what got you hooked to mma?

Tank Abbott and the talent from TUF.

 

i was already interested and kept a vague eye on the mma scene but ken vs tito made me a diehard.

 

Started out as a very casual fan as a kid. UFC 1 was a day before my third birthday, so I grew up renting the early UFC's from the video store and watching them with my brothers. Didn't really become a hardcore, never miss any event fan until about 2008, when I, like the TS, got my hands on Fedor's career after watching some Best of Pride DVDs. I watched every fight of his in chronological order, and that got me hooked. I went back through history and watched everything I could find and educated myself on everything that I missed. So really, I have only been a massive fan for about four years. Feels like longer.

 

Got hooked back in 1991. Two years before the first UFC.

A friend of mine suddenly started acting invincible when we'd go clubbing and was picking fights with guys twice his size and he was beating them with ease. I later found out he was studying BJJ with one of the Machado brothers and I got in on it and within weeks, I felt like the most invincible mother ****er alive because I knew that nobody else knew BJJ.. those were glorious days..

A couple years later in 1993, the UFC started up, we knew Royce was going to school everybody and one day I was rolling with a guy untrained in ground fighting. I pulled him into my guard and he pulled a pen out of his pocket and started scribbling on my chest and he told me that if it were a knife, I'd be dead.

Then I realized BJJ wasn't as invincible as I had thought, then Maurice Smith KO'd Conan Silveira and shocked the NHB world and now the sport/art is full of douche bags.

 

big bro got the first UFC when it came out. I was about 5 or so. None of us gave gracie a shot at winning since he was so small. when he won i realized fighting is about skill and not who punches the hardest. Left an impression on my puny mind

 

That was true until UFC 5 when Ken Shamrock landed that hard straight right that ****ed Royce Gracie up so badly, that he knows he got saved by the clock and was on his way to losing the fight.

Then, he disappeared into retirement only to resurface a few years later to fake paralysis to duck Mark Kerr, and get choked unconscious by Wallid Ismael.

 

This guy:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JderqbD5gLM[/ame]

I had seen a bunch of the earlier UFCs on tape and DVD, but nothing really caught my attention like Jens demolishing guys in his first UFC run. I started watching as many of his fights as I could find, I loved the way he fought (and still do). He was probably the first fighter I was a fan of.

From him I went to Bas, BJ Penn, Duane Ludwig, etc.

From there I found Pride, and off I went....

 

Pride 1 to the first Pride Grand Prix was the Golden Era of MMA.

 

Pride

 

I remember the media being all over the little guy in the gi - Royce Gracie, and then Gracie shocking everyone by winning not just UF1, but also UFC2.

I was curious watching the competitors being introduced as black belt in this art and brown belt in that art, and a minute after the opening bell most of them were fighting like drunken streetfighters

 

It was nothing like that at all. There was no drunken street fighting of any kind. Royce simply got into the traditional BJJ southpaw stance, felt the range with a lead kick, gauged the distance, shot in for the takedown and the rest of the fight was nothing more than an infomercial on how ridiculously easy it is for BJJ to overcome any other style once the fight gets to the ground.

If anybody was drunk, it was Art Jimmerson and the one boxing glove on one hand but that's about it.

There was nothing even remotely close to resembling drunken street fighters when Royce introduced America to GJJ.

 

Matt Hughes, and then the ultimate fighter 1 and ive followed forrest griffin since. havent missed a fight since UFC 97

 

not to go off topic but, is Pulver the most successful boxer to cross into MMA? not counting james toney of course.

 

I wasn't referring to the Gracie fights with the drunken streetfighting comment. His were the exceptions. Have you even seen the early UFC matches?