8 Reasons Every Guy Should Love MMA

Everybody knows the guy at the bar. Typically wearing an Affliction or Tapout shirt and has some variation of a mohawk. If that is you, please stop. They look terrible enough on the fighters entering the octagon and they fight each other for a living. You most likely don’t. A safe rule to live by: Any shirt with a face of yourself on it probably isn’t acceptable for public.

While David Spade may not be the best, logical or even easiest choice for “celebrity,” I think you get the point. From Shaquille O’Neal to Jason Statham and everyone’s favorite ex-con Mike Tyson, the UFC and MMA is all the rage among those much, much wealthier than us. Lucky for us, during waiting periods between fights, the UFC will typically highlight all of those A, B and C list celebrities for us.

We beg you not to click play on the video above. It is the worst injury we have ever seen in a MMA fight and it was on cable television to top it off. On that note, we expect 100 percent of you to click play. We can all sit here and act like we don’t want to see a brutal knockout or a submission making one of the fighters tap out. We can be honest with ourselves. We do. Fans love those moments where you have to look away, but thankfully television will replay it for us 15 times in a row. There are videos that will traumatize even the strongest of some gruesome, eye popping injuries. Youtube videos get dedicated to those career ending moments, but we keep coming back for more.

A personal favorite game of ours is to guess or count the fighter’s entourage on their absurdly long walk to the octagon. As shown in the photo above, BJ Penn had four people strictly holding his banner for a recent fight of his. My guess is his total number neared eight. If you are tuning in late, it is easy to guess what type of fight it is by the size of the fighter’s entourage. The smaller, the lesser caliber the fight probably is. Go ahead and tune out for a while. WGRD will suffer through those matches for all of us.

It doesn’t even matter if you have no clue who those fighters are. The way they talk about each other now, ten months later, excited to watch them punch each other in the mouth. Since the dawn of their pay-per-view era, the UFC has continually put on some of the best “hype” videos in all of sports. They air them right before their events. The problem is the adrenaline rush that comes along with these highlight, warrior themed packages is the first few matches are full of lesser known fighters and may disappoint. Kudos to the UFC for making us want to get in a bar fight while we wait, though.

When the weigh-ins for an event are talked about in the press before they even happen, a good thing is about to happen. The picture is of notorious trash talker and current pound-for-pound best fighter in the world Anderson Silva. Outside of his accomplishments in the octagon and in the sport, Silva is known for the way he treats his opponents both in the octagon and out. He will talk to you non-stop before and during the fight and if he doesn’t agree with your style, he will mock you in front of the hundreds of thousands of pay-per-view buyers and those in attendance. UFC president Dana White doesn’t find it so funny though, almost penalizing Silva on a number of occasions. Honorable mention: Nick or Nate Diaz

Bruce Buffer is a man’s man. Don’t believe us? Look at that picture. That is a UFC ring announcer with massive biceps…carrying a shotgun on a red carpet event somewhere. If anybody questions why you love this sport, simply show them this picture and walk away. Buffer harkens back to the days where booming vocals and excitement in your voice can really entertain a crowd and television audience. For anybody not familiar with him, just imagine the opposite of FOX broadcaster Joe Buck.

OK, so we lied and said we would not mention ring girls. But at this point, anything in this post that you are reading is keeping you from searching for Arianny Celeste. You are welcome.