Learning a few tricks within a very short amount of time. Just learning to hit hard is easy and effective and just about anybody can do it. It fits our 'shake it and bake it and it's ready to eat' mentality much more than years and years of training to get a handle on principles. The drawback is you are limited to hitting hard whereas if you understand principles your arsenal is just about unlimited. The only limits in that kind of training will be the ones you put on yourself.
What do you mean today??? seriously read a history book. Humans have loved violence since our inception into the world. We are animals and nothing can suppress our animalistic and pack mentality. this is why violent sports still thrive thousands of years after people were being slayed in the Colosseum. MMA has been around since the dawn of time, this is often how a martial art evolves into another one. its just now the media can spread the word and people come flocking to it.
Even the human evolution since the beginning has not seen our pack mentality change. Millions of years ago we roamed in packs for protection, with each pack having a leader and being eventually over thrown by other packs or younger generation trying to prove their rise to dominance ...hmmmm i wonder where you can see this today? how about EVERYWHERE - from war to gangs to team sports, even in the media this happens. The word "society" is nothing more than a pack mentality.
Mixed martial arts is nothing more than a human way to express its primitive urges and this is why it is so popular. 50,000 people a day would go to the Colosseum just to watch people fight and slaughter one another in a variety of styles learned from various parts of the Mediterranean/European/west Asian world, All over the world violence and violent sports have been popular for thousands of years. this is no different to what you can see on PPV now except that we are not killing each other, well not immediately, but through brain injury, body destruction, addiction to painkillers and steroids certainly means we are killing MMA fighters earlier than normal so effectively we still are watching their demise but that is a different topic.
Fighting has always been the most exciting form of entertainment known to man. One of my Mauy Thai instructors gave a great analogy one time. He said, "at a sporting event they have football, basketball, hockey, and soccer. Everyone crowding their favorite sport. A fight breaks out in the middle of the event. Everyone will always turn to watch the fight." The sport of fighting has different meanings to everyone and no one will truly understand it until they themselves become a fighter.
The men are sexy, they get so physical. It's not FAKE like WWE. MMA is also so great because the world today is so messed up that kids are getting into MMA to know how to protect themselves. Teens and Young Adults do it to get fit and also to relieve stress and anger. It's just like any sport on tv.
Good marketing
Violence
some believe it is a short cut to learning
TV, pay per views, alternative to boxing
Attracting good athletes like Brock Lesner, Ronda Rousey, Sara McMaan, Cyborg, and others that did well in other amateur sports
UFC and MMA is like one part. when ufc is more popular and famous, so MMA. goo promotion on tv etc, cause like sport other all need good promotion.
lol at jim r , idiot. its popular because its the best sport ever its pretty much a real fight
It's entertaining
Such has been "popular" since before the gladiators.
TV.
https://praiseorbash.com/s/mixed-martial-arts-mma
