Banned in california.

This wouldve been a dream come true for me as a kid.

These kids are gonna be great fighters. Starting so young.

What do you guys think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7xmjeup8U4

Hate it

I think it's a great opportunity for kids to start learning useful fighting skills early, as well as a providing a method of discipline and competition within a safe venue.

It's interesting that other combat sports children and youths participate in (including boxing and TKD) allow head contact, the most dangerous element of sport fighting competition, while kid's Pankration/MMA does not.

If kids put on a gi or glove up in boxing shorts and hit each other in the head no one seems to mind. Put kids in fight shorts in an MMA cage with stricter protective rules and suddenly it's bordering on child abuse.

The commentators in the film talk about "protecting" the kids, cool, then let's start first with banning the most dangerous activities, skateboarding, bicycling, skating and basketball. And while we're making the world safe for kids, we need to close all the playgrounds as well.

...and football and soccer!

Right on the money, Tim!

and hotdogs and grapes.
and pools.
may as well get rid of plastic bags and TV sets which can tip over and kill millions of children every day.

Bob#2

I guess the way they see it is that mma is violence while skateboarding has accidental violence as a side effect.

Good point Timber, the mistake is thinking that learning to cope with violence is the same as teaching a child to be violent.

The doctor said that most of the injuries were hand related.

I think the biggest stressor would be the competitive aspects of mma, but not something that any other type of full contact competitor would go through. I dont see any logical reason why it should be banned.

I'm going to gather that much of the protest stems more from the perception of adult MMA (the commercials showing bloody faces, the card chicks, the angry "mean", the gladiator like octagon etc...) as oppose to what MMA actually is. I'm also going to guess the this perception is owned by people with no experience or knowledge of fighting sports. There's this perception that traditional arts are OK, because it's promoted as "self development" on top of being able to kick someone's ass, so it's considered "cultured" and "educational". I think most people, if not all, that hold this belief know little to nothing of what MMA is, and have no experience in fighting sports. There this local sports columnist where I live that wrote an article about how you did not see MMA as a "martial art" or "sport", because he could not see the "art", "sport" or "skill" in just beating the crap out of someone, and that it was all just violence. But he thought boxing was a legit sport, and also wrestling... I asked him if he had ever been to an MMA gym, which he has no reply. I asking him if he knew that boxing and football cause more long term risks from repeated head trauma and concussions, which he had no reply to. I challenged him to actually visit an MMA or BJJ school, take a class, and see if it's just mindless violence without skill, which he had no reply. I told him that I've met more BJJ and MMA people with positive attitudes and are some of the least violent people I know, compared to a lot of other contact sports... which he had no reply. I suggested that he find another profession, which he had no response to.

Craig,

It doesn't matter if he takes a class or not. Even if he changed his mind and wrote a pro-mma article many people Knute world still view mma as just violence.

It will take time and the right marketing to get mma as popular as boxing. They'll need mega super stars like they do now: Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Chael Sonnen, etc. Jollywood will need to make more movies capturing the glory of mma instead of the blood. The show Sparticus has incorporated a lot of bjj in its battle aches which I find really annoying. But Sparticus also has lots to tits in it which most kids and moms aren't seeing.