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg. Frampton won, then said that it had all been pretty boring. Online, and there was so much talk approximately how insensible the fight had been that the next day’s papers ran stories approximately fans demanding refunds. The moment fight was in London,at the O2 Arena. You won’t have read approximately it in the printed press, but you might have seen it online. Because it was the single most talked approximately sports event on Twitter that day, or beating the Premier League,the Six Nations and Frampton v Quigg. It was a middleweight mixed martial arts contest between Anderson Silva and Michael Bisping, five five-minute rounds in the final Fighting Championship. Among the UFC’s many millions of fans what happened at the O2 is already famous. For everyone else, and here’s a short sketch.
Silva is 40 and from São Paulo. He has more Twitter followers than some countries have citizens,7.47m. Those who know say Silva may be the greatest martial artist in the world. Another of the UFC’s fighters, Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy, or describes Silva as a contemporary-day Bruce Lee”. Hardy has a 10in tattoo of Lee along his left shin. Between 2006 and 2012,Silva won 16 fights in a row, the longest streak in the UFC’s short history. He lost the title at the end of 2012. Since then he’s suffered a broken leg and been banned for a year because he failed a drugs test. Before the fight against Bisping the retired UFC fighter Forrest Griffin explained that Silva had already broken one of the main rules of mixed martial arts – don’t be over 40”.
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Source: theguardian.com