what our brilliant system did to us. People think that if I practice any martial art that means that I am most probably a criminal, that is the usual logic people follow.
However I must say that MMA always existed in USSR and Russia. Apart from some traditional village-on-village fighting or some other ancient fighting festivals that are held mostly in villages and which may look like western MMA but in a more raw version, there were a real NO RULES FIGHTING in Soviet period (in the middle 80's to be more particular), which as you might guess were illegal and therefore were organized in deep underground. Not because people were not interested but mostly because of brutality and lack of civilized rules (what was civilized in USSR anyway?). Fighters used to fight without any protection and sometimes even to death. As usual those events were organized by criminals. Eventually, the bloody and brutal tournaments disappeared. Maybe people got smarter, now they do not get disabled in the ring. One may also assume that the government improved, who knows, but even though criminals never lost their interest in MMA (NRF). Nowadays they just switched the bloody and illegal No Rules Fighting of the Soviet period into legal and very profitable Mixed Martial Arts tournaments in the Modern Democratic Russia. They might have lost the best part of entertainment - Hardcore beatings, but evolved it to a much more better thing: profit. They've created a highly profitable monopoly business. I should say that mostly all of the present MMA tournaments that are held today in Russia are usually organized by criminals or at least with their useful cooperation. People know it and that's another reason they try to avoid it. It refers to fighters as well, once you got into this stuff you will never get out. Who needs such a challenges in his life? Not many I guess. Nevertheless, we have to pay a tribute to these criminals for developing this sport in our countries. If not them - MMA would still have been in the underground. But now, thanks to them, it eventually gains more and more popularity.
At this point I have to say that fighting sports and martial arts in general were and are highly developed and ranked all over the ex-USSR countries. There are hundreds examples: in boxing: Klitchko brothers, Kostya Tzyu; in wrestling - Alexander Karelin; in MMA - Fjodor Emelianenko and this list may be continued for a long time. Martial arts separately were always developed in Russia and USSR but unfortunately they never united like they did abroad. We have a great stand-up fighters, great wrestlers, grapplers but we do not have well-rounded MMA fighters. Actually, I do not think that it is a problem. It would be enough to look at the most popular versions of MMA tournaments: the Japanese PRIDE and the American UFC: both are dominated by Slavs from former USSR countries - Russian Fjodor Emelianenko and Belorussian Andrei Arlovski. Some other great Russian fighters (like A. Emelianenko, S. Kharitonov and others) participate in those events but did not get on the top yet. I will emphasize it again - it is not a problem. Their presence makes a lot of other fighters be frightened ... Not quantity but quality - that is our motto. We had a huge experience in other Martial Arts and almost none in MMA. As soon as we, Russians, learn how to unite our Martial Arts and share our experience we will present much more fighters who will definitely succeed just like other Russian fighters in all of the other fighting sports! MMA will not be an exception! Long Live Russia! br/>
