Why hasn't Europe or Asia had more success in UFC/MMA?

Trifick said:
UK and Russia dominate boxing. But it hasn't translated to MMA. What is it, the camps, lack of training facilities, lack of wrestling, what? US and Brazil are still running everything.
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What are you talking about? There are 3 European UFC champions at the moment.

Asia - yes you are correct. There are not many talents who make it in the UFC. I put ot down to travel and a massive culture shock if they eliminate the travel and move West I.e. from Korea to the US. That being said - the Korean Superboy looks impressive and is a huge talent in the FW division.

Again I do not agree with you regarding European fighters in MMA and the UFC. Not sure where you are coming from with that comment.
 
Because kids here care about football, you make way more money, fame etc from it without having to get punched in the face.
 
Paradigm said:
You make it sound like if the US stopped playing our sports you mentioned, we couldn't find success in soccer, cricket or other shit.

We have enough athletic talent, sport infrastructure and money here...import some South American and European coaching talent and we'd do well in soccer eventually. The problem is that those other sports DO exist here.
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Of course you would do well at them, but not overnight. Give it 15-20 years when people have been brought up playing them.

Same with MMA. It wasn't really done here before, give it time to mature and all of a sudden fighters are coming from everywhere.
 
Well I don't know about Europe but here in Russia we have two general cases.

It's either Slavic Russians who don't care that much about MMA because footbal, hockey, tennis, figure skating, biathlon are way, WAY more prestigious and popular sports and are usually first choices of millions of kids. MMA has it's fanbase here and everyone knows who Fedor is, but its dwarfed by a at least a dozen of other sports.

Or it's Islamic regions like Dagestan where wrestling is basically the national sport and pastime, but the Russian National team is the number one priority for the elite talent there. If you can make the roster, the pay and benefits from national and local government, especially if you win Olympics or World Championship, are way more lucrative than the UFC salary.
 
UFC is an american organisation, with mostly american judges, a majority of american fighters and that caters primarily to american fans.
european fighters get less oportunities to fight there, less title shots when they are in the org and are marketed less.
snotty mcduck and bisping are a few exeptions, but tehe are shamefull champs ducking contenders.
at least joanna isn't scared to defend and is a worthy champion.
 
IsNormal said:
* I've never known why other countries like Thailand haven't had more athletes trying to transition from muay thai to MMA
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Similarly to Europe, MMA was illegal in Thailand for the longest time.
Recently it was made legal and ONE Championship have been having big events there, with a lot of Thai prospects.
 
IsNormal said:
* I've never known why other countries like Thailand haven't had more athletes trying to transition from muay thai to MMA
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Similarly to Europe, MMA was illegal in Thailand for the longest time.
Recently it was made legal and ONE Championship have been having big events there, with a lot of Thai prospects.
 
If you count Europe as a whole, it already surpassed Brazil, unfortunately :(
 
Asian a level athletes go into ping pong aka table tennis
 
Could it be organized crimelords?
 
The best HW in MMA is from Russia... Minakov. Would smash Stipe.

There are many great European fighters in MMA, 3 of them are actually current UFC Champions.

Asia is far behind though, can't see any Asian champ in UFC, never has been and won't be probably. Too small for the weightclasses (in general), and not good boxing skills.
 
Trifick said:
UK and Russia dominate boxing. But it hasn't translated to MMA. What is it, the camps, lack of training facilities, lack of wrestling, what? US and Brazil are still running everything.
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Because they are more socially advanced.
 
Gorkle said:
Of course you would do well at them, but not overnight. Give it 15-20 years when people have been brought up playing them.

Same with MMA. It wasn't really done here before, give it time to mature and all of a sudden fighters are coming from everywhere.
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I was thinking a decade originally but realized it would take longer. 15-20 is probably right.
 
Trifick said:
Ng'gannou's in America.(Don't know where.) Bisping's in America,(California) Joanna's in America (FLorida,) Schevhenko in America (lives in Houston,) don't know about Volkan. But do you not understand the main point that I'm making?
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Shevchenko lives in Peru.
 
TrainHard said:
Came here for the Conor Bisping and Joanna pics, stayed for the fact that TS has a point.

The obvious answer is Vale Tudo has a long history in Brazil (and that it's generally super violent). Wrestling is one of the top sports in US high schools, in U.K. and as far as I know europe, it's unheard of. Wrestling has proven to be an excellent base for MMA in a way that boxing, which is popular in the UK, hasn't.
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That's not the answer though, so it cant be that obvious.

Eastern European/Asian countries dominate the Olympics in wrestling, judo and boxing. They also have lots of high-level sambo practitioners, which is a great MMA base.

They just aren't nearly represented enough in the UFC and the UFC won't open the pocketbook for any of the real talent. The ones you do see in the UFC generally do very well. If you brought over a significant amount of fighters from that area you would definitely see a definitive change in the MMA landscape.
 
PlayTheGame said:
Well I don't know about Europe but here in Russia we have two general cases.

It's either Slavic Russians who don't care that much about MMA because footbal, hockey, tennis, figure skating, biathlon are way, WAY more prestigious and popular sports and are usually first choices of millions of kids. MMA has it's fanbase here and everyone knows who Fedor is, but its dwarfed by a at least a dozen of other sports.

Or it's Islamic regions like Dagestan where wrestling is basically the national sport and pastime, but the Russian National team is the number one priority for the elite talent there. If you can make the roster, the pay and benefits from national and local government, especially if you win Olympics or World Championship, are way more lucrative than the UFC salary.
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That's really a pretty common problem I'd guess outside Russia as well, the big advantage the sport had during the Pride era was I'd say that it tended to offer good money much more quickly. Fedor for example didn't spend a couple of years on no name orgs, he debuted with RINGS who were arguably the #2 org in the world at that point.
 
Europeans want to be Christiano Ronaldo. Americans want to be The Rock.

So what are our kids doing at high school?

It's football culture vs wrestling culture.
 
Trifick said:
UK and Russia dominate boxing. But it hasn't translated to MMA. What is it, the camps, lack of training facilities, lack of wrestling, what? US and Brazil are still running everything.
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Psssst Irish two weight world champ, and Bisping Middleweight champ. Keep up TS
 
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