I remember back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s when mixed martial arts was considered very taboo

and banned
in many places of America. Conversely on June 17, 2023, Mixed Martial Arts is a large part of modern-day world
culture. MMA consists of many items from training to development of numerous fighting styles. At the core of
MMA greatness relates to courage and determination. Without those 2 characteristics, a fighter can never reach
his or her total potential. Professional fighting is not just about physical displays of greatness. It also involved
emotional and mental strength to be precise with moves, have total endurance to carry onward, and have the
integrity to be a professional inside plus outside of the ring. There are many characters who claim to represent
MMA culture, but they are brash, disrespectful, and even assault innocent people. That is not what a true MMA
ethos is about. MMA is about building communities up, giving people (especially unsung individuals) confidence
in his or her’s abilities, and growing multifaceted skills in fighting. Years of training has made legends out of people
initially in the sport. Mixed Martial Arts came a long way, and it will grow more forthrightly in future generations.
 This was a recent, friendly along with a some mes-
tense faceoff between Jon Jones and Francis
Ngannou (in Atlanta on June 2023 at a PFL event).
Both men consider themselves the best. A fight
between both MMA fighters might occur.

The Table of Contents

1. Preface
2. The History of MMA

3. Its Rules and

Regulations

4. MMA Currently

5. Modern Day Legends

of MMA

6. The Culture of MMA

7. Conclusion
Mixed Martial arts is a sport that should be evaluated. It's a full contact combat sport that has
increased its popularity since the start of the 21st century. For decades, it has been used by men and
women to express their skills in boxing, wrestling, and other forms of fighting skills. Back in the
day, MMA was controversial. Many states banned the sport in America alone. It is only in recent
years when MMA has been more promoted in a positive way by mainstream society. Being a
youthful sport, it has gone through growing pains. Today, tons of corporations have influence in
it, and diverse MMA leagues are in abundance. Venues have been called the Octagon, cage, and an
MMA ring to showcase fighters fighting other fighters. Combat sports have existed for thousands
of years in human history. We have interstylistic contests in Japan during the early 20th century.
We know about the Gracie family using their own Brazilian jiu-jitsu for self-defense and to be
involved in MMA culture.

The legendary Bruce Lee wrote about combat fighting, and he had a scene in the 1973 film Enter
the Dragon where an MMA-like match takes place. Muhammad Ali in 1976 fought Inoki in an
Exhibition match that ended in a draw. Antonio Inoki was a wrestler. As time goes on, mixed
martial arts have become more organized, more regulated, and the talent has spread globally. There
are risks in MMA like increased chances of injury, CTE, and other damage to the human body. In
our time, some of the best mixed martial artists of all time are human beings like Jon Jones,
Anderson Silva, Rhonda Rousey, George St.-Pierre, B.J. Penn, Randy Couture, Hkabib
Nurmagoemdov, Daniel Cormier, Royce Gracie, Quinton Jackson, Amanda Nunes, Holly Holm,
Valentina Shevchenko, Megumi Fuji, Joanna Jerdrzejczyk, Cris Cyborg, and other fighters. One
common denominator among these athletes is that they are highly trained in multiple disciplines
like boxing, wrestling, judo, jiu-jistsu, kickboxing, etc. These people don't just know one art of
fighting. They are high trained in diverse skills too. Mixed martial arts have expanded its influence,
culture, and popularity over the years. It is important to show information on everything under
the sun, and this sport should have its time to be researched and studied fully.

The History of MMA

The history of mixed martial arts came from ancient times in fighting styles from Africa, Asia, and
Europe. Nothing is new under the sun. In ancient China, there was a combat sport called Leitai.
This was a no hold barred mixed combat sport that combined Chinese martial arts, boxing, and
wrestling. In ancient Greece, there was a sport called pankration. It included grappling and striking
skills which was similar to modern MMA. Pankration was formed by combining the already
established wrestling and boxing traditions and, in Olympic terms, first featured in the 33rd
Olympiad in 648 BC. All strikes and holds were allowed except for biting and gouging, which were
banned. The fighters, called pankratiasts, fought until someone could not continue or signaled
submission by raising their index finger; there were no rounds. According to the historian E.
Norman Gardiner, "No branch of athletics was more popular than the pankration." There are
similar mixed combat sports in Ancient Egypt, India, and Japan. These fighting sports evolved
worldwide from Africa to the Americas over the course of centuries and thousands of years. By the
mid-19th century, there was the new sport called savate in the combat sports circle. French savate
fighting wanted to test their techniques against other traditional combat styles of this time.

By 1852, there was a contest held in France between French savateurs and English bare-knuckle
boxers. The French fighter Rambaud alias la Resistance fought English fighter Dickinson and won
using his kicks. However, the English team still won the four other matchups during the contest.
Contests occurred in the late 19th to mid-20th century between French Savateurs and other combat
styles. Examples include a 1905 fight between French savateur George Dubois and a judo
practitioner Re-nierand which resulted in the latter winning by submission, as well as the highly
publicized 1957 fight between French savateur and professional boxer Jacques Cayron and a young
Japanese karateka named Mochizuki Hiroo which ended when Cayron knocked Hiroo out with a
hook. Catch wrestling was in the late 19th century. It had many styles of wrestling like Indian
pehlawni and English wrestling. Modern MMA was influenced by catch wrestling too. There were
no holds barred fighting events taking place in the late 1880's. This was when catch wrestling
represented the style of catch wrestling, and many other people met in tournaments and music hall
challenge matches all over Europe.

In the US, the first major encounter between a boxer and a wrestler in modern times took place in
1887 when John L. Sullivan, then heavyweight world boxing champion, entered the ring with his
trainer, wrestling champion William Muldoon, and was slammed to the mat in two minutes. The
next publicized encounter occurred in the late 1890s when future heavyweight boxing champion
Bob Fitzsimmons took on European wrestling champion Ernest Roeber. In September 1901, Frank
"Paddy" Slavin, who had been a contender for Sullivan's boxing title, knocked out future world
wrestling champion Frank Gotch in Dawson City, Canada. The judo-practitioner Ren-nierand,
who gained fame after defeating George Dubois, would fight again in another similar contest,
which he lost to Ukrainian Catch wrestler Ivan Poddubny. One early example of mixed martial
arts was Bartitsu, which Edward William Barton-Wright founded in London in 1899. It combined
catch wrestling, judo, boxing, savate, jujutsu, and canne de combat (French stick fighting). Barttitsu
is known as the first martial artist to have combined Asian and European fighting styles. These
MMA style contests were all over England among European catch wrestlers and Japanese Judoka
champions against representatives of various European wrestling styles.
There are many precursors, not ancestors of modern MMA. They existed in mixed style contests
in Europe, Japan, and the Pacific Rim during the early 1900's. In Japan, these contests were called
merikan, from the Japanese slang for American fighting. Merikan contests were fought among
many rules like points decision, best of three throws or knockdowns, and victory via knockout or
submission. Sambo is a martial art and combat sport created in Russia by the early 1920's. It merged
various forms of combat styles like wrestling, judo, and striking into one unique marital art. The
popularity of professional wrestling, which was contested under various catch wrestling rules at
the time, waned after World War I, when the sport split into two genres: shoot (where fighters
actually competed) and show (which evolved into modern professional wrestling). By 1936,
heavyweight boxing contender Kingfish Levinksy and professional wrestler Ray Steele competed
in a mixed match, which catch wrestler Steele won in 35 seconds. 27 years later, Ray Steele's protégé
Lou Thesz fought boxer Jersey Joe Walcott twice in mixed style bouts. The first match was a real
contest which Thesz won while the second match was a work, which Thesz also won. In the 1940s
in the Palama Settlement in Hawaii, 5 martial arts masters, under the leadership of Adriano
Emperado, curious to determine which martial art was best, began testing each other in their
respective arts of Kenpo, Jujitsu, Chinese,American boxing, and Tang soo do. From this, they
developed Kajukenbo, the first American Mixed Martial Arts.

By 1951, there was a high-profile grappling match was Masahiko Kimura vs. Hélio Gracie, which
was wrestled between judoka Masahiko Kimura and Brazilian jiu jitsu founder Hélio Gracie in
Brazil. Kimura defeated Gracie using a gyaku-ude-garami armlock, which later became known as
the "Kimura" in Brazilian jiu jitsu. In 1963, a catch wrestler and judoka "Judo" Gene Lebell fought
professional boxer Milo Savage in a no-holds-barred match. Lebell won by Harai Goshi to rear
naked choke, leaving Savage unconscious. This was the first televised bout of mixed-style fighting
in North America. The hometown crowd was so enraged that they began to boo and throw chairs
at Lebell. On February 12, 1963, three karatekas from Oyama dojo (kyokushin later) went to the
Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Thailand and fought against three Muay Thai fighters. The three
kyokushin karate fighters were Tadashi Nakamura, Kenji Kurosaki and Akio Fujihira (also known
as Noboru Osawa), while the Muay Thai team of three had only one authentic Thai fighter. Japan
won 2–1: Tadashi Nakamura and Akio Fujihira both knocked out their opponents with punches
while Kenji Kurosaki, who fought the Thai, was knocked out by elbows. The Japanese fighter who
lost, Kenji Kurosaki, was a kyokushin instructor, rather than a contender, and that he had stood
in as a substitute for the absent chosen fighter. In June of the same year, karateka and future
kickboxer Tadashi Sawamura faced top Thai fighter Samarn Sor Adisorn: Sawamura was knocked
down sixteen times on his way to defeat. Sawamura went on to incorporate what he learned in
that fight in kickboxing tournaments.

"“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”

“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”
― Bruce Lee

By the late 1960's to the early 1970's, the concept of combining the elements of multiple martial
arts was popularized in the West by Bruce Lee via his system of Jeet Kune Do. Bruce Lee believed
that, "the best fighter is not a Boxer, Karate or Judo man. The best fighter is someone who can
adapt to any style, to be formless, to adopt an individual's own style and not following the system
of styles." In 2004, UFC President Dana White would call Lee the "father of mixed martial arts"
stating: "If you look at the way Bruce Lee trained, the way he fought, and many of the things he
wrote, he said the perfect style was no style. You take a little something from everything. You take
the good things from every different discipline, use what works, and you throw the rest away." A
contemporary of Bruce Lee, Wing Chun practitioner Wong Shun Leung, gained prominence
fighting in 60-100 illegal beimo fights against other Chinese martial artists of various styles. Wong
also fought and won against Western fighters of other combat styles, such as his match against a
Russian boxer named Giko, his televised fight against a fencer, and his well-documented fight
against Taiwanese Kung-Fu master Wu Ming Jeet. Wong combined boxing and kickboxing into
his kung fu, as Bruce Lee did.

Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki took place in Japan in 1976. The classic match-up between
professional boxer and professional wrestler turned sour as each fighter refused to engage in the
other's style, and after a 15-round stalemate it was declared a draw. Muhammad Ali sustained a
substantial amount of damage to his legs, as Antonio Inoki slide-kicked him continuously for the
duration of the bout, causing him to be hospitalized for the next three days. The fight played an
important role in the history of mixed martial arts. In Japan, several shoot-style professional
wrestling promotions like UWF International and Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi attempted to
create a combat-based style which blended wrestling, kickboxing and submission grappling. While
the matches were predetermined, the style was very convincing at the time and can be
retrospectively considered a precursor to mixed martial arts. Professional wrestlers Masakatsu
Funaki and Minoru Suzuki founded Pancrase in 1993 which promoted legitimate contests initially
under professional wrestling rules. These promotions inspired Pride Fighting Championships
which started in 1997. Pride was acquired by its rival Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2007.

A well-documented fight between Golden Gloves boxing champion Joey Hadley and Arkansas
Karate Champion David Valovich happened on June 22, 1976, at Memphis Blues Baseball Park.
The bout had mixed rules: the karateka was allowed to use his fists, feet and knees, while the boxer
could only use his fists. Hadley won the fight via knockout on the first round. In 1988 Rick Roufus
challenged Changpuek Kiatsongrit to a non-title Muay Thai vs. kickboxing super fight. Rick
Roufus was at the time an undefeated Kickboxer and held both the KICK Super Middleweight
World title and the PKC Middleweight U.S title. Changpuek Kiatsongrit was finding it
increasingly difficult to get fights in Thailand as his weight (70 kg) was not typical for Thailand,
where competitive bouts tended to be at the lower weights. Roufus knocked Changpuek down
twice with punches in the first round, breaking Changpuek's jaw, but lost by technical knockout
in the fourth round due to the culmination of low kicks to the legs that he was unprepared for.
This match was the first popular fight which showcased the power of such low kicks to a

predominantly Western audience.

 Bruce Lee
The Major Influencer of Modern MMA
1940-1973
Bruce Lee was a martial artist, a philosopher, and
an actor. He wanted to be in shows and lms that
refuted the negative stereotypes that many
people had about Asian people back in the day.
That is why he was ahead of his time. We know
about the excellent contributions of Asian people
throughout human history. He gave a face to
marital arts and the diversity of the Asian cultural
experience. Also, he was the real deal. The
Brother Jim Kelly on Youtube said that Bruce Lee
was for real in his martial arts and ghting abilities
(along with Jim Kelly, Innosanto, Chuck Norris,
Takauki Kimura, James DeMille Jim Kelly, and
other expert martial artists). Robert Wall told a
story that a challenger messed with Bruce Lee
and Bruce Lee displayed great martial arts skills
(to show that challenger that he was for real).
Also, Bruce Lee did V-sit ups in a long period of
time, lift large weights, and done a massive
amount of exercising. Anyone who does massive
amount of exercising along with the other training
techniques that he has done is the real deal.
Today, Bruce Lee is a motivator for boxers, MMA
experts, and other athletes plus everyday people
all of time.
Bruce was a great actor whose films of The Big Boss, The
Way of the Dragon, Fists of Fury, and Enter the Dragon
inspire audiences to this very day.
Shannon Lee and Brandon Lee
studied martial arts for years.
Brandon Lee passed away 30 years
ago, but his legacy was lled with
action, determination, and a sense of
purpose in doing acting and other
endeavors in his own life.
He created his own martial arts called Jeet
Kune Do. JKD focused on fast movements,
strength, and defensive techniques. It wanted to
promote human individuality while making the
strikes as ef cient as possible. In other words,
each person has a style of ghting, and Jeet
Kune Do wants to maximize an individual’s style
to cause greatness within that person’s natural
or innate abilities. JKD wanted the martial artist
to have strong reflexes, speed, and agility to
accomplish the goal of self-defense. Bruce Lee
wanted strong nutrition and exercise to be
promoted in martial arts since a strong mind
and a strong body develops human skill. He
wrote literature on his beliefs. True ghting
requires offense, defense, and a mental will to
have the endurance to continue (you must build
up your will to be a great ghter too). From the
Green Hornet to Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee
displayed amazing speed, charisma, and the
goal of inspiring humanity. He passed away in
his prime in 1973. Many people are influenced
by him not only within the con nes of martial
arts. Many people are inspired by him in terms
of human beings advancing racial tolerance,
achieving personal excellence, and believing in
self-determination.
Japan had its own form of mixed martial arts discipline, Shooto, which evolved from shoot
wrestling in 1985, as well as the shoot wrestling derivative Pancrase, which was founded as a
promotion in 1993. Pancrase 1 was held in Japan in September 1993, two months before UFC 1 was
held in the United States in November 1993. In 1993, the sport was reintroduced to the United
States by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). UFC promoters initially pitched the event
as a real-life fighting video game tournament similar to Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. The
sport gained international exposure and widespread publicity when jiu-jitsu fighter Royce Gracie
won the first Ultimate Fighting Championship tournament, submitting three challengers in a total
of just five minutes. sparking a revolution in martial arts.

The first Vale Tudo Japan tournaments were held in 1994 and 1995 and were both won by Rickson
Gracie. Around the same time, International Vale Tudo competition started to develop through
(World Vale Tudo Championship [WVC], VTJ, IVC, UVF etc.). Interest in mixed martial arts as
a sport resulted in the creation of the Pride Fighting Championships (Pride) in 1997, where again
Rickson participated and won. The sport reached a new peak of popularity in North America in
December 2006: a rematch between then UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell and
former champion Tito Ortiz, rivaled the PPV sales of some of the biggest boxing events of all time,
and helped the UFC's 2006 PPV gross surpass that of any promotion in PPV history.

SOME OF THE GREATEST MUAY THAI

FIGHTERS OF ALL TIME

Buakaw Saenchai Ramon “The Dany Bill Sakmongkol

Banchamek Diamond” Dekkers Sithchuchok
UFC grew in popularity from 1997 to 2007. The Ultimate Fighter debuted in 2005. The U.S. Army
started sanctioning MMA in 2005, and by 2006, the UFC is super popular with international
growth. Elite XC: Primetine, Strikeforce, and other MMA companies have become popular. By
2011, UFC on FOX gained 8.8 million peak viewers on FOX. In 2016, WMG/WME-IMG brought
UFC for 4 billion dollars. By 2021, WMG/WME-IMG listed its shares on the New York Stock
Exchange under symbol EDR.
 Its Rules and Regulations

The rules and regulations of mixed martial arts are rather straight forward. It has changed since the
days of vale tudo, Japanese shoot wrestling, pankration, and UFC 1. In mixed martial arts, there
are divisions in weight classes. There are nine weight classes in the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial
Arts. Their names are: flyweight (up to 125 lb / 56.7 kg), bantamweight (up to 135 lb / 61.2 kg),
featherweight (up to 145 lb / 65.8 kg), lightweight (up to 155 lb / 70.3 kg), welterweight (up to 170
lb / 77.1 kg), middleweight (up to 185 lb / 83.9 kg), light heavyweight (up to 205 lb / 93.0 kg),
heavyweight (up to 265 lb / 120.2 kg), and super heavyweight with no upper weight limit. Gloves
are small and opened fingered to protect fists. It can reduce cuts and use striking in more creative
ways. The Japan's Shooto promotion first required gloves. Gloves can be from 4 to 6 ounces in
weight. Most MMA fighters are short with 3 five-minute rounds. Championship fights are usually
five 5-minute rounds. Boxing commissions and state athletic commissions helped to introduce
more rules in MMA. Previously, Japan-based organization Pride Fighting Championships held an
opening 10-minute round followed by two five-minute rounds. Stomps, soccer kicks and knees to
the head of a grounded opponent are legal, but elbow strikes to the head are not. This rule set is
more predominant in the Asian-based organizations as opposed to European and American rules.
More recently, Singapore-based organization ONE Championship allows soccer kicks and knees to
the head of a grounded opponent as well as elbow strikes to the head but does not allow head
stomps. In 2016, ONE later banned soccer kicks. However, they still allow knees to the head of a
grounded opponent.
To have a victory in an MMA match, the judge or referee must declare a winner. It can be stopped
by the referee due to submission, stoppage by the referee, and a competitor's cornerman throwing
in the towel or by knockout. Fighters can have victory by a physical tap out by an opponent, verbal
tapping, TKO, and technical submission too. A victory can come by decision, forfeit,
disqualification, no contest, and technical decision. MMA Fighters are ranked by many leagues
based on their performances and outcome of their fights including the level of competition that
they have faced. Sherdog ranks the 10 fighters worldwide only for current available UFC divisions
being used by ESPN. Fight Matrix ranks up to 250-500 fighters worldwide for every possible
division among men and women. Sports Illustrated ranks the top 10 fighters worldwide for current
UFC available divisions. Mixed martial arts promotions typically require that male fighters wear
shorts in addition to being bare-chested, thus precluding the use of gi or fighting kimono to inhibit
or assist submission holds. Male fighters are required by most athletic commissions to wear groin
protectors underneath their trunks. Women fighters wear short shorts and sports bras or other
similarly snug-fitting tops. Both male and women fighters are required to wear a mouthguard.
The need for flexibility in the legs combined with durability prompted the creation of various
fighting shorts brands, which then spawned a range of mixed martial arts clothing and casual wear
available to the public. MMA fighters are in a ring or fenced area. There is the octagon and large
arenas in our time that houses the fight competitors. MMA fighters regularly know about boxing,
kickboxing muay thai, judo, wresting, judo, luta livre, capoeira, wushu, Taekwondo, and other
fighting styles (or stand up, clinch, and ground disciplines).

In terms of MMA culture, Conor McGregor is a disgrace. He is totally against the values and integrity of the sport of
mixed martial arts. We know who he is, and we know that he has no respect for people or his girlfriend. He was born
in Dublin, Ireland and was a former UFC featherweight and lightweight Champions. He has been arrested in Ireland
for speeding. On April 5, 2018, he threw objects of the bus where MMA
fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov was at. This happened at the Barclays
Center in Brooklyn, New York City. McGregor and his entourage wanted
to confront Nurgmomedov. McGregor ran near a moving bus and
grabbed a metal equipment dolly and broke the bus's window. Michael
Chiesa and Ray Borg were injured by the glass. McGregor pleaded no
contest because his act was caught on tape. He was ordered to perform Floyd Mayweather defeated
five days of community service and attend anger management classes. Conor McGregor in a boxing
Back in March of 2019, McGregor was accused of sexually assaulting a match. Mayweather is easily the
woman at a Dublin hotel in December 2018. He was accused of assaulting greatest boxer of this generation.
a woman again in October 2019. On March 11, 2019, McGregor was
arrested outside the Fontainebleau Hotel in Mimi Beach, Florida after he attacked a fan taking a picture with a
cellphone. The incident was caught on CCTV. McGregor lunged to hit the man, grabbed his cellphone, and smashed
it on the ground with his feet. A settlement out of court existed. If a Brother did what McGregor did, you already know
the consequences. On August 16, 2019, McGregor was caught on tape punching an older man at The Marble Arch
Pubin Dublin (it took place on April 5, 209). He was arrested on September 10, 2020, for being accused of sexual
assault and indecent exposure in a bar at the French island of Corsica. French authorities dropped the investigation
due to insufficient evidence. McGregor was accused of assaulting the musician Francesco Facchinetti (an Italian man)
in nightclub in Rome on October 17, 2021. McGregor was accused of assaulting a 42-year-old woman abroad his
yacht in Ibiza, Spain on July 22, 2022. The women's car was set ablaze. A brick was thrown through a window of a
residence. McGregor punched the Miami Heat's mascot Burnie on June 10, 2023. By June 11, 2023, Conor McGregor
has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a restroom at the Miami arena after Game Four of the NBA Finals.
McGregor denies those allegations. We know about the racist stuff he said to Mayweather saying, "dance for me boy."
His actions are not about being confident. His own deeds about him being reckless, abusive, and plainly narcissistic.
So, Conor McGregor is no role model, I don't respect him at all, and he is a disgrace to the sport of MMA period.
 MMA Currently

Mixed Martial Arts in 2023 is in a totally different space than even in the 1990's. More fighters are
using more boxing and wrestling techniques. The energy is powerful, and we have a new
generation of fighters especially their own legacies in their own ways. Marlon Vera had a recent
victory over Rob Font. Fighters like Shanna Young, Gabriel Green, Chase Sherman, Francisco
Figueiredo, and others have shown their skills in the ring too. One of the great stars of MMA is
the fighter, Francis Ngannou. He was the previous UFC heavyweight champion. He was born in
Cameroon in Africa. Later, he studied mixed martial arts in France before going professional. He
has power, strength, and great striking abilities. His MMA fighting skills have improved over the
course of many years too. Ngannou can use his uppercut to defeat many opponents. We know
about Jon Jones being one of the best mixed martial artists of our generation. Israel Adesanya is
talented, and Amanda Nunes is the best woman mixed martial arts fighter of all time. Khabib
Nurmadogedov is a very talented fighter too. Khabib defeated Connor McGregor after McGregor
disrespected Khabib's faith, father, and other parts of his life. There are other MMA women
fighters too like Christaine Justino, Jennifer Maia, Jessica Andrade, Julianna Pena, Joanna
Jedrzejczyk, and other human beings.
 Modern Day Legends of MMA

There are tons of modern-day legends of the MMA. Anderson Silva made many contributions to
MMA with his skills and sly movements. We know about Georges St.-Pierre who had many
victories at a later age. People like Matt Hughes, Don Cornier, Cris Cyborg, B. J. Penn, Chuck
Liddell, Quinton Jackson, and Fedor Emeliankenko all have sacrificed their lives to make massive
accomplishments in the MMA. Jon Jones is a modern-day legend too. He is a former two-time
light heavyweight division. He was the youngest champion in UFC history with his title victory
over Mauricio Rua at the age of 23. We know that Brazil's Amanda Nunes has defeated many
legendary women. She is the current women's featherweight champion and former bantamweight
champion. She is the first women to hold 2 division titles in the UFC, and she is the first woman
to defend 2 titles while holding on to them. She fought 26 professional MMA combat and won 21
of them. Julianna Pena is a legend in her own right, and she defeated Amanda Nunes recently in
December 2021 being the biggest upset in the history of the UFC. Valentina Anatolievna
Shevchenko is another legendary MMA fighter with only 3 losses. She is known for using precise
punches and kicks against an opponent.

The Culture of MMA

Mixed martial arts culture is diverse. It has been embraced in the four corners of the Earth. Many
MMA athletes and others who trained in fighting techniques work at gyms including specific
MMA geared gyms too. These MMA gyms are found in urban and rural areas with weights,
punching bags, and other equipment. It is filled with men and women who desire to express their
talents creatively. A family atmosphere is found in MMA facilities where people train for months
before a match. It takes months and years to perfect the craft of MMA too. There are people in
MMA with diverse political philosophies too. Many people in MMA are doctors, lawyers,
musicians, and teachers. Some are progressives, and others are more conservative. Some are
extremists like Colby Covington, former UFC champ Henry Cejudo, Masvidal, etc. who support
Donald Trump. Convington falsely predicted that Trump would defeat Biden in the 2020
Presidential election. He criticized LeBron James for being woke. Far-right people use the term
"woke" as a code to diminish the right of marginalized and oppressed people the right to be free
and have equality without exception. All human beings born on this Earth are created equal period.
Trump is a racist, a sexist, and a xenophobe. I'm glad that he lost the 2020 election too, and I make
no bones about it. Even Dana White endorsed Trump disgracefully. Now, MMA culture is
embraced heavily by young people.

Voting is important. Recently, a local primary existed in my state of Virginia. Voting just doesn't
deal with federal elections. Voting does also deal with state elections, local elections, and other
procedures that deal with electing judges, school officials, state legislators, and other important
positions that has influence in the daily lives of the people. We are called to enrich the general
welfare of the people. The general welfare of humanity deals with the environment, health,
economic vitality, the rights of women, and other facets of community. In the final analysis, we
want our civil liberties protected, we desire our voting rights to be strengthened, we promote black
liberation, we love the rights of immigrants & refugees, and we want people to achieve their own
destinies as human beings without injustice. To grow a society, you must invest in the community,
develop families, help the poor, defend the lives of the people, and make sure that justice for all is
an active saying being initiated in the world (beyond just glowing rhetoric). That is why we believe
in altruism as there are causes bigger than self-interest. The federal government has a duty to
provide for the general welfare of the people. So, when people say that voting doesn't matter, they
are lying. Voting did matter to cause the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act to exist.
Voting caused a habitual liar (Donald Trump) to not be President in 2021, and voting caused many
changes in our world. On a higher level, when you learn this, you always are opposed to
colonialism, racism, imperialism, xenophobia, and other evils plaguing the world.
 Conclusion
Mixed Martial Arts has been around for a long time in the world. Its origin stretched among the
thousands of years of human history among people who used fighting techniques. In Africa, Asia,
Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Oceania, human beings used self-defense sports to gain a
sense of power, enjoyment, and to test the limits of human expression. MMA evolved globally
over the course of changes. Additions to it came from judo, wrestling, boxing, and other sporting
events. One person who helped to spread the MMA philosophy was Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was not
limited to one style of self-defense. He wanted to merge styles for the human being to find what is
useful and reject what is useless in creating the best style. Each human is different, so different
styles are bound to exist. The overall point is that person must honestly express what is best for
that person using all sorts of tools. Bruce Lee was more than a movie star. He was a serious martial
artist who trained actors and ordinary people on Jeet Kune Do to better their lives. He even worked
with fellow martial arts Kareem Abdul Jabbar in the film Game of Death (it was released
posthumously). MMA is more regulated now than back in the day. The popularity of the culture
is now in the mainstream. Billions of dollars of revenues, jets sending fighters globally, and politics
involved all are related to the modern day atmosphere of mixed martial arts.

By Timothy
Peace for Now Y’a