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X Games forerunner to success of Ultimate Fighting
Championship
It's amazing to see the success of Ultimate Fighting Championship
these days after such a rocky start to the sport not so
many years ago. Politicians spoke out against the upstart
organization and threatened sanctions if the group tried
to put on a show in their state. Then State Athletic Commissions
threw in an assist by refusing to grant licenses for the
competitions and refusing to clear participants to compete.
Factor in the pay-per-view carriers who shunned the product.
Even the pugilistic aspect of the sport was mocked and
dismissed by mainstream media outlets and sportscasters
as pure barbarianism. The fact that the brawls were indeed
a bit short on protective rules for the combatants didn't
help. Ironically, that just may have fueled the sport's
rise up the awesometer.
So go try and grab just any table at your local Buffalo
Wild Wings or Hooters on Fight Night and you may have
some slim pickings. More and more, the tables are reserved
for the bloodthirsty fans of what is fast becoming the
most popular extreme sport in the world. Whenever UFC
holds one of their gala pay-per-views, over one million
fans purchase the event. Bars, pubs, and rec-rooms are
packed with screaming devotees to the art of the knockout.
But does UFC have a cousin they should be thanking for
the meteoric success the group has seen in the last five
years? You bet-----the extreme sports that have come to
be known as the X Games sponsored by ESPN. They were the
first outfit to score big-time on the awesometer. Hell,
the X Games invented the awesometer.
Now 15 years old, the Olympic-style extravaganza was the
forerunner to UFC. Technically, both entities officially
launched their mainstream efforts in 1993. The first-ever
UFC pay-per-view was November, 1993. And ESPN first televised
the X Games in the summer of 1993. But the sports that
comprised the X Games had been around and growing in popularity
for years. It was finally in 1993 that a vehicle such
as ESPN saw the profitability in corralling a number of
the extreme competitions and televising them globally.
That's not to say that gladiator fights haven't been around
since recorded history. But the X Games were a tamer animal
and one the viewing public was ready to be more receptive
to. The inaugural X Games were a major success featuring
the mind boggling exploits of skateboarder Tony Hawk among
others. The X Games ignited a thirst in the American sports
viewing public for competitions and athletes that were
tougher, grittier, and crazier than the typical NFL player.
That's pretty crazy. And the X Games were the first to
blast into the sports cosmos that year.
The first events put forth by the UFC were novel in their
concept. The promoters wanted to host an 8-man elimination
tournament to determine who was the best cage fighter
in the world-regardless of his style or discipline. But
those early events were dominated by the systematic ground
fighting techniques of the legendary Gracie family. Frankly,
except for the occasional one-minute bloody thrashing,
the first few UFC events were boring throwbacks to the
days of legitimate professional wrestling. A lot of long,
boring holds and various attempts at escapes and takedowns.
Of course the contests are much more exciting today now
that a semblance of safety structure and other rules have
been established.
As UFC rakes in its millions and brawlers such as Brock
Lesnar, Chuck Liddell, and Randy Couture become megastars,
they should pay homage to the originators of organized
extreme sports. Without the X Games and its much wider
original audience, UFC may not have had the legs to withstand
the political and media scorn. But thanks to the daredevil
tricks that Tony Hawk, Shaun White, and Andy MacDonald
wow'ed us with in the earliest days of the X Games, extreme
sports became less of a brutal, misunderstood concept
and morphed into an accepted new entry in the sports landscape.
UFC should be grateful.
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