Hey all first post in this here MMA thread, because I have literally never watched a live MMA bout. I have maaaaybe seen 120 total seconds of MMA ever (all highlights). I'm a boxing guy, through-and-through.
BUT, since tomorrow (Sat.) night there isn't any big boxing card on TV, and FS1 has a whole honking night of prelims and main event bouts from Auckland, I'm thinking I'll give the sport a shot for the hell of it.
Keep in mind, I only just found out about the fights tomorrow because my TV was still on FS1 from the Nascar Truck race earlier, and after I watched Showtime boxing off my DVR the UFC weigh-ins were on.
So here are my questions, as a total MMA first-timer:
1) Is there anyone tomorrow I should make a point to pay attention to? I know in MMA you can have like 8 losses and still be a title contender, but since Dana White runs everything it seems like he sets the rankings based on who he thinks fans will pay to watch, so who are the dudes to keep an eye out for?
2) The main event guys are ginormous. They're straight-up loads. Are heavyweights like these dudes worth waiting for, or is it the wiry dudes who tend to have the "better" fights?
3a) I'll admit, I have always thought of UFC/MMA as human cockfighting. I view it as a broken bottle away from being "Pit Fighter," the old Sega game. I'll always be a boxing-first guy. But I'm willing to give this sport a shot tomorrow. Are there any peeps here who had the same mentality and became legit MMA fans after being a boxing fan, and if so, how did you get past the "Yo, he's down, stop elbowing the dude in the head! WTF?!?" mentality to be able to accept the sport's brutality?
3b) Just so I know, what leads to the ref stopping a fight when one dude is whaling on another guy who's obviously dead to the world? One of the things I like most about boxing is good officiating, especially a ref who knows when to stop a fight to keep a guy from getting killed or vegetized. It seems that every time I see highlights of MMA KOs a guy gets dropped and is prone on his back while a dude continues to pound the bejeezus outta his head for 5 seconds or more before the ref finally stops it. I get that half the sport is ground-based, but I just have a hard time understanding how a ref can't see that a guy (or gal, I suppose) is out like a lamp and getting needlessly mashed before finally stopping the fight.
Let me know your thoughts if ya want (or don't, no worries either way, I won't take it personally). I figure this sport's like 15-20 yrs old now, so I should give it a legit shot at some point. I also know it has a REALLY passionate fanbase, and I hope I haven't insulted anyone with my honesty about how I've viewed it til now, but I would love to see if I can have my mind changed in the next 24hrs and give it a shot in the future. TIA
