Mickey Rourke used to fight some, and then he became an actor. He had some trouble with his personal life, like many actors do, and now he’s back on the big screen with ‘The Wrestler’ playing – of all things – a washed-up fighter.
With all the buzz about his fighting movie it’s only fitting that he would appear on Inside MMA. He’ll have a taped, two-part interview and talk about the move, MMA in general, and where he sees the sport going. For people who like Rourke and the MMA this is a real treat, because they get the best of both worlds. It encourages a lot of people to start paying more attention to MMA, too, either as a spectator or as someone who wants to start training and get involved in the sport.
Schools like MMA Richmond can help people who enjoy the sport to get their start and to learn what it takes to be an MMA fighter so they can decide if it’s really for them or if they would be better off doing something else instead. MMA is not for everyone.
There are a lot of ways to showcase great fighting, and one of the most unique is the ‘worlds collide’ event where there will be boxing matches and MMA matches back-to-back for a total of eight events. A lot of people are going to love that because it shows that MMA is only gaining in popularity but that it’s still showing respect to boxing, which was basically its predecessor in this country.
While the popularity of boxing might have waned in some circles the sport is certainly not dead, and people who enjoy both boxing and MMA would like to see them together. It gives a better comparison of the two and is just more interesting overall.
It’s important for people who come to schools like MMA Richmond to train to see these kinds of events, as well, because they help people to understand that there is much more to MMA than just boxing, but that some of the elements of boxing play a vital role in what an MMA fighter can do. The importance of addressing these two sports together is not something that should be ignored any longer.
Adler Volmar is a two-time Olympian, and he’s now making his MMA debut. He says he was thinking about getting involved in the sport even before he participated in his second Olympics because it’s such well-rounded sport. Since he has a strong background in Judo he will have an advantage in that area and only needs to train in other areas of MMA.
There are many other fighters who have come to the MMA from other sports, so what Volmar is doing is really not all that uncommon. How successful he will be in the MMA remains to be seen, though. Not all cross-over fighters do well, but many have at least some measure of success, and Volmar’s skills likely means that he will be one of them.
A lot of people are coming to the MMA today. More and more people are watching it, and schools like MMA Richmond are seeing a big increase in people who want to train to get involved in the sport, either for financial gain or just for the enjoyment of it.
As people age their bodies just simply will not allow them to do as much as they could when they were younger. Some of that can be offset by good physical conditioning, but at some point even that ceases to be enough. However, all the data compiled on MMA so far shows that it’s not as dangerous as football or boxing, so in theory the average age of
MMA fighters when they retire could be higher than the retirement age for other sports. When MMA first started to become popular a lot of the fighters were older guys who came in from other sports. Now there are a lot of younger guys (and girls) starting in the sport. Some of them are winning serious title fights in their early to mid-twenties, but whether that makes it harder for older guys to compete still remains to be seen.
Schools like MMA Richmond are seeing people start to train at a younger age, though, which is an indication of the trend that the sport is taking and what it might do in the future.
The next time you’re training at MMA Richmond you can set your MMA sites even higher by thinking about the possibility of being live on Showtime someday.
The channel recently struck a deal with Strikeforce to broadcast some MMA events over the next three years – live. That should be a very popular choice, because MMA is still growing in popularity and it looks like that will continue well into the future.
There will be as many as sixteen MMA events broadcast each calendar year, some of them showing the more high-profile and popular fighters and some of them showing people who have less recognition but are up-and-coming. Either way it promises to be a popular partnership because so many people like the sport and enjoy what it has to offer.
Showtime had a strong affiliation with boxing for quite some time and now that boxing is waning and MMA is starting to take over it only makes sense that Showtime would extend that affiliation to the popular sport. The drama and excitement of the fights are what will draw viewers back again and again.
There are still people who don’t see MMA as being a legitimate sport, but their numbers are dwindling. With schools like MMA Richmond training more MMA enthusiasts every day it’s hard to argue against the sport anymore.
People who still don’t think that MMA is for real, though, should take a lesson from true martial arts legend – Bruce Lee. Lee changed a lot of the martial arts that he got involved in and revolutionized martial arts to the extent that he became a household name. He likely would have approved of the MMA because of the martial arts that it incorporates and the dynamic way that fighters address what they need to do to submit their opponents.
Sports like boxing also paved the way for MMA, but it has now evolved past that, into something that’s very unique and hard to rival. Even the people who didn’t see the legitimacy of MMA fighting in the past will likely begin to do so in the future as the sport continues to progress.