Welcome to the MMA project

MMA Project Universe  ||  Backstory/Landscape

MMA has been a growing sport, and not until the early 2010s did MMA become a sanctioned amateur sport all across the world. Different type of Martial Art gyms started opening up at the turn of the century, and it started to lead to competitions within disciplines (wrestling tournaments, BJJ competitions, Point Fighting Karate, etc.). Then in 2008 a family in America decided to host a Cross Discipline Tournament, their first show featured two different cross disciplines competitions: Kickboxing and BJJ cross, Muay Thai and Wrestling cross. It was a hit, the question of ground vs striking could finally get an answer. The renamed their company Crossover Combat

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Crossover Combat changed the way the sport world looked at Martial Arts, before it was just a self-defense practice, but now people could then see what was the most superior. In the beginning BJJ was by far the most effective strategy to win any competition that involved BJJ. BJJ practitioners won 83% of their cross competitions. Then after their domination, wrestlers wanted a chance to go against BJJ practitioners, and that started Ground Competitions, which was a 10 minute competition, two 5 minute rounds. Either the fighter with the most control won, or it ended via submission. In the beginning BJJ fighters won most of the time, but then the wrestling community realized all they had to do was defend against submissions because they would get top control easy; so then a 25% win percentage for wrestlers swelled to 50% in a years time.

Then the striking community wanted a chance to see be able to combine all disciplines, boxing was already a professional sport, but there was no way to prove what striking style was the best.  So Crossover Combat started Standing Competitions, which became the biggest hit for the combat sports world, boxing was the only combat sport that most sport fans saw, and then videos of flying knee KOs, spinning kick KOs, started to show up on the internet in late 2010 from Crossover Combat.  The whole thing basically became an overnight sensation.  It became the only other combat sport other than Boxing to be broadcast on Live National TV.  They would only air their striking competition nights, but the ratings came back a huge success and they broadcasted their striking competitions for several years.

Then that bled over to the ground competitions, where Combat Grappling then became a competition, where you had to submit your opponent or KO your opponent with ground striking only (no striking in the clinch), punches, elbows, knees, all were fair game. (This still is a popular amateur competition)

Their company renamed to FIVE Promotions, which represented the five ways to beat someone in a competition: Standing Striking, Submissions, Ground Control, Ground Striking, Clinch Work.

FIVE actually wasn’t the first company to do a Complete Mixed Martial Arts, there was a company in Mexico called Blood Fight Company which introduced a type of fight that had 4 rules: No eye pokes, no nut shots, tap to finish fight, or knock out to finish the fight. They called the fights ‘Finisher Competitions’ if no one was finished in 15 minutes the fight was a draw. They introduced that in October 2010. Not clear if FIVE drew inspiration from them or if they already had this idea coming, the family says they were trying to draw up rules for a Complete Mixed Competition after they saw the success of Combat Grappling, but nonetheless, January 2011 FIVE introduced Mixed Martial Arts.

The rules were this: Competitors will wear Padded Headgear and 5 ounce gloves (so they could still submit people). No Eye Pokes, No Nut Shots. Two 5 minute rounds. 3 judges would score the entire fight, so it wasn’t round by round scoring (it was just to give them a halftime/break) it was a two minute break. It actually didn’t have quite the success they thought it was going to have, every single competition they introduced blew up and more and more people would compete in it, but not MMA. It was very different start for MMA. When the sport started BJJ and wrestlers DOMINATED the competitions. Strikers had no way to defend a takedown, and they would get taken down and just get destroyed, and it was like most of the competitors didn’t know they could tap and several arms were broken, many fighters went to sleep, so of course naturally why would you compete in something where you get the brakes beat of you and you just have to take it? Most of the strikers quit MMA and just stuck with their disciplines.

The family wouldn’t give up on the idea because they wanted to expose what the most superior martial art was at the time. That’s all anyone in the combat world wanted to know, and it was clear, wrestling and BJJ. For a couple year it really was just wrestlers and BJJ who would strike for a little bit and then go to the ground. For a lot of people it was boring. But since wrestling and BJJ got complacent since they were so dominant they really weren’t evolving.

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The whole landscape of MMA started to change in 2013; striking gyms started to teach how to defend takedowns, and how to get back up to their feet. One gym in particular excelled at this, they were the only striking gym that never stopped competing in MMA. Weston Brothers Striking was the name of the gym, and they are still the king of MMA going into the transition of a professional sport. They realized from the beginning all they had to do was not allow the other fighters to take them to the ground, so then the whole focus of the gym was to become anti grappling, be the best defensive grapplers ever. The scoring criteria was control, whoever was in the most control of the fight would win. So even though Weston’s fighters weren’t getting battered or submitted, they were still getting out controlled. Finally, Weston’s fighters were starting to break through and start winning MMA competitions, they focused on keeping distance and make the other fighter pay if they try to close it. Other striking gyms started to see how easy it was becoming for Weston’s fighters to win, the grapplers looked like fish out of water on the feet, and everyone knows every fight starts on the feet. So they started adopting their training methods and before long MMA had some balance.

In 2017, the first ever MMA show was broadcasted on live national TV. The numbers were good enough to keep going. While the fighters were ‘amateur’ they will still get compensated, but it would depend on the gate and TV money, and then they would break down pay by spot on card and by Win or Loss. The fighters wouldn’t know how they got paid until the day after.

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But thanks to FIVE and Weston Brothers, there is now going to be professional MMA. The idea for professional MMA (a base salary) has been talked about since they started being broadcasted in TV so 2017, and then finally in January 2024 it was announced that MMA is going to be a sanctioned professional sport. It took almost 7 years to lay the groundwork/foundation but now there is a governing body for MMA called the MMA Project. They have been getting donors and recruiting businessman and poaching people from other sports to help lead the way for professional MMA. SIDE NOTE: In 2020 (in our universe instead of COVID this what happened) several American High Schools introduced Martial Arts disciplines for students to train and compete in. The main ones were BJJ, Karate, and Point Muay Thai (any KO resulted in DQ from all competitions) (wrestling isn’t on there because already have Wrestling in the US). Many other countries followed suit. Russia is currently the only country that has high school MMA; other countries are hoping to adopt it in the next few years.

Starting in July 2024, the first professional MMA card is going to be broadcasted to the world.