10 things I find interesting...

We spent all summer researching into a certain subject and topic and obviously we needed to have been pretty into it to spend quite a long time researching and also producing graphic products for it. I looked into Samurai culture and mixed martial arts, I went through a phase where I didn't know which of the two to be a specific focus and which should accompany the other. In the end I looked more deeply into Mixed Martial Arts and my Samurai and Japan research gave a really good background and foundation.

Here are 10 things I find interesting about my subject:

1. The idea of Bushido. Samurai's lived by a code of Bushido, "The Way of The Warrior" when I was reading up on Bushido and the Samurai lifestyle and reading literature such as Hagakure and Torii Mototada's last statement, where he chose to stay behind and battle thousands of men while his master fled, I was fascinated by it. It's obviously very much real, yet I can imagine it out of the scene of a movie, it's like the movie 300 - but real. I find the death before dishonour attitude that Samurai's have very interesting and Bushido fed into my MMA research surprisingly well and wasn't forced.
2. The MMA fighter lifestyle. I found myself becoming very interested in the kind of life a modern mixed martial artist lived. I was pretty shocked by the amount of dedication and will a fighter has. I understood it was their career and livelihood but some fighters more often than not were more than a mixed martial artist, they happened to live and breathe the warrior lifestyle, but just happened to test themselves in a cage or a battle now and then. Just like a Samurai did.
3. Idea of a fighting style being more than a hobby. One of the main purposes of my research was to look into the roots of mixed martial arts and to discover and confirm that it wasn't just something 'invented' in the 90s, it's roots are just as rich and old as any other sport or martial arts in the world. I remember watching CHOKE, a documentary featuring Rickson Gracie, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner and saying a quote about without Jiu-Jitsu you cut off his legs, you get rid of all the values and principles he lives by and that's what I found. A fighting style, isn't just the way you fight, but the way you live and go about your life. Not always the case, it depends on the fighter and his/her background but often so. MMA fighters aren't just prizefighters, they usually have a lot more to them than that.
4. Similarities between Samurai and Modern MMA. One of the core principles of my research was to investigate the two and see if there are any striking similarities between the two. I actually found a number of striking similarities. For example the idea of leaving it all in battle, being fearless, respecting your opponent and also leaving the hatred for your opponent in the battle and being a good sportsman afterwards, even the idea and similarities between masters and teachers, clans and dojos/gyms.
5. Japanese graphic design. While looking into Pride FC, a Japanese MMA promotion I was pretty impressed with the graphic design and concepts they had and the differences between early 90s UFC posters and early 90s Pride posters from Japan. Massive difference, I found myself genuinely interested in Japanese art and graphic design through Japanese research aswell. Even creating some Bushido posters trying to reference Japanese style. I find Japanese graphic design to be very different to a Western style, with a much difference sense of humour, sense of colour and visualisation showing through. Definitely something I'm going to look into more.
6. Cultural differences between USA and Japan. It's no secret that while UFC and mixed martial arts was struggling in North America for a good part of the late 90s and early 2000's. Being labelled "human cockfighting", while in Japan, crowds of up to 50-60,000 were watching the same sport take place, with a much different brand image and cultural influence. Japanese loved MMA and wanted to see a good fight and two warriors go at it, no matter who won or lost. I was really interested in this and wanted to look into the martial arts and Samurai spirit engraved in their culture which led to such as acceptance of mixed martial arts.
7. Evolution of MMA. Mixed Martial Arts is now apparently the fastest growing sport in the world and I wouldn't be surprised. The first UFC event is one of the first true MMA events that ever took place, it had an aura of a spectacle but wasn't really a sport. It had the aura of literally a fight. No rounds and no time limits. With people of wildly different physiques and backgrounds going at each other. Nowadays it's very much a sport. With weight classes, weigh-ins and drug testing and everything else a legitimate sport has, I've found it great to see how much it's grown and continues to grow and further merge into mainstream consciousness. Almost replacing boxing. Recently the fighter Jon Jones was the first MMA fighter ever to become a globally recognised Nike athlete, which puts him in the same league as stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and so on. This is huge for a sport that was very much underground 15 years ago.
8. The sport itself! I love the sport and I love it more now after this research as I feel I know a lot more about the sport and it's roots and what the fighters go through. You have so much more to consider when two fighters are in the ring than when it's two boxers for example. Here you might have a striker vs a grappler, who will prevail? Or you might have two strikers going toe-to-toe? Sometimes you have a fighter who is lethal on the feet but his weakness is on the ground. Will the other fighter manage to get him to the ground? The crowds are also amazing and the more I watch it, the more I become more engrossed with it. Nowadays the UFC is THE place to watch UFC and they have a very consistent level of presentation. The ring announcers are the same, the referees are the same, the commentators are always the same, even the leading journalists are always the same and it creates a familiarity. It's almost like a UFC family; that I reunite with a couple of times a month to see the next card and see what will happen this time.
9. The best fight the best. In MMA nowadays there's one main mma organisation, the UFC. Ultimate Fighting Championships. Back in the day there were other MMA organisations scattered, just like there are now, but the two that were in a league of their own were UFC and Pride FC. These two had 2 of the best fighters rosters out there. Unlike with Boxing and fighters having their own agents, interests and promoters - the organisation in a way 'owned' the fighters. The organisations matchmakers chose the fight and that's simply what happened. Fights get made quickly and painlessly and the fighters fight more often and always face who the fans want to face at some point.
10. There's only one belt! Again, unlike boxing. Depending on which promotion you follow, each promotion will have ONE belt in each weight class. Nowadays with the UFC's dominance, if you're the UFC Heavyweight Champion, you're pretty much the heavyweight champion of the world. With modern day boxing there's about a million belts, WBC, WBA, WBO, NABO and so on. You don't know who is simply the BEST. In MMA, and more specifically the UFC, you have one undisputed champion. It adds more prestige and interest in the belt with all these other fighters in the weight class vying for an opportunity to fight for the belt.
11. Psychology and skill involved. A lot of people have the wrong idea of 'cagefighters' as they derogatorily call them. Just a person who's pretty 'ard and liked to beat people up for money. Very wrong. A Mixed Martial Artist is, nowadays a very accomplished fighter who has spent years honing his craft. For example a fighter like Anderson Silva is a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a Black Belt in Judo, a Black Belt in Taekwondo, and an accomplished Capoeira fighter along with constantly training in Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Boxing and pretty much anything else you can think of. This is absolutely crazy technically and a 'complete' fighter in every sense of the word and I find this really interesting. A lot of people say in MMA the fighters just 'grab each other and roll around' but in a real fight this is what usually happens? When you're against the cage in a REAL fight and the other fighter is just as good and just as fast as you, you need to do anything you can to win and the ground game is a whole artform in itself.