Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 30, 2008
Pg. 1
By Michael Brick
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — The United States military is embracing a combat sport commonly called ultimate fighting that a decade ago was called human cockfighting and largely outlawed.
The sport, also known as mixed martial arts and involving disciplines like jiu-jitsu, boxing and wrestling, adopted safety measures that satisfied most state regulators. It is now soaring in popularity, especially among young men; on Saturday, an event will be broadcast live in prime time on network television for the first time. The armed forces, acknowledging the phenomenon and the suitable demographics, are using the sport not only as a way to build morale and aid in recruiting, but also as a training aid to enhance the skills of soldiers.
To rally the troops, military leaders have welcomed professional fighters with names like Ace and the Huntington Beach Bad Boy. The Army has conducted tournaments among soldiers. In an opinion article for Army Times last year, Maj. Kelly Crigger urged commanders to field a team of fighters on television in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the dominant pro league.
“Many of those viewers are eligible recruits,” Major Crigger wrote. “The U.F.C. provides a great venue to get the Army name into the minds of millions of young Americans.”
Across the service, the embrace of mixed martial arts has come with some reservations. The sport’s emphasis on solitary glory runs counter to the Army’s recent efforts to shift recruiting themes from individual development (Be All That You Can Be; Army of One) to group unity (Army Strong; Go Army).
But as the sport found its audience on channels aimed at young men, recruiters and drill sergeants soon took notice.
In 2006, officials at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California invited the U.F.C. fighter Tito Ortiz, marketed as the Huntington Beach Bad Boy, to attend their birthday ball as a guest of honor. Letters to Marine Times protested the invitation, but it was rescinded only after the Bad Boy indicated that he planned to take his girlfriend, the porn star Jenna Jameson.
Rich Franklin, the former U.F.C. middleweight champion known as Ace, frequently appears on Marine bases. Last year, Matt Hughes, a former U.F.C. welterweight champion, was applauded on a visit to Fort Benning, an Army base in Georgia.
Without any formal arrangement, the military has also produced fighters for the professional leagues. Brian Stann, the light-heavyweight champion of World Extreme Cagefighting, fought in Iraq with the Marines. Last November, a Marine named Will Thiery was promoted on the undercard at an event in Florida called Salute to Our Armed Forces. Staff Sgt. James Damien Stelly, an Army Ranger with three tours in Afghanistan, has gained a following through fights for several professional outfits.
Promoters have sought to capitalize on the common ground. In April, Harrah’s Casino in Tunica, Miss., promoted a fight night billed as G.I.’s vs. Pros.
“You have an organization like the United States Army that in our minds best personifies the combative sports we’re involved in,” said C. J. Comu, organizer of the event. “This is their demographic, 18-30-year-old males.”
Military officials have sought practical applications. In 2002, the Army published a new field manual section on mixed martial arts techniques. Its author, Matthew C. Larsen, the director of the Modern Army Combatives Program, considered competition a powerful motivator.
“As long as we’re all about our values and upfront about what the Army stands for, and that’s being warriors, the question is, what kind of warriors?” said Mr. Larsen, who served as a young Marine in Tokyo and earned several black belts. “The game of mixed martial arts is just that, it’s a game. But the game can be training for the real thing.”
Mr. Larsen has promoted his program cautiously, acknowledging that too much focus on competition could train soldiers to win competitions, not battles. But the shifting nature of modern warfare, especially as conducted in the cramped corridors of Iraqi homes, has helped make his case.
“These guys could be in any situation, from a life-and-death battle with a bad guy to trying to subdue a citizen who has Stockholm syndrome, and you don’t even want to hurt that guy,” Mr. Larsen said. “But you’ve got to have all these moves for all those different situations.”
Army bases around the country now conduct mixed martial arts tournaments, sending the winners to a branchwide championship at Fort Benning. The fourth annual championship, set for October, has been planned to incorporate, for the first time, advanced rules indistinguishable from mixed martial arts. The rules, allowing closed-fisted punches to the head and knee blows, still ban moves considered dangerous, ostentatious or ineffective in battle, like elbow strikes, biting and eye gouging.
In January, the Air Force adopted the Combatives program. The Navy has trained certain units. The Marine Corps has trained recruits in martial arts since 2000, with less emphasis on competition.
There are several professional mixed martial arts leagues around the world, and most have adopted rules since the sport’s early no-holds-barred era, when bloodshed was common and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and his party’s presumptive candidate for president, called the sport human cockfighting. Rules differ from league to league, but most fighters wear open-fingered gloves, and gouges and blows to certain body parts are forbidden.
As military mixed martial arts competitions have gained popularity, the matches have come to resemble the real thing. Since the first Army-wide championship in 2005, commanders at Fort Knox have allowed soldiers to fight inside a six-foot-high steel cage. Mr. Larsen has been trying to coordinate a tournament in Baghdad for broadcast on ESPN.
Here in the Cape Fear Valley of North Carolina, the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division conducted a tournament last week as word of new deployments spread across the base. Among the 259 men and 9 women entered, many knew they would not be available come October to compete in the Army-wide championship.
The soldiers seemed eager to test themselves. Pfc. Melissa Jenkins, 20, from Union City, Ind., chose confronting men in the fighting tournament over soccer, running and other competitions. She fought hard but was eliminated in the early rounds, in which traditional wrestling rules were in effect. The mixed martial arts rules were phased in during the semifinal rounds.
“I knew it was going to be difficult,” Private Jenkins said. “He was a lot stronger than I was, so I expected to be the underdog.”
The tournament director, Sgt. Jeff Yurk, who had fought in mixed martial arts events in San Diego before joining the Army, strictly enforced rules of sportsmanship. He was quick to end matches when fighters failed to defend themselves.
“You get a lot of the just-out-of-high-school guys, they’re looking to be part of something, that’s where M.M.A. and the Army share the same demographic,” Sergeant Yurk said. But getting in the ring, he said, “is the same thing as going up to that door in Iraq, knowing there’s a bad guy on the other side and still doing it.”
Among those in the tournament was Pfc. Carl Miller, entered as a welterweight. He had returned from a tour of Iraq in March, enrolling in fight training instead of taking leave. He was aiming to win a berth in the All-Army championships, admission to higher-level training classes and a path toward becoming a mixed martial arts instructor.
“It’s a mental game,” Private Miller said. “If I could do this, I’d stay in the Army for 20 years.”
May 30, 2008
Pg. 1
By Michael Brick
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — The United States military is embracing a combat sport commonly called ultimate fighting that a decade ago was called human cockfighting and largely outlawed.
The sport, also known as mixed martial arts and involving disciplines like jiu-jitsu, boxing and wrestling, adopted safety measures that satisfied most state regulators. It is now soaring in popularity, especially among young men; on Saturday, an event will be broadcast live in prime time on network television for the first time. The armed forces, acknowledging the phenomenon and the suitable demographics, are using the sport not only as a way to build morale and aid in recruiting, but also as a training aid to enhance the skills of soldiers.
To rally the troops, military leaders have welcomed professional fighters with names like Ace and the Huntington Beach Bad Boy. The Army has conducted tournaments among soldiers. In an opinion article for Army Times last year, Maj. Kelly Crigger urged commanders to field a team of fighters on television in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the dominant pro league.
“Many of those viewers are eligible recruits,” Major Crigger wrote. “The U.F.C. provides a great venue to get the Army name into the minds of millions of young Americans.”
Across the service, the embrace of mixed martial arts has come with some reservations. The sport’s emphasis on solitary glory runs counter to the Army’s recent efforts to shift recruiting themes from individual development (Be All That You Can Be; Army of One) to group unity (Army Strong; Go Army).
But as the sport found its audience on channels aimed at young men, recruiters and drill sergeants soon took notice.
In 2006, officials at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California invited the U.F.C. fighter Tito Ortiz, marketed as the Huntington Beach Bad Boy, to attend their birthday ball as a guest of honor. Letters to Marine Times protested the invitation, but it was rescinded only after the Bad Boy indicated that he planned to take his girlfriend, the porn star Jenna Jameson.
Rich Franklin, the former U.F.C. middleweight champion known as Ace, frequently appears on Marine bases. Last year, Matt Hughes, a former U.F.C. welterweight champion, was applauded on a visit to Fort Benning, an Army base in Georgia.
Without any formal arrangement, the military has also produced fighters for the professional leagues. Brian Stann, the light-heavyweight champion of World Extreme Cagefighting, fought in Iraq with the Marines. Last November, a Marine named Will Thiery was promoted on the undercard at an event in Florida called Salute to Our Armed Forces. Staff Sgt. James Damien Stelly, an Army Ranger with three tours in Afghanistan, has gained a following through fights for several professional outfits.
Promoters have sought to capitalize on the common ground. In April, Harrah’s Casino in Tunica, Miss., promoted a fight night billed as G.I.’s vs. Pros.
“You have an organization like the United States Army that in our minds best personifies the combative sports we’re involved in,” said C. J. Comu, organizer of the event. “This is their demographic, 18-30-year-old males.”
Military officials have sought practical applications. In 2002, the Army published a new field manual section on mixed martial arts techniques. Its author, Matthew C. Larsen, the director of the Modern Army Combatives Program, considered competition a powerful motivator.
“As long as we’re all about our values and upfront about what the Army stands for, and that’s being warriors, the question is, what kind of warriors?” said Mr. Larsen, who served as a young Marine in Tokyo and earned several black belts. “The game of mixed martial arts is just that, it’s a game. But the game can be training for the real thing.”
Mr. Larsen has promoted his program cautiously, acknowledging that too much focus on competition could train soldiers to win competitions, not battles. But the shifting nature of modern warfare, especially as conducted in the cramped corridors of Iraqi homes, has helped make his case.
“These guys could be in any situation, from a life-and-death battle with a bad guy to trying to subdue a citizen who has Stockholm syndrome, and you don’t even want to hurt that guy,” Mr. Larsen said. “But you’ve got to have all these moves for all those different situations.”
Army bases around the country now conduct mixed martial arts tournaments, sending the winners to a branchwide championship at Fort Benning. The fourth annual championship, set for October, has been planned to incorporate, for the first time, advanced rules indistinguishable from mixed martial arts. The rules, allowing closed-fisted punches to the head and knee blows, still ban moves considered dangerous, ostentatious or ineffective in battle, like elbow strikes, biting and eye gouging.
In January, the Air Force adopted the Combatives program. The Navy has trained certain units. The Marine Corps has trained recruits in martial arts since 2000, with less emphasis on competition.
There are several professional mixed martial arts leagues around the world, and most have adopted rules since the sport’s early no-holds-barred era, when bloodshed was common and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and his party’s presumptive candidate for president, called the sport human cockfighting. Rules differ from league to league, but most fighters wear open-fingered gloves, and gouges and blows to certain body parts are forbidden.
As military mixed martial arts competitions have gained popularity, the matches have come to resemble the real thing. Since the first Army-wide championship in 2005, commanders at Fort Knox have allowed soldiers to fight inside a six-foot-high steel cage. Mr. Larsen has been trying to coordinate a tournament in Baghdad for broadcast on ESPN.
Here in the Cape Fear Valley of North Carolina, the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division conducted a tournament last week as word of new deployments spread across the base. Among the 259 men and 9 women entered, many knew they would not be available come October to compete in the Army-wide championship.
The soldiers seemed eager to test themselves. Pfc. Melissa Jenkins, 20, from Union City, Ind., chose confronting men in the fighting tournament over soccer, running and other competitions. She fought hard but was eliminated in the early rounds, in which traditional wrestling rules were in effect. The mixed martial arts rules were phased in during the semifinal rounds.
“I knew it was going to be difficult,” Private Jenkins said. “He was a lot stronger than I was, so I expected to be the underdog.”
The tournament director, Sgt. Jeff Yurk, who had fought in mixed martial arts events in San Diego before joining the Army, strictly enforced rules of sportsmanship. He was quick to end matches when fighters failed to defend themselves.
“You get a lot of the just-out-of-high-school guys, they’re looking to be part of something, that’s where M.M.A. and the Army share the same demographic,” Sergeant Yurk said. But getting in the ring, he said, “is the same thing as going up to that door in Iraq, knowing there’s a bad guy on the other side and still doing it.”
Among those in the tournament was Pfc. Carl Miller, entered as a welterweight. He had returned from a tour of Iraq in March, enrolling in fight training instead of taking leave. He was aiming to win a berth in the All-Army championships, admission to higher-level training classes and a path toward becoming a mixed martial arts instructor.
“It’s a mental game,” Private Miller said. “If I could do this, I’d stay in the Army for 20 years.”