MAHB Sport

Despite appearances to the contrary, mixed martial arts is more than just the sum of its raw, often brutal, unscripted parts.
By Andrew Whitelaw

Entering the presidential suite of Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands, I’m confronted with a man who looks kind of like me, only he’s 6’4”, tattooed and built like a tank. His name is Alexander “The Mauler” Gustafsson, and my frantic YouTube-driven research the night before featuring his infamous fight with Welterweight Champion Jon “Bones” Jones told me that he was one of the world’s most exciting practitioners of mixed martial arts (MMA).

This was the first of many recent encounters I’ve since had with men (and women, for that matter) who could potentially crush my skull with their bare hands if they were so inclined. I’d never met an MMA fighter before, other than my best friend Max Cotton who I can only describe as a consummate gentleman with a fierce passion for the sport. I say passion, but really, I mean obsession, because as I bluff my way through radio shows attempting to examine this global phenomenon, I’m struck by how much it affects everyone involved.

Sprawling signboards adorned with the letters “ONE FC” would have flooded your line of vision at some stage or another in the last few years, while the US behemoth of MMA, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has begun stomping its way through Asia as well.

It’s undoubtedly “the fastest growing sport in the world”, and its characters and what they do in the cage captivate us. They’re modern-day gladiators, but instead of meeting their untimely demise at the whims of a nonchalant Caesar-figure offering a fatal “thumbs down” (though Dana White, CEO of UFC, might beg to differ!), they’re brought to life in print and on television, and even sit across from me in my radio studio.

Blood and violence have become turn-offs for some; but there’s a feeling you get when you catch a glimpse of the fighters as people and the determination they have to help each other reach their goals. While others are tucked up in bed, they’re running, jumping and pounding. It’s Brazilian Jujitsu for breakfast, Muay Thai for lunch and boxing for dinner. Repetition, repetition, repetition. This is a fighter’s life, 24/7. The dedication involved is almost unparalleled. It consumes them. Every cliché written on every wall of every fight gym rings in their ears. The unity encouraged by the sport is profound, but something I can only perceive.

My sharp tongue might have secured me a job on the radio, but it also got me hit in the face once or twice. I’ve always wondered how the fighters could take so many hits to the face and just carry on. Gustafsson agrees to a face-off, where I stand toe-to-toe with the Viking bear of a man. I see the fury in his eyes. Getting hit is “never a good thing”, he tells me as I laugh. This small dose of reality in no way sanitises my wonder. I feel I’ve just brushed the surface of a whole new world. I don’t fully understand MMA, but I certainly admire it.