Yes, the gentleman who founded the UFC is back in the MMA game with a brand new trick up his sleeve. To wit:
YAMMA Pit Fighting will host a series of pay-per-view television events, the first of which will air live from the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City on April 11, 2008.
YAMMA Pit Fighting will return to the popular origins of MMA by reviving the Tournament format, in which fighters will participate in multiple fights on their way to claiming the ultimate YAMMA victory, the title of YAMMA Heavyweight Champion. In addition to the exciting Tournament, YPF will also host two "Masters Superfights," one-on-one matches between some of MMA's most illustrious and legendary fighters.
Yikes. "Pit fighting"? Are you serious? Surely this is some sort of joke. Alas, no. It's not. He's dead serious. Aside from the 1993 marketing angle oozing out of this idea, I will confess to not being overly mad about the tournament idea. That being said, are athletic commissions going to be tripping over themselves to sanction any event - much less the hard-to-get-approved tournament style event - whose moniker has the words "pit fighting" in it? Only time will tell. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), there is more to YAMMA Pit Fighting:
The YPF surface, known as "The YAMMA" is an evolution of the traditional fighting ring that will greatly alter the current basis of MMA by changing how the fight is fought and the strategy the fighters must use to win. This new surface has been specifically designed to keep the fighting more explosive and continuous. The YAMMA will change the face of the sport and will challenge the relevance of the fighters' trademark tactics, as methods that were previously successful may be rendered useless with the new ring. This twist on an already successful sport will prove hugely popular with fighters and MMA audiences alike.
How does one change the surface of a ring or cage to make the fighting "more explosive and continuous"? Use your imagination. I will say I've talked about something like this idea before. Namely, that changes to the dimensions, type, and materials used to house the fighters could resemble what baseball parks do to slightly change the game. However, this is merely an aside, not something overly noteworthy. This is a novelty, not a game-changer. In fact, if you change the game too much with this adjustment, you run this risk of losing fans accustomed to a different style of play.
I wonder if Live Nation has been paying attention. Jesus.