Ultimate
Over the past year or so I've become a big fan of Ultimate Fighting Championship. I started checking it out after catching a few episodes of The Ultimate Fighter series on Spike. It's basically a reality show masked as a fighting show and I fell for it. They spend the episode building up a few guys and then at the end two guys fight in the Octagon and the winner continues while the loser packs his bags and heads on home.
The show has been a huge boon to the image and perception of UFC. For it's earlier years, UFC was called "human cockfights" and it was based around tournaments featuring a boxer vs. a karate guy. A judo master vs. an amateur wrestler. As the sport has evolved, it's much more than that now. No longer are guys specialized in one discipline as "The UFC Style" has become it's own art form. A fighter has to be skilled in striking, takedowns, grappling and submissions. If he's not, he's in big trouble.
I think that's what happened to Royce Gracie this past weekend when he got soundly defeated by Welterweight Champion Matt Hughes. Gracie won the very first UFC tournament and was undefeated in the sport. He worked a Brazillian Ju-Jitsu style that had never been seen before and worked a very defensive pace that waited for his opponent to make a mistake so he could slip in one of his devestating submission holds.
The key phrase there was "style that had never been seen before..."
Cut to 2006 and Gracie makes his return against, arguably the best fighter in the world, Matt Hughes. The sport has evolved and now you have to learn all styles and be aware of all possibilities in order to compete at that level. Hughes pounded Gracie and handed him his first UFC loss. It was sad to see Gracie lose, but it was a definite passing of the torch. The new generation is here and the sport has changed. Evolve or get out of the way.
That can be said for a lot of aspects of sports and/or entertainment. Evolve, grow, take risks and learn something new. If you're not doing that then why are you in it in the first place?
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