UFC 93 Marcus Davis and Irish MMA
Welcome back mma fans. I have been away a long time so the site has been dead for a while but its back with a bang with plenty of updates on the way. Without further ado:
Being an MMA fan from Ireland is not always the easiest thing. There are maybe two clubs that are in anyway decent in their approach to training and lack sufficent funding. The old school boxing gyms, although depleted in recent years still reign supreme and "serious martial artists" give little credit to MMA in this country. So with all this in mind I was flicking through the Irish times a national paper here and my eyes nearly fell out of my head when I saw an interview with Marcus Davis,the supposed "Irish" hand grenade. I say supposed because his grandfather was Irish thats as far as the Irish roots go. UFC 93 is taking place in Dublin and sold out within a day.(no I did not get a ticket in time anyone selling one PLEASE contact me) . Excuse my lapse in journalistic integrity. This event will be promoted through Marcus Davis as he is the only "Irish" MMA artist who has had any real exposure. Although a lesser known yet genuine Irish fighter has fought at UFC 80 Colin "Big C" Robinson. He has a 0-2 record in the UFC and a supposed 9-8 record in MMA.
An Irish fighter who will be appearing on the UFC 93 card is John Hathaway. He is a native of Ireland with a 9-0 record he has appeared in Cage Rage and Strikeforce and looks to have a lot of promise. With occurances like this , Irish MMA can prosper and begin to bloom into a fully flreged sport with a strong home fanbase.
Without further ado here is the article that was printed in the Irish times:
Tom Tiwan
Ultimate challenge to boxing's future
Ireland's
Marcus Davis celebrates his first-round knockout victory over Jason Tan
at UFC 72 in Belfast in June, 2007. "The next generation will be
sitting there watching mixed martial arts. They are not going to watch
boxing." - (Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP).HOME AND AWAY MARCUS DAVIS: Gavin Cummiskey talks to a former Irish boxer about the rapid rise of the Ultimate Fighting Championship or MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)
"BOXING
IS a dying sport. It's unfortunate and no one wants to hear that but
it's not as entertaining (anymore). People are sick and tired. They are
still watching the big fights. Sure, I mean everybody loves - like I do
- watching Ricky Hatton or (Floyd) Mayweather fighting.
"But there are not enough Ricky Hattons or Mayweathers out there to sustain the sport."
Has it got too greedy?
"Ah, it is ridiculous," claims professional boxer-turned-UFC fighter, Marcus Davis, aka 'The Irish Hand Grenade'.
Earlier
this year, veteran boxing scribe George Kimball's riveting book Four
Kings hit bookshelves worldwide. It was an insight into a golden era of
the sweet science when "Sugar" Ray Leonard, "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler,
Roberto "No Mas" Duran and Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns duelled to
become, pound-for-pound, the best boxer on the planet.
The names just rolled off your tongue.
That
debate continues to rage to this day but Kimball's book merely removed
the scab on a corpse. The body has long been identified as professional
boxing.
The best you can see these days is has-beens like Roy Jones Jnr or Oscar De La Hoya showing up for another pay day.
Granted,
a 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins shocked those who bothered to tune in
when beating up the smaller, undefeated Kelly Pavlik last month. Not
many people noticed because not many people have heard of the
middleweight champion; that's Pavlik by the way.
Let's not even get started on the decrepit heavyweight division.
A
resurrection is not out of the question but, like everything in life,
boxing appears to be replaceable. Rising from the ashes of pay-per-view
catastrophes is the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), also known as
MMA (Mixed Martial Arts).
Everyone has seen snippets, be it on
television shows like Friends or Entourage, while names like Randy
Couture and Chuck Liddell are slowly seeping into society's
consciousness.
The Setanta Sports package, forced upon me by a
Jiu-Jitsu -obsessed roommate (careful, this man is dangerous),
constantly shows reruns of past fights and the hugely popular reality
TV show The Ultimate Fighter - think Big Brother with a weekly fight to
decide the evictee.
The UFC or MMA is basically what it says on
the tin. There are former professional boxers like the "Irish Hand
Grenade" Marcus Davis — whose grandfather Kenneth MacKinnon-Thayer
hails from Waterford (think John Mullane after 25 years in the gym,
scary I know) - and even a former member of the pantomime that is WWE.
But after probably finishing off the legendary career of Couture
recently, the gigantic Brock Lesnar is not to be sneered at.
That
Ireland's own Wayne McCullough and Hatton are regular figures on the
edge of the Octagon is hardly a ringing endorsement of their own trade.
"People have got a little sick of the fights," said Davis this week from his base in Bangor, Maine.
"In boxing you've got so many guys who end up getting to 30-0 and never getting really tested."
Like
a few Irish boxers currently plying their trade? "Yeah. If you go and
watch a live boxing card, before you sit down in that seat, you already
know who is going to win or who is supposed to win because they are so
miss-matched.
"People used to always pay to see Mike Tyson, even
though they knew he was going to win, but they paid for it because he
was just a freak.
"With UFC every single fight is competitive.
There are no 'upsets' really. Anybody can beat anybody because there
are too many variables. If someone is good with their hands, you got
feet, you got knees, you got take downs. You got the clench. You've got
elbows (a Davis speciality). There are too many weapons so anybody can
beat anybody on any given day in mixed martial arts.
"Boxing has
always been a sport passed down the generations. When I was a kid I
would sit with my grandfather and watch Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin
Hagler fight. The next generation will be sitting there watching mixed
martial arts. They are not going to watch boxing."
The UFC is
coming to Dublin, at the formerly known Point Depot (now the O2 arena)
on January 17th. Davis is currently in training for this "homecoming of
sorts" against fellow veteran Chris Lytle.
Ever since the UFC
went global, Davis has sought to fight abroad with his last five fights
in England and one first-round knockout against Jason Tan in Belfast.
For that fight the UFC changed his name to 'The Celtic Warrior',
presumably to avoid creating unnecessary tension, but this incensed
Davis due to his boxing knowledge.
"I didn't change it. The UFC
made me use Stephen Collins's name, which I didn't like because that's
him. I wouldn't want to steal his name.
"Not this time. This time I'm going to be the 'Irish Hand Grenade' or, I told them, I just want to be Marcus Davis."
Now
35, he only made his UFC debut in 2003 after a respectable 17-1-2
record as a super middleweight. Davis is quick to note his only loss
came off a technical knockout after Ed Bryant opened a still
troublesome cut above his eye back in 2000.
The switch into MMA
proved a long, arduous process that saw him lose three of his first six
fights as he struggled to keep the wrestlers and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
experts off the deck. Once on the ground he was pretty much screwed.
That
has since changed. Winning 13 of his last 14 fights, he no longer
requires his southpaw stance or vicious left hook to survive. He can
take an opponent out with a guillotine choke, an armbar or an Achilles
lock.
"Originally when I started, I tried to learn how not to go
to ground and then once that didn't work out I started learning, if I
did get taken down, how to get back on my feet without getting
submitted. When that didn't work I got to the point where I understood
if I was going to be a mixed martial artist I had to become one - not a
boxer in a mixed martial art sport.
"I just buckled down and
became totally obsessed with working on the ground. I didn't throw one
punch for six months. When I came back and started fighting again, my
manager and trainers (Mark DellaGrotte and the late Grand Master Seung
O Choi) set me up with strikers so I would get comfortable taking them
down to the ground and submitting them.
"The biggest thing about
being able to learn quickly and pick that up is that you've got to be
able to move on your back. For a striker, guys just learn how to throw
punches and kicks. They don't really learn the footwork but this is key
as it will put you where you need to be to throw the punch or kick or
it can get you out of the way.
"Jiu-Jitsu is the same. On the
ground you might be able to submit somebody or whatever or hold
somebody down but if you are on your back you can't move fluently. You
can't move yourself out of positions and be able to hold positions
directly.
"It comes down to movement again. I learned how to become squirmy and move on my back."
Still
consider it barbaric? Then stop reading. We're finished anyway. Make
your own mind up when the latest craze to grip hold of both North and
South America (it is huge in Brazil, Japan too) lands in Dublin in 2009.
What you need to know about the UFC
ACCORDING
to Wikipedia: "The concept for a tournament to discover the world's
best fighting style was the brainchild of Art Davie, a southern
California-based advertising executive. Davie met Rorion Gracie in 1991
while researching martial arts for a marketing client. Gracie operated
a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school in Torrance, California and the Gracie
family had a long history of vale-tudo matches - a precursor of mixed
martial arts - in Brazil. Davie became Gracie's student."
Initially
termed "human cockfighting" by Senator John McCain, the MMA title
replaced 'no holds barred' as the sport regulated itself to become
acceptable for primetime television. It is now available in 36
countries worldwide.
The UFC was initially flooded by street
brawlers, the most famous Hall Of Famer being Ken Shamrock but the
arrival of Jiu Jitsu experts like Anderson Silva ("The Spider") and
wrestlers like Matt Hughes has seen it dramatically evolve.
The
current rules for the Ultimate Fighting Championship were originally
established by the New Jersey Athletic Control Board. There are now 31
fouls that can lead to disqualification.
Every round in UFC
competition is five minutes in duration. Title matches have five such
rounds, and non-title matches have three. There is a one minute rest
period between rounds.
There are five weight divisions between 145 to 265 pounds. All fights take place in an octagonal caged enclosure, The Octagon.
The
current heavyweight champion is former WWE wrestler Brock Lesnar, after
he took the tile last month from the great, but 45-year-old, Randy "the
Natural" Couture.
Touts on the Las Vegas strip were charging up
to $1,000 for tickets into the MGM Garden Arena while the Ricky Hatton
fight against Paulie Malignaggi a week later, at the same venue, was
only a sell-out due to complimentary seating.
The UFC is owned and operated by Zuffa, LLC with headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Irish
Olympic silver medallist in Barcelona, Belfast-born boxer Wayne
McCullough, who has been based in Vegas for the past 16 years, is an
official UFC ambassador.
This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times
