Is MMA unsustainable as a sport?

you might be on to something there :think things are different now though so who knows. In ancient times they were more bloodthirsty and wanted to see Roman Coliseum type of fights instead though. I don't think most people could have appreciated skill if it wasn't clearly graceful or very brutal.

 

Fighting has always been around, it's just now starting to gain popularity and a wide audience, I don't think it's unsustainable. It might wane in popularity, especially if more fighters gravitate towards a lay n' pray game, but that's the only thing I could see derailing it, it'll always be around.

 

Going by the last few UFC cards I'd say it's in trouble now. Just not entertaining, just WWE without the theatre.

 

Welp, that's your opinion. Popularity might definitely wane, but pure MMA fans would probably find a lot to enjoy in the past few cards. Nothing better than a few surprises, knockouts and awesome subs.

 

It seems the only one organization, that being the UFC can make a go of the MMA business model, but the problem is they pay their fighters peanuts relative to boxing. I think eventually it's going to have to change and pay something like 60-65% of revenues towards salaries, which is what the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB are doing. Might be able to get away with perhaps around 50%, but if they want to succeed, then in the long run, they have to be fair to their talent.

 

The UFC are reaping their rewards, but the good thing is the fighters don't seem to mind and it's the most they can get paid. I would say they deserve any type of sponsors or advertisement they bring, I know Carwin's label was dropped or something from advertising in the UFC. The UFC are basically reaping all the money, when people start demanding more money and whatnot I think that's when less fights will be made and it will all start to get a bit ugly, the way it is now fights only don't happen when they're in eachothers camps or move weight divisions and whatnot. The more money, the more ducking, I reckon.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if the top fighterst have agents within the next 5 years or so. Virtually all sport entertainment figures have them, and some like Jordan and Woods also have a team business advisors as well.

One of the things they'll have to deal with is training costs. I imagine someone like GSP could spend upwards of 75K-100K to train for a fight, if he's bringing in guys like Roach. Now what were to happen if he sustained a major injury just before a card??

 

Doesn't really make much sense, no sport has been around in it's current form for 6000+ years

 

Well Greco-Roman, in it's modern form, was developed in France. Which kind of brings me to my point; sports today can be traced back to old sports, but their modern forms are all fairly recent. The rules of boxing as they exist today have only been around for around 100 years based on where you draw the line. Horsehair was used in gloves until a few decades ago, championship fights were 15 rounds, etc.

Even team sports are fairly new; Association Football (Soccer) is the most popular sport in the world, it's played in every corner of the world, but the laws of the game that actually unified the sport only came to be in 1863. Even with that, it was about 1970 that the modern game started to be played in a way that looks pretty much the same as today.

 

I guess historically there's been no real reason to mix martial arts together into one ring. It would eventually happen but would have to have had the right climate for it, like an already well established competition base for the individual martial art styles. From there, fighters and spectators alike probably saw more interest in an amalgamation. But I really don't know.

 

Two guys from different martial arts background decided to fight and the idea of MMA was born :bbb. I think that's all there is to it. You can't point to any one combat sport. When did the first official MMA fight occur anyway? Maybe two particular styles were most sought after to see clash and it developed from there.

 

The violence in MMA is more socially acceptable these days thanks to violent movies, videogames, I doubt audiences in the 50's could stomach todays MMA.