# tapout tshirts



## PrideNeverDies (Sep 28, 2008)

I was walking through London a few weeks ago with a tapout tshirt on,and another guy came up to me who was wearing a tapout t shirt and said he was a great fan of ufc.

When he meant ufc, he meant mma but was a armchair fan at best.

Anyone else find it annoying when people say cagefighting or ufc, instead of mma. The name cage fighting just suggests an animal support where its barbaric, and im sure all ofus who train know its not about that.

Some people say tapout is the chav company of mma,but I like quite a few of their t shirts, and since i train in mma i think they're cool to where as they are pretty cheap. I'vemeta few people who love thesport that wear the tshirts and you can have a good convo regarding the sport , but I have met too many fake fans who just wear the tshirts and think kimbo is top dog and have no idea, thinking they are fans because they watch one or two fights..

I really hope the sport doesnt go mainstream for a while because I want to be talking to people with a proper love, I've met so many people so far who think mma is about street fighting and being like kimbo, and so many bandwagon juimpers who have seen a few ufc eps and think they can do it without showing dedication and showing respect for the sport. it will be good if it goes mainstream because it means more money into the sport but I think there will be too many idiots and fakers assocaited with mma then.

Any similar experiences ?


----------



## spitfire (Apr 19, 2008)

My first thought is , lets not do the mma snob thing again.... but i do have some sympathy with this view. I get miffed when people say kick boxing when refering to Muay Thai, and they say it all of the time on tv.... now thats snobbery i suppose.


----------



## PrideNeverDies (Sep 28, 2008)

I can understand people calling it snobbery, but If you have a love for something and have been doing martial arts for years you can apprecaite the sport properly,where as bandwagoner and fake folk are just so damn annoying.

I can understand and like talking to newbies who are genuinely interested in mma and awnt to learn about it, but i hate those who just use mma as a gimmicks, wear a tapout shirt and think your tough.

Its like people who boo at events because they expect it to be back and forth punching and kicking, barbaric.


----------



## Robk (Nov 8, 2007)

I f'kin hate it when people say to me, 'you do that kick boxing dont you'! I thought it was me being anal lol its ****in muay thai! theres a difference


----------



## mowflow (Jan 7, 2009)

Yup, people calling it kickboxing does my tits in as well. The worst thing is when they go "oh.... so what's that then?" try giving a spaz answer that doesn't involve the sentence "it's like kickboxing but...."


----------



## PrideNeverDies (Sep 28, 2008)

It's so annoying, the thing is, its gonna get even worst as mma grows

mma gyms are going to be full of idiots who just think they are hard man and dont appreciate it


----------



## mowflow (Jan 7, 2009)

But if people come along to a club and train it's a good thing whether they are idiots, wannabe hard men or whatever. It brings money into the clubs, provides people to train with (although rolling with newbies is a bad idea as they can freak out due to the adrenaline rush, i've got the scars to prove it) . In my experience the people soon loose the attitude after the first couple of beatings or they never come back, either way they become enlightened.


----------



## Imy (Jul 20, 2007)

One of the newspapers here did an interview with one of my footy coaches about all his years' experience. One of the questions were "If you weren't playing football, what other sport would you be doing?" His reply? "UFC". I felt like slapping him. Tosser.


----------



## SteSteez (Jul 21, 2007)

Jeevan fella you say "I really hope the sport doesnt go mainstream for a while"

Sorry but the sport is mainstream from my own personal experience,this is confirmed when I see 8-10 yr old kids wearing mma gloves rolling around on the football field near my house "doing ufc" and to myself and my dogs amusement quite effectively actually.

I watched them whilst my dog pissed where they were rolling (ha) and one kid had a good understanding of half-guard and its importance, the other kid was effective with side control and before gaining full mount would attempt the kimura on several occasions.

After they "did ufc" for 10mins I approached them and asked them questions, wondering if they had any knowledge of what they were doing rather than just copying what they were watching and to my surprise they did understand reasonably.

I chatted to them wondering if they had any previous training and out of the 4 kids only one had been to muay thai classes and this wasn't on a regular basis due to the costs incurred, no bjj/judo nothing.

The sport is mainstream from my experience and not just from the event mentioned above.

It doesn't sadden me to see people who don't practice any MA wearing the brands associated with MMA, but it does sadden me when many (particularly young angry men/boys) wear this clothing to give themselves an ego boost, confirm their attitude problem and so on...

Dickheads wearing the brands gives people who dislike our sport more reason to hate, but money is going to the clothing labels which then pass on a percentage to fighters...

Just have a look at who actually owns the brands you purchase before you buy, I mean surely a couple of these brands are invested in by Nike/Adidas and so on? these multi corps are farlesslikely to distribute their profits back into MMA as well they don't have a love for the sport, they love the money. Same could be said for the casino billionaires who own UFC though.

Anyway with that said.... millions of people wear football shirts everyday who have never even kicked a ball in their lives, you dont see football clubs complaining as well it pays the players wages for their high priced shirts.


----------



## PrideNeverDies (Sep 28, 2008)

mowflow, i guess since you put it like that,more money to the club is better for us, I do get sick of people coming for a little while and then going back to boxing.

Stesteez

I mean as main stream as boxing, mma is still very unknown,because a lot of people think if they can take someone down they are grappling kings or if they can box they can strike like stars.

I've never seen young kids do that on a park, quite surprised. Though I bet its like pro wrestling to little kids, you copy moves from wwf when we were younger,now they copy ufc.

When you look at zuffa, they invested in a company who were in financial trouble and things didnt look promising, dana white and the ferrita bros trained with a few mma stars and they liked it so they invested in it

I'm sure the pair were very succesful before, they had their own business and their dad was rich but they did their own thing. I Think they invested in the UFC to save it, and the financial motivation came after, they are meant to be real mma fans.

You touched on the thing i hate the most, young men who wear t-shirts so people see them and boost their ego as hard men,its annoyed me when I've tried to talk to them about mma, they have little knowledge of the "non stars " in the ufc. I love talking to random mma fans but I've met too many idiots who use mma clothing as a gimmick

I know its about the money in the long run, but its frustrating seeing people who dont love the sport and are just fronting, at least people have passion for football, its easier to support your team. MMA is different in my opinion

I was laughing so much last year that I was talking to a lad in Nottingham who hada ufc t-shirt, we talked about future uk stars, I mentioned the outlaw to him, and to no surprise he had no idea who he was !!Before dans ufc debut, then saw him at a ufc show, and he was hardys number 1 fan now, clearly faking.

I was on the ufc website earlier, and I'm sure they dont see muay thai as part of the sport, instead they list it as kickboxing


----------



## Kunoichi (Sep 30, 2007)

I wonder why you'd be wearing a tapout shirt in the first place. You should know better than that. *coughcough* 

I think there is a distinction between MMA and UFC. The UFC has elaborated their events in such a way, it's more than 'just' the sport, it's quite the spectable. I have to say, between a less popular promotion with promissing fights and an average-ish card in an UFC event, I'd be strongly inclined to hit the last foremost. In equal conditions, the popularity of the ufc (arenas populated by armchair fans or 'the real deal' f you may) is quite attractive. I don't go to football games because I like football, for the most part I don't even know the results of whichever cup, but there's something about crowds moving in masses towards the something. It's not about being a sheep, but I just like crowds ravelling for the sake of one end.



jeevan said:


> I have met too many fake fans who just wear the tshirts and think kimbo is top dog and have no idea, thinking they are fans because they watch one or two fights.


Still, making such a statement isn't somewhat (and apologies if this may offend anyone) pretensious, and therefore hypocrite because 'fake fans' are nothing but pretensious people seeking something that'll make them unique?

You're seem to be trying to differentiate yourself from 'them'. It's like finding a couple of great songs from an artist, so you recommend it to your mates without having any background on the band; then you learn they are playing at a venue next to you, so you buy the t-shirt and head to the gig. Slowly you start checking out their previous records and you realise you like it alot, but you still bought that t-shirt and debated that one album you first heard with someone who'd known them for over a decade, while they were still 'underground'. You're less of a fan because you didn't discover them for long enough to seed everything that makes the band.

I'm not trying to offend susceptibilities, but for someone who doesn't even have many friends into mma I've heard this discussion one too many times, so rather than trying to explain it from the "true" fans' side, why not see it from a "fake" fans' point of view?

Am I making any sense at all? My writing can be somewhat ****ed up sometimes. Shoulda paid more attention in class.

A tiny baby disclaimer:

For the sake of not being "too cool to be biased", I see what you're getting at, some people get to me to some extent as well, with their "I know all there is to know" but I have to see this from the other POV as who am I to say someone else won't be seeing me the same way I see those who 'get to me'. You give and you take


----------



## marc (Jul 16, 2007)

SteSteez said:


> Anyway with that said.... millions of people wear football shirts everyday who have never even kicked a ball in their lives, you dont see football clubs complaining as well it pays the players wages for their high priced shirts.


Exactly


----------



## Imy (Jul 20, 2007)

Kunoichi said:


> A tiny baby disclaimer:
> 
> For the sake of not being "too cool to be biased", I see what you're getting at, some people get to me to some extent as well, with their "I know all there is to know" but I have to see this from the other POV as who am I to say someone else won't be seeing me the same way I see those who 'get to me'. You give and you take


That's true. I mean, I'm a martial arts fan before I am a UFC fan. I have a fairly good knowledge of UFC, but my love and knowledge for martial arts is far superior, the same way I'm a football fan before I'm a United fan.

What frustrates me the most is that people are "fans' of UFC without ACTUALLY KNOWING what UFC consists of. I don't have a problem with people watching UFC or TUF. In fact, I often get my friends to sit with me and watch UFC and TUF in the hope that they may become interested. But when people watch one or two events and just talk nonsense, acting like they know everything there is to know, it's a little degrading for the sport. The same applies for any sport. No-one would watch two football matches and then pretend to be a football fanatic. If they did, they'd look like a total douche.

My two centz.


----------



## PrideNeverDies (Sep 28, 2008)

Agree with that, in the last year I've had to listen to idiots tell me that chuck liddell is the best light heavyweight in "ufc" as a whole, which made me laugh so much


----------

