Great News?
I posted previously about the premature demise of the British Fighting Championships. I was fired up about it and was gutted when i learnt it wasn’t even going to get off the ground. The format was great – a tournament to find the outright Uk #1 at each weight and an event that could rightly call itself the premiere MMA event in the UK.
Hmmmm!
We’ve heard of BAMMA before, when it wasn’t a promotion but more an attempt to unify MMA in the Uk. In fact they were involved with bringing the UFC to the uk way back at UFC38 “Brawl at the Hall” in 2002-ish.There’s a link here. I’m not sure if this BAMMA is anything to do with that BAMMA… maybe someone can enlighten me?
Now we learn that a new promotion has come along – BAMMA (British Association of Mixed Martial Arts) which has subtitled itself “the fighting premiership”. Ok sounds good so far: Also announced with this new promotion that seemingly sprang from nowhere is a TV deal with bravo for a 3 hour show which airs shortly after the live fights. Waaaaaaaaaaait…. didnt the BFC announce a Bravo deal which then fell through.
So how did BAMMA pull this off? Well it’s an unconfirmed suspicion of mine that certain promoters in UKMMA will actively seek to destroy rival promotions by the most unethical practices (ie not just by being better, but by actively sabotaging them). It comes as no surprise then to learn that one of the “figures” involved with BAMMA is someone who has openly declared his disdain for one of the key groups involved in the BFC – Warrior Promotions. This certainly falls under the “things that make you go hmmmmm category” of UKMMA happenings. This of course could just be me getting all “conspiracy theory” and so I will remain open-minded.
It doesnt fill me with anticipation to discover that the TV company behind the program is the same one behind Fightin Hurts (man that show was awful, well the one I saw was!) and OJ Boring err i mean borg is going to present. But i’m gonna give this the benefit of the doubt and get behind it, as I’m a fan of UKMMA and there’s no doubt that we will benefit from a new MMA promotion and a full 3 hour slot on a big(ish) channel is a pretty sweet deal for getting exposure for UKMMA. The challenges for BAMMA is getting those who have been around a while to buy-into the idea that they are indeed the Uk’s “fighting premiership”. I’m not sure just showing the event in a posh nightclub instead of a cinderella-rockafella sticky carpet kind of place is the way to go though, they need to go take it all round the country and get bums on seats in big venues. Also the fighter pools in the BFC (when they were announced) were STACKED. There was some awesome matches lined up for that. I hope they manage to get the same calibre of fighters for BAMMA. They already have a few: Tom Watson (war KONG!!!) and John Maguire, Abdul Mohammed and Che Mills are all signed up. I hope they can bring in some of the other big names that the BFC had slated (Leigh Remedios, Ashleigh Grimshaw, Jean Silva, Paul McVeigh, Tom Blackledge) but we’ll have to wait and see.
I’ll be watching (or at least setting my Sky+) to Bravo on the 27th june and seeing how it goes. Please god just don’t let Dave “d’yerwannabeafiiightaaaaaa” O’Donnell appear on screen. I think he does his best work off-camera and his TV persona is a little OTT for my personal taste. I will put up a review after I’ve seen the show, stay tuned for more news/developments
links:
http://www.bamma.net/
http://www.bravo.co.uk/shows/bamma/
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