For the first time, the UFC, the American league where the world’s best mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters meet, is organizing an event in Paris on Saturday, September 3.

With tickets priced at exorbitant rates in June, the 15,000 seats (from 83 to 1,591 euros) at the Accor Arena (Paris-Bercy) sold out in minutes. This shows how eagerly the arrival of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in France was awaited by fans of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), a sport that mixes English boxing, Thai boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, karate, judo and grappling (submission fighting).

The American organization, which is to mixed martial arts what the Champions League is to soccer, could even have filled the Stade de France twice over – there were 200,000 people holding their breath on the waiting list. Its first event in France will be on Saturday, September 3. The show’s highlight will be the heavyweight fight between Frenchman Ciryl Gane – ranked second in his category – and Australian Tai Tuivasa.

“MMA used to be niche, and now it’s becoming mainstream,” MMA trainer Fernand Lopez remarked. He trains Mr. Gane in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, just a few blocks from the arena where his pupil will compete. “Some time ago, I was being interviewed by Karate Bushido and FightSport, and now I’m talking to GQ, Le Monde, Kombini, Brut…,” the founder of the MMA Factory gym in Paris exulted.

Two free-to-air MMA nights on TV

When he isn’t taking hooks and roundhouse kicks from the French champion in training, Mr. Lopez is developing Ares Fighting Championship, a major league at a national level. He was initially its sporting director, but has since bought it from Vivendi Sports with his partner, Benjamin Sarfati.

The day before UFC Night at Bercy, the eighth edition of Ares took place Friday night at the Palais des Sports in Paris, in the 15th arrondissement. Nine fights were on the program, including the top-of-the-bill contest for the women’s flyweight championship belt between Norway’s Ivana Siric and France’s Alexandra Tekenah.

“Ares is on free-to-air on L’Equipe, and now we’re in negotiations with Amazon and Canal+. Our broadcasting rights have grown 12-fold in less than a year,” said Mr. Lopez, careful not to reveal exact figures.

On September 3, the RMC Sport channel has planned to devote 14 hours of live broadcasting to the UFC event. This one will be aired jointly in the second half of the evening with L’Equipe. This is all godsend to help popularize MMA, which seemed an impossible dream a few years ago. For a long time, France was one of the last countries – along with Norway and Thailand – to refuse the legalization of MMA competitions on its soil.

“It flies in the face of ethics, of all the values of sport that we try to uphold,” said then Minister of Sport Chantal Jouanno in 2011. In an interview with Karate Bushido, the former karate champion even compared this to “dogfighting or cockfighting.” For one of his successors, Thierry Braillard, the ban on MMA competitions was justified because it involves “hitting someone who’s down” which “is an affront to human dignity,” in a cage where fights “remind you of the Roman circus games.” But unlike a Roman arena, the octagonal cage is seen by the athletes as protection against missiles.

A bad reputation to shed

Behind the vitriolic outbursts by French politicians was pressure from some national martial arts federations – themselves under pressure from their international federation – who took a dim view of this newly devised competition. “Basically, the French Judo and Associated Disciplines Federation was telling us ‘if you ever do MMA, you’ll be deregistered,” Laetitia Blot, a 2014 world team judo champion who is now an MMA fighter, explained in a documentary aired in April on France 3.

The French MMA commission, created in 2008 by Bertrand Amoussou, eventually won the battle. Fights in France were legalized in January 2020, under the aegis of Roxana Maracineanu. In the audience at the first MMA event authorized in France, in October 2020 in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), the then deputy minister for sports enjoyed the show.

“I was told ‘from the first seconds there’s blood everywhere, it’s horrible…, ‘ but that’s not what I saw. The fighting can be on the ground, hand-to-hand, with punches, kicks… Fighters are always surprising each other, depending on the qualities of their original sport.”

Apart from organizing competitions on French soil, legalization also served to regulate a sport that was already being practiced. “Before 2020, we were training in France and going to fight abroad,” commented Lionel Brézéphin, project manager for organizing MMA in France at the French Boxing Federation, which was appointed to manage MMA following a call for expressions of interest. In 2021, 696 coaches were trained to practice and assist athletes in combat, Mr. Brézéphin explained.

The appearance of sponsors

Today, sponsors have no scruples in associating their image with MMA fighters. Manon Fiorot, one of the few French athletes to make a living from her sport (three appearances on the UFC stage), has already benefited from this. “And that’s thanks to legalization, because previously it was unheard-of,” noted Aldric Cassata, her coach at the Boxing Squad of Nice.

For the former head coach of the French amateur MMA teams, there is a downside. Development of the professional field would hurt amateur competitions which he feels “provide better training for a career.” For example, nine fighters will be in the French team for the European Championships (from September 27 to October 1) organized by the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) in Venice. “There were about 20 of them three years ago,” Mr. Cassata noted.

For Mr. Brézéphin, the next challenge is to get the high-level sporting status by 2025 “needed to establish and secure a living for top competitors.” Asked about the number of current practitioners in France, the MMA director at the Boxing Federation gives a wide-ranging estimate, between 10,000 and 50,000.

Ms. Maracineanu, for her part, says she has no problem with her children being in the next generation to put on shorts and fingerless gloves. “Just because it’s a combat sport doesn’t mean it promotes negative values,” says the former world champion swimmer. “On the contrary, I find that in the modern world it’s important to be in contact with each other.”

Article and photo: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/sports/article/2022/09/03/mixed-martial-arts-is-bringing-its-cages-to-france_5995698_9.html