Fighting in the age of transnationalism: MMA through history
One of the documentaries I’ve found myself watching and rewatching during quarantine has been Fighting in the Age of Loneliness by Felix Biederman and Jon Bois. The documentary covers the emergence of Mixed Martial Arts, first as a combat form and then as a mass-media spectacle. This process mirrors the slow globalisation of the planet, and the strangulation of anything unique into a single homogenous mono-culture. It is with this in mind that I decided I would devote this weeks blogpost to discussing MMA as a transnational phenomenon.
MMA began in Japan, the creation of Kanō Jigorō. A small man, Jigorō modified the existing art of jiujitsu, the martial art of the Samurai, to suit his short frame. He achieved such success at this that what he created became an entirely separate school of martial arts, known as Judo. It is here that the story begins to become a transnational one. Even in Jigorō’s lifetime, his techniques spread outside of Japan. For example his fame was so great that during the visit of former United States President Ulysses S Grant, Jigorō was asked to put on an exhibition of Judo for the visiting dignitary and his entourage. But it was his students who played the greatest transnational role.
Mitsuyo Maeda was a student of Jigorō who embarked on a tour of the Americas, travelling from the USA down through Mexico, eventually ending up in Brazil. Here he became closely associated with the large Japanese immigrant community already residing in Japan, and became an advocate for increased immigration. He even became a naturalised Brazilian citizen. Clearly he was a key part of a transnational network. Maeda was contracted by the circus magnate Gastão Gracie to teach his hellion son, Carlos, Judo, in the hopes that learning this martial art would help keep him on the straight and narrow. In practice, Carlos and his brother Hélio would use Madea’s lessons to create their own martial arts school, which became known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Prideful and relentless self-promoters, the Gracie family went on to push forward the Ultimate Fighter Championship, or UFC, in America, hoping to cement themselves as the undeniable first family of international martial arts.
However, the brash, young, and almost entirely unregulated UFC became a target of regulators almost immediately. Leading the charge was Senator John McCain, who compare it to human cockfighting. The fact that his wifes family had very close ties to a beer distribution chain which in turn was joined at the hip to boxing promotions probably helped that outrage along. MMA would languish for decades in the US. However it would flourish in Japan. The period known as the “Lost Decade” in Japan, when the dreams of one day supplanting the US as the premier economic power died a bitter death, saw an explosion in popularity for MMA, under the Pride promotion. Fighters from around the world, American ex-footballers, Croat special forces officers, and the experts in various martial arts all competed together, with little to no regulation. But the companies long rumoured ties to the Yakuza eventually brought it down, and it was bought out by the resurgent UFC. The UFC had its own alleged links to organised crime, but also what would go down in history as a more important associate. Donald Trump. The future president of the United States was an enthusiast for the sport, just as Grant had been all those years ago, and hosted the promotion in his casinos as it got back on its feet.
UFC, just like Pride before it, has become a home for misfits the world over, like the Irish Connor McGregor, the Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov, and the American Jon Jones. It is also a deeply abusive and exploitative industry built around sucking in talent, extracting the few years of high class performance out of them, then abandoning them to a lifetime of CTE and limited mobility. In this way the corporation has become a key part of, and example of, the transnational economy as we move fully into the 21st century. What began as one man in 19th century Japan has spread all over the globe, and been commodified beyond what anyone living at the time could have imagined.