The idea that MMA fans are sometimes a little ungrateful and other times may resent the growth of the sport they love so much has been covered before.
You know something else about MMA fans? They’re the most obsessive in sports, and it’s not a close race.
Sure, football in the U.S. gets people painting their faces and drinking for 10 hours in the parking lot before the game, and football anywhere but the U.S. causes riots and summits on the sport on a per-nation basis.
Hockey does the same thing in Canada.
But MMA fans, rarely divided by imaginary lines printed on a map, are more obsessive than any of them.
Hours spent on Internet forums arguing the merits of one man’s grappling credentials over another, or what background is best for entering the sport.
Money paid to watch shaky streams of events involving guys never heard of in hopes of seeing the next big thing before the world does.
Inspiration to get off the couch and go to the gym in hopes of learning the game taking place inside the cage, age be damned.
Aggressively pursuing the man who runs the biggest promotion in the sport through Twitter or other means just to tell him what they like or don’t like about it.
And he responds.
Simply put, there are no better fans out there. They live and die with the sport.
In reality, the seeds of ungratefulness or resentment over the growth of the sport come from that place—they love it so much that they can’t help themselves sometimes.
In a sport that still looks to find its footing, and in some ways may have currently taken a step back to take two forward in the future with the UFC’s wide-spreading new TV deal, those obsessive fans are going to be the ones that keep things afloat.
Fans will continue to be the ones analyzing matchmaking, discussing wrestling prospects who could be making the jump to MMA and offering up hypothetical generational fantasy fights for argument.
Fans will do it as long as they have to, as long as it takes for new faces to get hooked on the sport and join the party.
More than any other sport, MMA involves a sense of ownership for its fans. It may be because the sport is so young or so nuanced, but once a person becomes a serious fan, they jump in with both feet.
It’s that reality that supports the idea these fans are the best in the sport. Sure, you can love baseball and love your home team, but do you feel like you own it? That you own the sport?
Probably not.
That feeling, that’s the heartbeat of an MMA fan’s obsession. It’s what drives them to know all the nooks and crannies of a sport that surely has enough of them.
So yes, some fans can tell you who wore No. 19 on their favourite team three decades before they were born, or who won the team MVP in chronology since the beginning of time.
That’s great.
MMA fans live their sport, from trading old tapes to spending the workday on the Internet arguing over it. That’s how their sport was born.
It is grassroots.
And now it’s blown up bigger than ever, with plenty more to come and fans are only scrutinizing and speculating more.
If that’s not obsession, nothing is.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com