Реферат: Russians and Mixed Martial Arts

<span Times New Roman",«serif»">Russians

<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"> and<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US"> MixedMartial Arts

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<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Too many times by now I have been asked the same question: Why are thereso few Russian fighters in MMA? And every time I had to answer that it’s a verylong conversation and that it would take

<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"> me<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US"> a while to explain so that my opponent would get aclear picture of the situation. And indeed this is a long story and I feel thatthe time has come when I finally should reveal the whole misterious foggyspirit around this topic, since nobody yet has done it before me.

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<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US">We all know that MMA is realatively new sport. It had gained a hugepopularity  in Japan, USA and finally inEurope. As we may easily notice it was successfull mostly in well-developedcountries. But what about non-developed or poorly-developed ones? Have you everseen an MMA fighter from Bulgaria? Romania? Uzbekistan? Iraq? Well, maybe, butthey are so few that we can not even remember their names. The reason why thereis no MMA fighters from non-developed countries is well known and needs noexplanation: a poor standard of living. When it is hard to feed yourself youwont even think about participating in any fighting event. Unfortuanately thisissue also refers to almost all of the ex-Soviet group.

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<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Popularity is what makes any sport survive. One of the main reasons MMAdidn’t get the same popularity in Soviet block as in the other countries isdefinitely a lack of media coverage. Media cannot broadcast something that isunknown to the mass. Or at least they could do it only if there was a potentialto raise up the popularity and make money out of it. Something that Russianmedia never does. As far as it is not practiced, that may only mean that thereis no point for them to introduce this kind of sport to the Russian mass sinceit won’t be profitable enough. This fact by itself means a lot — people inRussia are not yet ready for this. This may also take some time. On the otherhand martial arts always existed in Russia, even in Soviet socialism period.And the final summary?  People there dealwith much more important things. To explain that, we should refer to Maslow (awell-known American economist) and his „Needs“. As we know people all over theworld (not only Russians) at first satisfy their Basic Needs (that would befood, place to stay, basic clothes, safety, etc) and only after succeeding inthat they move futher to Social needs (and that would be mostly communicationand dealing with other people and entertainment). After these Social Needsfollow another 3 categories which we are less of concern to us.

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<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Focusing back on our issue one might ask what is MMA? Namely it is ashow and as far as it is considered as entertaiment it is definitely inthe Social Needs part. We may easily guess that as fast as people cannotsatisfy their Basic Needs they can not move to Social ones. This is whathappening in Russia and all of the other non-developed or poorly-developedeconomically countries. As I mentioned before, the living standards inex-Soviet countries are lower than in European countries. Therefore, peoplethink about increasing their budget rather than participating in any MartialArt event and I am not even referring to MMA, which is well-known but yet notpopular at all.

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<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US">The other very interesting factor that should be mentioned is a wrong ormisconcieved  translation. Usually aphrase „Mixed Martial Arts“ is translated to Russian as „No Rules Fighting“.And as we all know Russia (and the other republics of the USSR off course) hadsuffered a very long period of time under a Socialism system which itself is avery conservative system. Full of strict rules, illogical and totally uselesslaws which sometimes were harmful to the people. From the very beginning ofyour life you had not just to follow those silly rules but even had to contributesomehow to the development of the Soviet Socialism Disaster. That’s how peopelived and continue to live even now no matter if things had changed a long timeago (15 years I consider enough to change you views).  But on the other hand we have no right tocriticise those people because when you are born and raised up in thesecircumstances it is difficult or even impossible to change anything. So when itcomes to „No Rules Fighting“ the usual reaction would be at first a deeptourturing thinking then a few cautious steps back and finally a runaway infull and complete ignorance (metaphorically off course).

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<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Martial Arts were always linked with outlaws and criminals in the earlypost USSR period and this tradition is still kept even today. So when peoplehear a phrase “Mixed Martial Arts” automatically they would associate MartialArts to criminality. They may ask what it consists in since this phrase is notfrequently used. When they hear the explanation: No Rules Fighting, they justrun away. That is the mentality, that is what our brilliant system did to us.People think that if I practice any martial art that means that I am mostprobably a criminal, that is the usual logic people follow.

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<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US">However I must say that MMA always existed in USSR and Russia. Apartfrom some traditional village-on-village fighting or some other ancientfighting festivals that are held mostly in villages and which may look likewestern MMA but in a more raw version, there were a real NO RULESFIGHTING in Soviet period (in the middle 80’s to be more particular), whichas you might guess were illegal and therefore were organized in deepunderground. Not because people were not interested but mostly because ofbrutality and lack of civilized rules (what was civilized in USSR anyway?).Fighters used to fight without any protection and sometimes even to death. Asusual those events were organized by criminals. Eventually, the bloody andbrutal tournaments disappeared. Maybe people got smarter, now they do not getdisabled in the ring. One may also assume that the government improved, whoknows, but even though criminals never lost their interest in MMA (NRF).Nowadays they just switched the bloody and illegal No Rules Fighting of theSoviet period into legal and very profitable Mixed Martial Arts tournaments inthe Modern Democratic Russia. They might have lost the best part ofentertainment – Hardcore beatings, but evolved it to a much more better thing:profit. They’ve created a highly profitable monopoly business. I should say thatmostly all of the present MMA tournaments that are held today in Russia areusually organized by criminals or at least with their useful cooperation.People know it and that’s another reason they try to avoid it. It refers tofighters as well, once you got into this stuff you will never get out. Whoneeds such a challenges in his life? Not many I guess. Nevertheless, we have topay a tribute to these criminals for developing this sport in our countries. Ifnot them – MMA would still have been in the underground. But now, thanks tothem, it eventually gains more and more popularity.

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<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US">At this point I have to say that fighting sports and martial arts ingeneral were and are highly developed and ranked all over the ex-USSRcountries. There are hundreds examples: in boxing: Klitchko brothers, KostyaTzyu; in wrestling – Alexander Karelin; in MMA – Fjodor Emelianenko and thislist may be continued for a long time. Martial arts separately were alwaysdeveloped in Russia and USSR but unfortunately they never united like they didabroad. We have a great stand-up fighters, great wrestlers, grapplers but we donot have well-rounded MMA fighters. Actually, I do not think that it is aproblem. It would be enough to look at the most popular versions of MMAtournaments: the Japanese PRIDE and the American UFC: both are dominated bySlavs from former USSR countries – Russian Fjodor Emelianenko and BelorussianAndrei Arlovski. Some other great Russian fighters (like A. Emelianenko, S.Kharitonov and others) participate in those events but did not get on the topyet. I will emphasize it again – it is not a problem. Their presence makes alot of other fighters be frightened… Not quantity but quality – that is ourmotto. We had a huge experience in other Martial Arts and almost none in MMA.As soon as we, Russians, learn how to unite our Martial Arts and share ourexperience we will present much more fighters who will definitely succeed justlike other Russian fighters in all of the other fighting sports! MMA will notbe an exception! Long Live Russia! 

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