Europe, Russia, Africa, and the Middle East

[Eyegouge]

Everyone. How many fighters in MMA come from Europe, Russia, Africa, and the middle east. With the exception of Asia none of the other western countries have made even a decent contribution to MMA. Almost all the fighters in the UFC, KOTC, Pride, and K-1 are from the US, Canada, Brazil, or Asia. Do the western countries in the world just not put out athlets of the MMA caliber? Why don't we see a european champion coming over to fight in the UFC for it's world renowned title? Why haven't we seen a great russian fighter since Oleg Taktarov? I've seen Africa and Austrailia dominating olympic events, where are they in MMA??? Why is the eastern hemisphere such a hub of MMA? Besides Asia why arn't the other countries contributing athletes into our sport?

Maybe I have this all wrong, if so...come in here and correct me.

[JkD187]

Originally Posted by Eyegouge

Everyone. How many fighters in MMA come from Europe, Russia, Africa, and the middle east. With the exception of Asia none of the other western countries have made even a decent contribution to MMA. Almost all the fighters in the UFC, KOTC, Pride, and K-1 are from the US, Canada, Brazil, or Asia. Do the western countries in the world just not put out athlets of the MMA caliber? Why don't we see a european champion coming over to fight in the UFC for it's world renowned title? Why haven't we seen a great russian fighter since Oleg Taktarov? I've seen Africa and Austrailia dominating olympic events, where are they in MMA??? Why is the eastern hemisphere such a hub of MMA? Besides Asia why arn't the other countries contributing athletes into our sport?

Maybe I have this all wrong, if so...come in here and correct me.

Do you watch UFC or Pride????? have you ever heard of the current best fighter on the planet Fedor Emelinkano,Pride Fc champion from russia or his brother alexander......Sergei Kharatnov number one pride belt contender...Andrei Arlovski current Ufc Heavyweight champion.Andrei Semanov and Amar Suloev are good fighters as well from russia.All these guys would wipe the floor with Oleg.....He was a great defensive fighter but thats bout it.MMA is not big in countrys like that so we dont see very many fighter ferom there just like in china.

[sapatiero]

There's a great MMA scene in the UK, one example would be Cage Rage ( http://www.cagerage.tv/ ). But other similar cage events have included Cage Warriors ( http://www.cagewarriors.com/ ), Ultimate Combat and Urban Destruction.

There's the ex-UFC heavyweight champ Ian Freeman, and Mark Weir, who held the record for the fastest UFC knockout. Also fighting in Pride at the mo is James Thompson.

We're a few years behind the US in terms of fighters, but the future looks good. The cagerage coming up in a couple of weeks will have guys like Vitor Belfort, Anderson Silva, Nino Schembri, and Matt Lindland fighting.

BJJ is also doing well here - we have world champions Roger Gracie, Carlos Lemos, Braulio Estima running clubs, and the standard of competitors is improving year-on-year

[blitz]

Originally Posted by Eyegouge

Everyone. How many fighters in MMA come from Europe, Russia, Africa, and the middle east. With the exception of Asia none of the other western countries have made even a decent contribution to MMA. Almost all the fighters in the UFC, KOTC, Pride, and K-1 are from the US, Canada, Brazil, or Asia. Do the western countries in the world just not put out athlets of the MMA caliber? Why don't we see a european champion coming over to fight in the UFC for it's world renowned title? Why haven't we seen a great russian fighter since Oleg Taktarov? I've seen Africa and Austrailia dominating olympic events, where are they in MMA??? Why is the eastern hemisphere such a hub of MMA? Besides Asia why arn't the other countries contributing athletes into our sport?

Maybe I have this all wrong, if so...come in here and correct me.

Only fighters your gonna see from the middle east are in ADCC or the olympics. We have good grapplers here in Jordan, Zaid Mirza got a gold medal in one of the ADCC tournaments and 3-4 others got silver/bronze medals. But I haven't heard of anyone who is in the UFc/kotc/pride/k-1 thats from the middle east, I hope someone can represent us someday ;p

We have a couple of great instructors here but I don't know why they aren't in touch with the scene.

[cam427]

Australia had Elvis Sinosic but that is about the only one I have heard of but I no longer live there so cannot say what the MMA scene is like over there.

[seanyseanybean]

mark hunt-new zealand. Loads from holland like schilt and bonjasky.

[seanyseanybean]

[QUOTE=Eyegouge]With the exception of Asia none of the other western countries have made even a decent contribution to MMA. Besides Asia why arn't the other countries contributing athletes into our sport?[QUOTE]

sorry to nit pick but asia is a continent not a country and it isnt western.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Alistair and valentijn Overeem, Gilbert Yvel, of course Bas Rutten, all for Dutch MMA
And for K-1 fighting well......we rule

Like in the past with US MA events being called world championsships
It is the same with US MMA events, mostly americans are being invited ( north and south)
I see more nationalities in European, Asian or russian event that I do at the UFC
whch to me starts to look more and more like a regional event
So most likely you don't see all these people because the promotor isn't inviting them

[seeker]

The Dutch are pretty tuff. There is a whole lot of tuff mma fighters in Europe, especially in the east and north (the russians are tough as hell). It's just hard to get fights in the U.S. Or at least that's what I've heard. A lot of guys fight in tournaments over here (Shooto etc.). Some guys from the U.S (Alex Stiebling, Jody Poff) have been over here for fights and there's a lot of new starts coming up...

[Spanner]

The upcoming event Jungle Fight 5 in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil on Saturday, November 26th 2005 has two polish fighters (Michal Materla and Daniel Showsviski) and one from Belarus (Vladimir Matyushenko) fighting on the card.

The UFC and KOTC are both US based events and the audience wants to see US fighters at them. Its not as simple as putting two good fighters up there- it is showbiz, after all.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Originally Posted by Spanner

The UFC and KOTC are both US based events and the audience wants to see US fighters at them.

Why then does Pride sell better than the UFC PPVs?

It looks as if UFC thinks the audience want to see US fighters win and the best way to assure that is let them fight US fighters instead of risking that they lose from a foreign fighter

[Eyegouge]

I think that the UFC isn't as partial to americans as you guys are saying. Canadian and brazilian fighters are doing pretty dang well. The heavyweight title, as you all pointed out to dim witted me, is held by a russian.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Originally Posted by Eyegouge

I think that the UFC isn't as partial to americans as you guys are saying. Canadian and brazilian fighters are doing pretty dang well. The heavyweight title, as you all pointed out to dim witted me, is held by a russian.

Although not US citizens, they are Americans

Also it not so much that there aren't ANY non americans fighting, it's just very little of them are seen in the UFC ( compare that to Pride where about 30% is Asian)

[Andrew WA]

What the heck are you talking about??? How can a non US citizen be an American? That makes absolutely no sense!!!

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Originally Posted by Andrew WA

What the heck are you talking about??? How can a non US citizen be an American? That makes absolutely no sense!!!

Does a Canadian live in (north) America or not? the America's are 2 continents pleople living there can be called American just as people living in one of the European countries can be called European

the US doesn't have the copy right for America and American