How did you get into MMA?

legal bills from arrests from my 500-0 street fighting days got too expensive.
 
My middle school wrestling coach got me into it. The first live card I watched was the first Chuck Liddell vs Babalu fight.
 
Cousin told me about Ortiz vs Shamrock. Progressively got more into it until a big crescendo during the first season of tuf.
 
Heard there was a broad out there that could beat Floyd Mayweather so I had to see this shit for myself
 
my friend forced me to go to jiu jitsu class. It was over ever since became a lifestyle.
 
Got a copy of UFC 91 and saw Brock KO Couture, but really got into it once i bought UFC 101 and saw Silva step into the matrix, unbelievable, still blows my mind.
 
I’ve always loved boxing and martial arts. I always watched boxing. In the 90s, I watched some of the UFCs but wasn’t really that into it for whatever reason. Probably because all the techniques weren’t as refined as they are today and it looked a bit sloppy.

Then, in like 2002 or something, a coworker of mine showed me some Pride fights. It blew my mind that the fighters were both good on the feet and on the ground. Wanderlei Silva in particular. Not that he was a ground wizard, but he was able to stay out of trouble on the ground. He also showed me the movie Choke. Not the porno about erotic asphyxiation, but the Rickson Gracie documentary. I was hooked. I had to watch every UFC and Pride event from that point on.

He and I became good friends until he died, not from autoerotic asphyxiation.
 
I rented the early UFCs on VHS just because it was cool seeing what a "real" fight would be like. I didn't watch anything after that though.

I was big into pro-wrestling at the time (Meltzer/Wrestling Observer) and he kept up hyping up this old man named Randy Couture and how he was in his 40s and will be fighting for the world title against Tim Sylvia. I tuned in, was blown away and have been hooked ever since. Then, I heard about this guy named Fedor, watched some highlights and then went back and watched all of the PRIDE I could find.

Soon enough, I stopped watching pro-wrestling and graduated full time to MMA.
 
When did I get into MMA?

Before there was MMA. As a kid in the 70s and 80s, I read martial arts magazines, and always wondered which discipline was best.

I was a big boxing fan, especially the heavyweights, but also the weler- and middle-weights, too. I was always a fan of collegiate wrestling and pro wrestling as well.

When UFC 1 came out, I was intrigued immensely and immediately. I didn't get to see any UFCs live until UFC III. I eventually caught up with UFC I and II on tape.

When Randy Couture got involved in the UFCs, I was really hooked. I used to watch him wrestle at Oklahoma State when I was going there in the late 80s/early 90s! Randy Couture was MY hero!

So, I've been into it for a long time. I do not follow it as much as I used to. One of my daughters is into the UFC now, so I do have a watchin' buddy again.
 
Was living in London. Turned on some channel similar to SpIke TV one night (maybe called Bravo?) And they were rerunning all of TUF 4 and then showed UFC 69. I don't know if it was live. I definitely had no idea what I watched take place when i saw Serra defeat GSP. Hooked since then.
 
Was into Martial Arts since the mid 80's when i was a kid and was obsessed with Bruce Lee. Friends and i rented the VHS probably a year after the first event in 94. They had them near the WWF section of the video store. Was a fan, but i also rented Muay Thai event videos as well. I didnt become a super fan until 98 watching Vitor smoke everyone.
 
PRIDE Bushido. Gomi's debut fight in the organization. Right then became a huge fan of his and of PRIDE. Man, those were the days.
 
looktwice said:
PRIDE Bushido. Gomi's debut fight in the organization. Right then became a huge fan of his and of PRIDE. Man, those were the days.
Click to expand...

Yeah man, and getting all the events for free on pirated direct tv from 2001 to 2004 was awesome as well .=D
 
Two months after UFC 8, a guy on my block got the Goodridge/Herrera fight on VHS and a bunch of us watched the crushinating.

I remember feeling like it was some clandestine underground thing we weren't supposed to be watching
 
I didn't get into MMA, MMA got into me!
 
Around 2006 I became more aware of it, started hearing about it more. I'd known about mma since the late 90s but just never caught an interest in it,or knew people that watched. At the start of 2007 I made some new friends that would watch almost every card. They also had a bunch of pride events on dvd. Around the same time I discovered WEC as well. Then I found out about this place when we were talking about Bisping one day, and I went to look up his record. So been into mma and on here for 11 years now.
 
Beer and UFC 1
We were all so stoked. Had no idea what was going to happen.
 
The idea of a sumo wrestler vs a kung fu master (Mike D) was cool to me.
But now mma sucks.... more boring than NASCAR.
 
I'm always suspect of those saying "yo... UFC 1! Saw it on PPV".

I was a sophomore in high school when the first UFC was even televised (UFC 3) on PPV.
I do remember many cable providers saying they weren't going to carry it at all. Where I was it was impossible to get it on ppv because none were carrying it.

That's not to say no one was carrying it.... but in all of my years I had never heard anyone say they were able to catch the first 2 UFCs on PPV until around 2007-2008 on sherdog…. when you first started to get fans won over from TUF (as fucking corny as that is.... a reality tv show with a bunch a dickheads strutting around shirtless). So, after TUF then sherdog started to get flooded. And you knew these guys were new to it.... but then you'd start hearing comments like "oh golly, me and the Main Street boys were watching UFC back when the first one was aired"
 
Was actually a kickboxing match that got me into MMA, since I thought it was all the same at the time. They showed Pride and K-1 altogether growing up.

 
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