A few years ago, the mere mention of submission, choke or ultimate fighting probably wouldn't have been the topic of conversation in any sports bar, let alone featured on wide-screen televisions.

But that's all changed thanks to the mixed martial arts league called the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The UFC has evolved from Sen. John McCain's much-ballyhooed "human cockfighting" description to one of the fastest-growing spectator sports.

American Top Team (ATT) Florida MMA team highlights 2008 (You Tube)

However, the negative publicity over its no-holds-barred brutality sent the UFC into a tailspin and near bankruptcy. The UFC was sold in 2000 to Las Vegas-based brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta and White, a former amateur boxer.

White took over and continued to move UFC in the direction of eliminating the "anything goes" format to its current status using a list of more conventional rules.

Over time, the sport had already added weight classes to better match opponents and banned moves such as eye gouging, strikes to the back of the head and neck, groin kicking and head butting.

Even Sen. McCain dropped his opposition to the restructured sport, saying it had "grown up."

"There is a parallel to NASCAR," said Bas Rutten, one of the sport's most colorful and well-respected MMA fighters and trainer for more than 20 years. He is vice president of the International Fight League and trains YouTube legend Kimbo Slice of Miami.

"That sport had illegal roots as well, and slowly it went mainstream but retained a renegade aura," Rutten said. "People are always intrigued by the baddest guy on the planet and who has the biggest cojones. You have fans with a huge economic diversity. There is an international appeal. A lot of people, networks, cable and sponsors are getting involved.

"These fighters are not dumb guys who just do things," Rutten said. "I think fans are becoming more educated to the fact that it takes technique, and I think television is helping with that. It's presented as a sport with real athletes and not barbarians. Sixty percent of all the mixed martial artists have a college degree. Tell me what other sport can say that?"

Said Randy Couture, 44, a UFC Hall of Famer and 13-time UFC champion viewed as arguably the best MMA fighter: "It's nice to see that people finally get it ... that we're not a bunch of thugs and criminals. That we are normal guys, most of us college educated, who chose to spend their free time in a combative sport."

Because of the UFC's success, other promoters and leagues have spawned, including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's HDNet Fights, EliteXC with Slice as its marquee headliner, IFL, World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), M-1 Global, Bodog, American Fight League and others.

More states are recognizing the sport's popularity by sanctioning events. Since 2000, 37 states — including Florida — sanction pro MMA cards under the same athletic commission general rules applied to boxing, including drug and steroid testing.

As bans were lifted and licenses granted, MMA has become a billion-dollar industry.

South Florida MMA hotbed

South Florida has been a popular site for mixed martial arts for years, with various academies and local events, including grappling, kick boxing and black belt tournaments. When the sport started gaining more television exposure and local fighters started competing on the road, people started to take notice and get more involved, Guerriero said.

The Feb. 16 EliteXC /Showtime card featuring Slice at the BankUnited Center on the University of Miami campus attracted a sellout crowd of 6,187, the largest gate in the history of the venue. The International Fight League world championships at the Seminole Hard Rock Live Arena last year attracted a bigger crowd than most of its pro boxing events.

Many South Florida boxing gyms are adding a cage for MMA fighters to train.

American Top Team, with its headquarters in Coconut Creek, is one of the most well known success stories both locally and nationally.

"I saw this coming; I knew MMA would take off," said American Top Team Coconut Creek head instructor Ricardo Liborio, a world champion in Brazilian jujitsu.

"I have been doing this a long time, since I was 15 in Brazil. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is huge in America and Japan. There are still many countries that haven't heard about it. Just wait until they do. Just watch."

Liborio came to the United States in 2001 for six months. He returned to Brazil and sold his interest in Brazilian Top Team. A year later he moved to Coconut Creek, where he became partners in American Top Team with Marcus "Conan" Silveira and ATT president Dan Lambert.

Silveira and his brother, Marcello, opened a martial arts academy in South Beach in 1996. Both were dominant Brazilian jujitsu black belts. Among their students were Guerriero and Lambert.

Lambert started helping several Brazilian jujitsu competitors who wanted to get into ultimate fighting. He paid their way to fights and sponsored them so they could train full time. His fighters quickly started dominating various shows and gaining attention. It was then he decided to open a full-time training facility in Broward County.

The Coconut Creek facility is home to some of the best professional and amateur MMA fighters and is known as one of the nation's top teams, rivaling Gracie Academy, Xtreme Couture and Milletich Fighting Systems. Several have left jobs and loved ones and relocated families to train at ATT.

"I knew the chances to build it up into something really big was enormous, and the marketing would be great because the United States is the capital of the world," Liborio said.

"UFC is the biggest we have right now," Liborio said. "In many ways it is still a brand new sport. We are competing against the sports that have been here for centuries. Not just the Olympic sports, but sports that get a lot of money and recognition like football and baseball. We're not just fighting our way into mainstream but also fighting against everybody trying not to let us in."

 

Sharon Robb can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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