most influence on mma

ken shamrock

 

fertita has money

 

John McCain.

 

Kell Brook.

 

1. Sakuraba..... because no one knew you could fight with different styles before him
2. Tito Ortiz, because no one knew MMA was marketable before his feud with the lion's den.

 

1. That must have sure as **** surprised the likes of Frank Shamrock and Maurice Smith who was cross-training years before Sakuraba

2. That must have sure as **** surprised SEG and Pride who both had financial success marketing MMA long before Tito actually headline a show that made money.

 

Difficult to look beyond White and Fertittas in terms of developing the business.

You could absolutely make an argument for Ken Shamrock. He was unique in terms of being at the centre of both the Japanese and American birth of MMA and with the Lion's Den helped create the model for training camps. His feud with Tito would first reassure the UFC that there was a market for the sport and then deliver huge ratings first with TUF3 and then the third fight. That final fight was really what cemented MMA in the American media mainstream, and opened a lot of the doors for the sport. And of course by dropping out of the Kimbo fight he killed EliteXC when it was on the brink of being bought by CBS.

 

Sure it can. Name me a champion with Jeet Kune Do base?

I get that Bruce Lee is cool. I get that we all love him. But do we have to go along with this goofy hype from Dana that somehow MMA sprang from Lee speculating that it would be cool to mix things up in the sixties and seventies? Especially when the two paths the sport would take had already started - the Helio Gracie had been having mixed fights since the 1930s and Inoki was starting to experiment with mixed pro-wrestling matches in Japan in the 70s.

 

That's probably the best answer in this thread, at least in terms of American MMA

 

Not really. The backlash had begun before McCain, spurred on by the way SEG often promoted the sport. And he only picked it up because the only success of the sport freaked out boxing promoters. In any case as Snowden argues in Total MMA there's a good argument to be made that MMA was a victim of wider political forces - with cable providers offering it up as a sacrifice to the 'moral majority' to stop them banning cable porn.

 

Yes really.

It was the 1st time UFC was mentioned in the mainstream press with the infamous ''Human **** fighting'' quote.

The moral backlash strangled the life out of the NHB era.

Weight classes were introduced eliminating the freak show element of the early UFC's

The URMMA were introduced as a result, creating a sport

The safety regulations introduced made it more appealing to serious athletes that we see today.

Zuffa bought the franchise due to SEG's financial difficulties, seeing the potential in MMA as a sport

I could go on and on. McCain inadvertently had a big hand in legitimising MMA as a sport in the States.

 

Again, the backlash began before McCain. It was always going to come due to entrenched interests that UFC challenged and the way the sport was promoted in the early days. And most of the changes you sight to the backlash would have happened in any case as they got to grips with what the sport was becoming. Weight classes is a good example - the introduction of weight classes was more to do with a recognition from those within the UFC that as the quality level increased it just wasn't fair to have such large weight differentiations between fighters.

Now I'm not saying he wasn't the figurehead or that the backlash wasn't important but to say he's one of the five most influential people in the history of MMA is silly.

 

And the **** really hit the fan when McCain got involved and started his campaign, for whatever reasons

 

Agreed. Again the backlash had a huge role in the development of MMA and McCain's support massively amplified its effect. I just don't see the argument for McCain being the most influential man in the growth of MMA after Helio, Rorion, Royce and Rickson Gracie.

Now another question is which of the four Gracies had the most impact?

 

Maybe not the most impact, mainly the catalyst and a different perspective from the answers you get in these type of threads

And Helio, definitely Helio. Then Royce, Rorion and Rickson