Mixed Martial Arts became a part of pop culture lore when UFC 1 aired in 1993. Since then it has endured bad press highlighting excessive violence and descriptions aligning it with human cockfighting. Yet, this hasn’t stopped MMA from becoming the world’s third most popular sport behind soccer and basketball.
In episode 10 of Alt.Pop.Repeat, we meet up with UFC Fighter, and winner of The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia, Elias Theodorou to learn about the sport and the stigmas before we try and figure out, “if people hate it so much, how did MMA even get mainstream?”