attended my first mma event

last night i atteneded my first live mma event at the Ruckus in the Cage in VA. i was surprised at the level of some of the guys and how good a few of the fihgts were. i was very curious if they would find some real fighters or if it would be a glorified tough man competition or something.

what have you guys experiences been like watching these sorts of local organizations. one comment is that there is a great desparity between the small guys and the big guys. the majority of the smaller guys looked good and in shape and almost all of the 205 lbers on up looked both soft and considerably less skilled, which wasnt a huge surprise.

there were very few of the extended striking wars that we often see in the bigger organizations, and this could have been because of the size of the cage combined wtih the level of skill of the participants. very little leg kicking and stuff because everytime someone through a leg kick they got put on their back or at least tied up immediatiely.

onen other comment is that the croud was awful. that was no surprise but come on. every time the fight hit the ground the whole place went ballistic. "stand em up ref blah blah blah". i mean a guy slams a guy (crowd is fine with slams but then your supposed to pop right back up apparently) lands in side control, quickly mounts, and everyone is screaming for a stand up. the guys got the mount with his legs grapevined and he has only been there for like 25 seconds.

anyways it was a good night of fights and there were a few wars so im glad i went.

Good to see guys out supporting the local scenes. My experience has been all over the board. The last small show I was at had a huge card (probably almost 15 fights) and only 3-4 guys that I felt were ready to be out there. Still, it was in a real venue and looked to be sold out with the fans enjoying the action. I've been to some others where every fighter was at least in shape and had some skills. But one of the great things about MMA is that regardless of the skill level guys have to fight hard or they get embarrassed and hurt, so there's always good energy in the fights.

Funniest comment I heard about small-event shows was a guy who said something like "I know at that skill level that most of the fights are going to be won after a failed guillotine attempt"...keep that one in mind next time you watch one, it's actually pretty accurate.

that really is funny as a lot of guys ended up on their back trying to get a guillotine