Attention promoters, MMA clasifications?

[Mike Persil]

Theres lots of threads and posts on the PRO/SEMI/AM rules and classifications.

Has any promoters thought about age classifications, 16-18 year olds? Over 40's?

Would this promote interest in the sport at the extreme ends of the age spectrum?

After all football has lads and dads teams. Any thoughts?

[kickboxingidiot1]

sounds like an awesome idea.
I promote kickboxing (mainly) in sheffield and for the 16-18's we call it the Cadet division.
We also have a veterans division for the over 35's.
A Veterans match will be 3x1.5 mins with shinpads on and no knees to the head.
Cadet rules is often with headguards (as well as shinguards)

[Mike Persil]

Surprising nobody has thought about it for MMA.

Not sure that over 35 is a veteran I thought that was still in the prime.LOL

[Jay Evans]

lmao, I first read it as "we also have a vegetarians division for over 35's"

0.o

[Romeoblood]

The idea of junior mma would freak a lot of people out, but personally I think its a great idea

After all there's junior thai, boxing, karate, judo etc and its perfectly safe

Vetrans I'm not so sure if its needed, take paul reed for example, he still fights guys in their 20s and has no problem

[Sherlock]

I think it's only a matter of time before veteran/masters classes come about if they aren't being done somewhere already. At the moment there are probably not enough older fighters to make it worthwhile for most promotions to put on a seperate catagory for them but the sport is still in it's infancy and I would guess in 10-20 yrs time when the current young generation of MMA fighters get older there will be a lot more older fighters in the pool to match. As said above the catagories already exist in most other combat sports.

[Neil Hall]

I could have a go at the veterans maybe Farad?
I will have a think about it

[Reedy]

why bother having different classes? Just match the old guys. Imagine being the over 40, semi pro, super lightweight under 5 fight champ.

[kickboxingidiot1]

I could have a go at the veterans maybe Farad?
I will have a think about it

How i do the veterans matches, for the moment i just match them as closely as possible. Perhaps match them within a couple of kg rather than within a weight division.
They are always matched up on experience. Most Veterans tend to be either :
(A) instructors who have done some other martial art for years and have various backgrounds in theyre previous art. For example you might have a guy who had done loads of Taekwondo while his opponent may have trained in bits and bobs of Amateur boxing but both want their first fight under K-1 rules.
(B) Genuine novices who have started training late i
n life but perhaps might have played rugby or done rock climbing in their youth and want a new "fitness/adrenaline challenge"

(C) 2 Heavyweight beer drinkers who one day sit down and think "im going to end up killing myself if i dont change lifestyle". They train their B***ocks off and they get to a stage where they are enjoying a spar and perhaps want to test themselves and be happy whatever the outcome is.
They might just do the one contest and never compete again but this is one experience no one can ever take away from them!

The Sheffield Crowd tend to really get behind the Veterans bouts. I have students who are in that age bracket who come to the shows and absolutely LOVE the Over 35's matches !

[Mad Dog]

so what age is the vets? over 35 or over 45? maybe im still in with a shot