THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL MMA HANGOUTS

by Ryan Meehan
 
Mixed Martial Arts was a newer sport that I really gave a shot.  I tried to follow it because I was a fan of the comedian that does the color commentary.  I attended a couple of the pay per view events and found that the ratio of good fights to lame fights was about 50/50.  Half of the fights were really good, half of the fights were really weak. 

But, like anything else that bores me to death, eventually I lost interest.  It became tired and as much as I like blood my focus towards all things MMA dwindled. 
 
So since we here at FOH are always willing to help out, we have outlined the seven habits of highly successful MMA hangout so that YOU can cash in on the trend before it disappears. 
 
1.  A Jukebox full of wrestling rock
 
I should probably define this beforehand:  Wrestling rock is that bullshit like The Disturbed, Shinedown, Avenged Sevenfold that you ALWAYS hear at these types of bars.  It’s that music that’s a background to all of those really empty threats your hear like “If I had my Whey Protein jar right now I would totally kick the shit out of you”, usually followed by “Let’s do a shot.”  Characteristics of this genre include:  Grainy, unintelligible distortion on the guitars, a drummer who listened to way too much hip hop growing up, and plenty of sleeveless T-shirts.  But there’s no law against listening to shitty music, so go on and “get down with the sickness”…I’ll be outside urinating on your car.  I might get arrested but at least I don’t have to listen to some guy with a chain wallet sing karaoke.  BOOM!
 
2.  Complete Lack of Interest in any other sport whatsoever
 
MMA is a lot like NASCAR in that very few of its followers watch other sports.  And most of their fans tend to make snide, snooty comments about organized sports such as NFL football because either the rules are too difficult for them to remember or they have a thing for dudes in trunks.  This one is probably due to the fact that these MMA guys pour EVERY ounce of their energy into fighting; leaving them to find themselves completely disinterested in any sort of other competition.  Still, part of me doesn’t understand this.  If you were a competitor you’d want to see how other athletes perfected their craft, right?  Apparently not.  Another reason this cracks me up is that out of any sport (team or individual) MMA has the longest pre-game/fight show ever.  They just keep talking about it.  They even do these in depth reports on the under-undercards which nobody knows anything about outside of the announcers and the fighters’ families. 

3.  Bad clothing
 
Mixed Martial Arts clothing is some of the most ridiculous looking shit in the world.  And incredibly feminine too.  All of the shirts are almost skin-tight and have names like “Affliction” or “Extreme (Insert Fighter Name Here)”.  And they all have flaming skulls on them like the tattoo your father got when he was in the Marines.  You know, the one that he showed you and said “Don’t ever get a tattoo, you’ll regret it”.  Almost every major fighter has a clothing line and to this date I haven’t seen one that I would even consider wearing. 
 
Since I hate tattoos, I would say that if you had a choice between wearing this stupid nonsense and getting permanently inked, I’d say go with the T-shirts, because even though they’re more expensive you might end up actually not being a dumbfuck at some point in your life and you can always take the shirt off. 
 
4.  Cocaine / Steroids
 
Want to have a successful MMA bar?  Better know a good coke dealer.  Actually, check that…You’d better know SEVERAL good coke dealers.  You don’t want to run out of what makes people forget how bad Bud Light Lime really tastes.  No surprise that fans of such an adrenaline-obsessed sport would enjoy some Peruvian Flake.  But like I’ve said before, the people who take a lot of hard drugs are generally stupid as fuck before they take them to begin with, and of course being on a drug like booger sugar certainly doesn’t make them any smarter.
 
Speaking of things that are bad for you, I love how MMA guys are always talking about the “supplements” they take.  Supplement is a calmer, gentler way of saying “anabolic steroid.”  The word supplement basically says that you know you probably shouldn’t be taking it, your trainer knows that you probably shouldn’t be taking it, and you’re going to having huge tits in ten years.  In the meantime, it’s keeping General Nutrition Center open as well as giving all of the local trailer park chemists reason to believe they’ll end up working for Xyience.  Give me a fucking break. 
 
5.  Plenty of young women that are dumb enough to fall for any of this shit
 
You think it’s hot that your man is a fighter?  I bet you won’t in ten years when he has permanent brain damage, and speaks out of the corner of his mouth after suffering a debilitating stroke.  But if there’s one thing I know about dumb women, it’s that they enjoy the hell out of seeing two guys beat the piss out of each other.  There’s never going to be any shortage of this.  And it’s sad too because a lot of the women that are into these guys are really attractive, but I think we all know that good looks are usually inversely proportionate to intelligence.  Every bar is crammed full of these females just waiting for these guys to spend their hard-borrowed money pumping them full of fruity drinks until the girl’s friends finally convince them to not go home with the guy.  Ridiculous. 

6.  Cardboard cutouts of Brock Lesnar

Enough said.  Not even worth my time.  Just look the guy up on Google Images and that ought to explain everything. 
 
6a.  Barfights that start for no reason and are usually finished by a bunch of guys that can’t fight to begin with
 
I think we’ve all been in a bar where a fight breaks out and everybody with any common sense moves the fuck out of the way.  The next two minutes consist of a lot of unnecessary macho male behavior where there’s a lot of screaming of intelligent phrases like “Come on, you pussy!” and “Go on and make something of it faggot!!!”  Then about five minutes later the police show up and no one presses charges because no one can remember why the fight started in the first place.  Then the police leave and the fight starts again.  Rinse and Repeat.

7.  The Dream that refuses to die
 
We’ve all seen “Rocky” a million times.  There’s this overall theme of “the heart of a fighter” and it exists in almost every local mixed martial arts practitioner.  They really do think that they are going to make it to the UFC.  This is the nursing home resident that really believes they’re going home tomorrow.  The sport itself allows them to think this because you can start training very late in your life compared to most other organized sports.  You’ll never see a guy try to walk onto an NFL tryout with no previous football experience, that’s all Hollywood bullshit.  These guys are still hanging on to their dream of becoming a professional fighter.  The reality is most of them could probably benefit from some other kind of job training.  And if it’s not to late to be a pro fighter, it’s not too late to go back to school and become a nurse.  #justsaying

…

As for myself, I’m going to stick to organized sports.  The UFC just bought Strikeforce and I couldn’t care less.  And if the NFL ends up being locked out due to the labor dispute, I don’t think it will mean additional fans for MMA.  I can tell that Mixed Martial Arts has dropped of considerably in popularity because they don’t seem to want to report it on ESPN anymore and that’s usually the first sign a fad sport is headed down hill. 

Once again thanks for visiting First Order Historians and enjoying more of the internet’s finest in user generated content. 
 
Meehan