Ultimate fights expand to include kids

By MARCUS KABEL, Associated Press Writer 2 minutes ago

CARTHAGE, Mo. - Ultimate fighting was once the sole domain of burly men who beat each other bloody in anything-goes brawls on pay-per-view TV.
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But the sport often derided as “human cockfighting” is branching out.

The bare-knuckle fights are now attracting competitors as young as 6 whose parents treat the sport as casually as wrestling, Little League or soccer.

The changes were evident on a recent evening in southwest Missouri, where a team of several young boys and one girl grappled on gym mats in a converted garage.

Two members of the group called the “Garage Boys Fight Crew” touched their thin martial-arts gloves in a flash of sportsmanship before beginning a relentless exchange of sucker punches, body blows and swift kicks.

No blood was shed. And both competitors wore protective gear. But the bout reflected the decidedly younger face of ultimate fighting. The trend alarms medical experts and sports officials who worry that young bodies can’t withstand the pounding.

Tommy Bloomer, father of two of the “Garage Boys,” doesn’t understand the fuss.

“We’re not training them for dog fighting,” said Bloomer, a 34-year-old construction contractor. “As a parent, I’d much rather have my kids here learning how to defend themselves and getting positive reinforcement than out on the streets.”

Bloomer said the sport has evolved since the no-holds-barred days by adding weight classes to better match opponents and banning moves such as strikes to the back of the neck and head, groin kicking and head butting.

Missouri appears to be the only state in the nation that explicitly allows the youth fights. In many states, it is a misdemeanor for children to participate. A few states have no regulations.

Supporters of the sport acknowledge that allowing fights between kids sounds brutal at first. But they insist the competitions have plenty of safety rules.

“It looks violent until you realize this teaches discipline. One of the first rules they learn is that this is not for aggressive behavior outside (the ring),” said Larry Swinehart, a Joplin police officer and father of two boys and the lone girl in the garage group.

The sport, which is also known as mixed martial arts or cage fighting, has already spread far beyond cable television. Last month, CBS became the first of the Big Four television networks to announce a deal to broadcast primetime fights. The fights have attracted such a wide audience, they are threatening to surpass boxing as the nation’s most popular pugilistic sport.

Hand-to-hand combat is also popping up on the big screen. The film “Never Back Down,” described as “The Karate Kid” for the YouTube generation, has taken in almost $17 million in two weeks at the box office. Another current mixed martial arts movie, “Flash Point,” an import from Hong Kong, is in limited release.

Bloomer said the fights are no more dangerous or violent than youth wrestling. He watched as his sons, 11-year-old Skyler and 8-year-old Gage, locked arms and legs and wrestled to the ground with other kids in the garage in Carthage, about 135 miles south of Kansas City.

The 11 boys and one girl on the team range from 6 to 14 years old and are trained by Rudy Lindsey, a youth wrestling coach and a professional mixed martial arts heavyweight.

“The kids learn respect and how to defend themselves. It’s no more dangerous than any other sport and probably less so than some,” Lindsey said.

Lindsey said the children wear protective headgear, shin guards, groin protection and martial-arts gloves. They fight quick, two-minute bouts. Rules also prohibit any elbow blows and blows to the head when an opponent is on the ground.

“If they get in trouble or get bad grades, I’ll hear about it and they can’t come to training,” he added.

In most states, mixed martial arts is overseen by boxing commissions. In Missouri, the Office of Athletics regulates the professional fights but not the amateur events, which include the youth bouts. For amateurs, the regulation is done by sanctioning bodies that have to register with the athletics office.

The rules are different in Oklahoma, where unauthorized fights are generally a misdemeanor offense. The penalty is a maximum 30 days in jail and a fine up to $1,000.

Joe Miller, administrator of the Oklahoma Professional Boxing Commission, said youth fights are banned in his state, and he wants it to stay that way.

“There’s too much potential for damage to growing joints,” he said.

Miller said mixed martial arts uses a lot of arm and leg twisting to force opponents into submission. Those moves, he said, pressure joints in a way not found in sanctioned sports like youth boxing or wrestling.

But Nathan Orand, a martial arts trainer from Tulsa, Okla., said kids are capable of avoiding injuries, especially with watchful referees in the rings. He thinks the sport is bound to grow.

“I can see their point because when you say ‘cage fighting,’ that right there just sounds like kids shouldn’t be doing it,” Orand said.

“But you still have all the respect that regular martial arts teach you. And it’s really the only true way for youth to be able to defend themselves.”

Back in the Carthage garage, Bloomer said parents shouldn’t worry about kids becoming aggressive from learning mixed martial arts. He said his older son was picked on by bullies at school repeatedly last year but never fought them, instead reporting the problem to his teachers.

And fighters including his 8-year-old son get along once a bout is over, Bloomer said.

“When they get out of the cage, they go back and play video games together. It doesn’t matter who won and who lost. They’re still little buddies.”

The wrtier started off like sounding like a propagandistic douchebag, but at least it ended with a more positive perspective on kids and MMA. I don’t like the idea of kids fighting the way adult practioners do, but with all the protective gear and rules, it really doesn’t sound all like a bad thing. I mean, it sounds safer than football and baseball. I remember as a kid hearing about other kids getting hit in the chest while at bat and dying at little league games.

personally, i like this idea. i like the safety precautions that are being taken. i look at the younger students at my bjj school and wish i could have started when i was that young. i really hate how this article pushes the tired human cockfighting angle and especially the phrase “burly men who beat each other bloody in anything-goes brawls”. but i do appreciate that the writer talked about the safety precautions that were taken and that no one has been seriously hurt.

one of the 14 year old students at my bjj school whose was a near prodigy never got hurt doing bjj or mma but got a fractured skull from playing baseball.

My .02c on this is as long as safety is 1st priority, I would be willing to let my son be involved. Playing sports of any kind with a lot of physical contact, football,hockey, soccer and such is no different than MMA. If safety and discipline are in place for the kids and parents involved, it should teach kids how to fight. My early years growing up in Southeast Asia, you learned to fight at a young age or were beaten constantly with no protective gear. The problems I can see with this is keeping the bully kids in check and also dealing with a lot of whiny parents. Giving the kids a chance to learn how to fight at an early age and the understanding of why they are learning this should help them in their daily activities. Might even keep them away from the Mcdojos who really don’t teach kids how to defend and fight.

Here’s the vid to go along with it.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=7144298&ch=4226713&src=news

Call me a left coast pussy, but I’m not a fan of anything that gives growing kids lots of head impacts, including boxing for pre teens. Pankration would be cool.

Judo makes the most sense for young kids. It sounds like some dads are living their MMA fantasies out through their kids.

I stopped reading when he described mma as bare knuckle.

Carthage delenda est.

Lindsey said the children wear protective headgear, shin guards, groin protection and martial-arts gloves. They fight quick, two-minute bouts. Rules also prohibit any elbow blows and blows to the head when an opponent is on the ground.

All the screaming we do about “realistic training” and this bothers people? No GnP it seems like. This isnt necessarily a bad thing.

Word.

Or BJJ or Wrestling. Nothing involving deliberate (not accidental) head impacts, at least not until they are, I dunno, 13-14.

Sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes those dads lack in the good judgement department.

Little kids getting into MMA is A DISTURBING TRENNNDDD!

http://msn.foxsports.com/boxing/story/7959842?MSNHPHCP&GT1=39002

It’s disturbing and evil in every way that LITTLE KIDS ARE GETTING INTO HUMAN COCKFIGHTING AS PARTICIPANTS!!!

CARTHAGE, Mo. (AP) - Ultimate fighting was once the sole domain of burly men who beat each other bloody in anything-goes brawls on pay-per-view TV.

But the sport often derided as “human cockfighting” is branching out.
The bare-knuckle fights are now attracting competitors as young as 6 whose parents treat the sport as casually as wrestling, Little League or soccer.

The changes were evident on a recent evening in southwest Missouri, where a team of several young boys and one girl grappled on gym mats in a converted garage.

Two members of the group called the “Garage Boys Fight Crew” touched their thin martial-arts gloves in a flash of sportsmanship before beginning a relentless exchange of sucker punches, body blows and swift kicks. [Uh, the author doesn’t know what a sucker punch is. It’s impossible to sucker punch someone during a MMA match if you’re following the rules.]

No blood was shed. And both competitors wore protective gear. But the bout reflected the decidedly younger face of ultimate fighting. The trend alarms medical experts and sports officials who worry that young bodies can’t withstand the pounding.

Tommy Bloomer, father of two of the “Garage Boys,” doesn’t understand the fuss.

“We’re not training them for dog fighting,” said Bloomer, a 34-year-old construction contractor. “As a parent, I’d much rather have my kids here learning how to defend themselves and getting positive reinforcement than out on the streets.”

Bloomer said the sport has evolved since the no-holds-barred days by adding weight classes to better match opponents and banning moves such as strikes to the back of the neck and head, groin kicking and head butting.

Missouri appears to be the only state in the nation that explicitly allows the youth fights. In many states, it is a misdemeanor for children to participate. A few states have no regulations.

Supporters of the sport acknowledge that allowing fights between kids sounds brutal at first. But they insist the competitions have plenty of safety rules.

“It looks violent until you realize this teaches discipline. One of the first rules they learn is that this is not for aggressive behavior outside (the ring),” said Larry Swinehart, a Joplin police officer and father of two boys and the lone girl in the garage group.

The sport, which is also known as mixed martial arts or cage fighting, has already spread far beyond cable television. Last month, CBS became the first of the Big Four television networks to announce a deal to broadcast primetime fights. The fights have attracted such a wide audience, they are threatening to surpass boxing as the nation’s most popular pugilistic sport.

Hand-to-hand combat is also popping up on the big screen. The film “Never Back Down,” described as “The Karate Kid” for the YouTube generation, has taken in almost $17 million in two weeks at the box office. Another current mixed martial arts movie, “Flash Point,” an import from Hong Kong, is in limited release.

Bloomer said the fights are no more dangerous or violent than youth wrestling. He watched as his sons, 11-year-old Skyler and 8-year-old Gage, locked arms and legs and wrestled to the ground with other kids in the garage in Carthage, about 135 miles south of Kansas City.

The 11 boys and one girl on the team range from 6 to 14 years old and are trained by Rudy Lindsey, a youth wrestling coach and a professional mixed martial arts heavyweight.

“The kids learn respect and how to defend themselves. It’s no more dangerous than any other sport and probably less so than some,” Lindsey said.

Lindsey said the children wear protective headgear, shin guards, groin protection and martial-arts gloves. They fight quick, two-minute bouts. Rules also prohibit any elbow blows and blows to the head when an opponent is on the ground.

“If they get in trouble or get bad grades, I’ll hear about it and they can’t come to training,” he added.

In most states, mixed martial arts is overseen by boxing commissions. In Missouri, the Office of Athletics regulates the professional fights but not the amateur events, which include the youth bouts. For amateurs, the regulation is done by sanctioning bodies that have to register with the athletics office.

The rules are different in Oklahoma, where unauthorized fights are generally a misdemeanor offense. The penalty is a maximum 30 days in jail and a fine up to $1,000.

Joe Miller, administrator of the Oklahoma Professional Boxing Commission, said youth fights are banned in his state, and he wants it to stay that way.

“There’s too much potential for damage to growing joints,” he said.

Miller said mixed martial arts uses a lot of arm and leg twisting to force opponents into submission. Those moves, he said, pressure joints in a way not found in sanctioned sports like youth boxing or wrestling. [What about judo or classical jujitsu? Same thing, right?]

But Nathan Orand, a martial arts trainer from Tulsa, Okla., said kids are capable of avoiding injuries, especially with watchful referees in the rings. He thinks the sport is bound to grow.

“I can see their point because when you say ‘cage fighting,’ that right there just sounds like kids shouldn’t be doing it,” Orand said.

“But you still have all the respect that regular martial arts teach you. And it’s really the only true way for youth to be able to defend themselves.”

Back in the Carthage garage, Bloomer said parents shouldn’t worry about kids becoming aggressive from learning mixed martial arts. He said his older son was picked on by bullies at school repeatedly last year but never fought them, instead reporting the problem to his teachers.

And fighters including his 8-year-old son get along once a bout is over, Bloomer said.

“When they get out of the cage, they go back and play video games together. It doesn’t matter who won and who lost. They’re still little buddies.”

Of course, posting this article would be useless without also posting some exerpts from the comments section.

Thank you, Mr. Miyagi:

Yeah, kids aren’t aggressive enough today as it is! This is absurd.

And comparing this to karate classes is disengenious, at best. Self defense is the major emphasis of karate, and kids are taught, first, that fighting is only meant for this reason.

I can guarantee you the purpose of this activity is for anything but.

Mixed martial arts is equal to lacrosse played with stones:

This is ridiculous discussing this.

We have got plenty of “sports”, but somebody beating the living tar out of someone else because they have mental problems shouldn’t be taught to kids.

Tell you what, once your kid gets blungeoned by someone who is stronger and better, call me, and I’ll buy a fox terrier to BLEEP in their face after they lose their BLEEP!

You know who you are you mama boys made he-men! You are sick. Can’t wait to see what kind of sports are on broadcast next.

Time to bring back lacrosse played with stones.

Mixed martial arts will result in deaths caused by twinkies.

This is the sickest thing I’ve ever heard of. Insuance companies should refuse to cover the kids who get injured doing this. See how gung-BLEEP these sick as BLEEP fathers are when they have to pick up the tab for a fractured spine or brain damage.

Who’s going to be held responsible when an 8 year old kills a classmate in a fight over a twinkie at lunch?

No contact sparring is the true way of the jedi:

(let them go at it),god i hope u dont have kids,my son is in karate.they due fighting althought there is no contact.any parent that would let there young child fight in a ring with full contact needs help!!!

Apparently in America kids now fight a lot, instead of fighting being on a continual decline for many years resulting in such things as recruits joining the Army and no longer having any idea how to fight hand to hand…

Oh yeah, this is a good idea, lets teach kids to fight even more than they do now.

Only in America.

BTW, love-french, the whole World plays soccer, only in America, does anyone play football.

But small minds make fun of what they do not understand.

Get my drift…

Judo randori has absolutely nothing in common with MMA in a cage:

Well, my five year old son ‘trains’ in Judo and Jiu-Jitsu. HOWEVER…there’s no way I would let him actually fight. The whole purpose for me letting him do this type of training is the core strength he will develope that will carry over into every other sport and for self defense. But, to let him get in a cage and fight another kid, no way! At that age, all they need to do is train, that’s it.

I save the best for last:

America belongs in a cage.

Why do we love beating the BLEEP out of each other? Because we can’t beat the tar outta someone else?

You people arrrr sick!

Ultimate fighting belongs to imbeciles!

U aren’t one aren’t you, you couch potato BLEEP?

Wow. That article has more spin on it that Shane Warne’s leg break.

Does the idiot that wrote this shit know what constitutes a sucker punch?

I would like to see the sources on the pounding claim.

MMA for Kids as young as 6

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=68904

click the link to see the video I tried to find the one that aired on the Today show but this is the best I could do.

I didn’t see this and posted a link to a video above
here is the link for those who don’t wan’t vist my post.
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=68904 he

I just finished reading the comments from that article, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the majority of people who visit that sight prefer to be ignorant.

Seems like they are given what they want. They want to be given junk news that will get them emotionally riled up. Facts? Unbiased/accurate reporting? Apparently not needed.

I guess I’ve grown too accustomed to this site, and I now prefer to get my information BS free.

Here are the same kids, different commentaries, parents, and a reluctant TKD instructor who would NEVER teach kids MMA. (he he)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=23842058&#23842058

A BLEND OF STR33T FIGHTING, KICKBOXING, AND GRAPPLING!!! :ninjadanc