From reruns of Pride where legends like Fedor and Sakuraba fought in Japan, backyard brawls with Kimbo Slice, to UFC bouts in the modern era where the fighters have gotten so good they’re almost like video game characters, fighting has—for better or worse—played a central role in what I consider to be sports entertainment for close to a decade now. Having said that, I’ve never actually watched a fight live. It’s no wonder why when Zac Crush, head of International Fighter Relations at Gods Of Martial Arts (GMA), invited me to their recent show, I jumped at the chance.
On Saturday, September 6th, GMA hosted their 8th event in Saigon. That whole day leading up to the event, I was at my teaching job. I tried to focus on work but I couldn’t help but fantasise what the night would be like. Past UFC fights flashed through my head while I tried to guide my students through class. I could barely wait.
The event was scheduled to start at seven pm in Nhà Bè and I arrived on the dot. There would be eight fights in total, with a belt on the line for the 68kg weight class, what GMA calls the ‘Tiger division.’ Next to the ticket booth a massive poster advertising the event had been put up. Stanchions made something of a red carpet leading to the poster in front of which one of the founders, Johnny Trí Nguyễn stood. He wore a nicely fitting suit and was having his pictures taken while smoking a cigar besides a massive brown pit bull. He looked like a cross between a movie star and the founder of an MMA organisation. I guess, in a way, he’s both.
Past three bulky security guards who checked my ticket and ushered me inside, I got my first look at GMA’s event space. The ring was in the middle, shaped in a hexagon with ropes serving as the ‘cage’ between the fighters and the audience. Two large televisions loomed over the crowd, displaying the same promotional image I’d seen outside. Though the event space wasn’t the largest, the GMA team used every available resource to do the best with every inch they had. A massive ornamental lantern hung above the ring, painted on the sides with the imagery of a dragon and around this one massive ornament hung many smaller red, yellow, and blue lanterns. Perhaps it was my Japanese background but for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about Ghibli's Spirited Away, as if by coming to GMA’s event I’d been spirited away from Saigon and taken back in time. Here was a different era, a different world where fighters weren’t simply fighters—They were Gods, each contending with one another to reign supreme as the one true God of Martial Arts.
All of a sudden, the music changed. What had been a bass-y electronic track which I figured was GMA’s theme song given the constant repetition of those three letters, erupted in a torrent of even more noise as the heads in the crowd collectively flicked around. The piercing voice of a lady came through, and on the television I saw a woman in a light green dress welcome the crowd. She was slender, with milky-white skin and a poise which I recognised in legendary ring announcers like Bruce and Michael Buffer. Standing next to her was a shorter, barrel-chested guy. The show was about to begin.
Watching a fight on television is one thing. To see it up close is an entirely different beast. Having watched a number of UFC, One Championship, Pride, Bellator, jiu jitsu, and boxing fights, I thought I understood the appeal of combat sports but being at GMA’s event completely changed my perspective on what fighting could be and actually might be. You watch as the fighter makes his walk. Some are short, stocky, packed with muscle. Others are leaner, longer, look like fencers whose fists function as their sword. Then there are the ones who look like guys you could lose in a crowd. There’s nothing really athletic about them, nothing that really stands out but it’s these you want to watch out for. These who possess a different kind of edge. And so they make the walk, the spotlight on them while GMA’s custom-made song for that fighter’s team booms through the speakers. You see his expression: cold, hard, often indecipherable. I can only imagine what I’d be like in a similar situation. Perhaps trying my best to appear cold and hard but would the audience be able to see past that at the gut-wrenching nerves gnawing at my core? One fighter enters the ring. Then the second fighter. I watch them both. Try to see who looks the most confident, try to figure out in the long seconds before the gong rings who I think has the fight in the bag. The ref calls the fighters to the middle, goes through the rules, sends them back to their corner before the obligatory, Ready? Ready? Fight!
Even now I can hear the kicks to the thigh, calf, body and how they sounded more like steel whips than human flesh and bone. I’d always heard fight commentators talk about how loud punches, kicks, elbows, and knees can sound but I never understood just how loud until I was at GMA’s event. The crowd reacted at every blow, oooh, aaah, and cheering every time a hit landed clean on one of the fighters, sweat spraying off the body and caught for a moment under the arena’s lights to look like crystals glistening in mid-air. Cornermen shouted all the while, voices cutting through the noise and every now and again, if I listened carefully I could hear the thuds of a fighter hitting the mitts in the backroom, getting warmed up for the next bout. The gong rang. Round over. Cornermen jumped inside, some going as far as picking up their fighter and carrying him to the stool. I’d seen this all before, one cornerman relaying instructions while another massaged his fighter’s muscles, even another applying an ice pack to the back of their neck. It was strange how the breaks in between were as exciting as the fights themselves. Ring girls made their walk, holding up a placard showing the next round, chatter passing through the crowd as spectators discussed who they thought was winning and what they were doing right before sharing their confident opinion on what the other guy was doing wrong. Before you knew it, the gong went again. Another round. Another round. Another round.
At one point in the evening I couldn't help but wonder why these fighters were up inside the GMA ring, putting it all on the line. The brutality of the whole thing, the pain, the suffering, the fight of it all—Why were they fighting? Most of the fighters were younger than me, at an age when I could consider them a younger brother and it was hard to grasp what someone whom I could consider a younger brother would need to fight for. Survival? Pride? Glory? But the more I thought about it, the more I realised once they were inside the ring, these fighters became ageless and all of those questions stopped mattering. It’s the promise of any combat sport event, to be spirited away into a different era, a different world where fighters transcend age, nationality, background and become something more than human. Are they Gods? That’s up for you to decide. All I know is that GMA provides a platform for its fighters to shine in a way that only Gods could.
*All photo credits go to Duc Anh Tran. Follow him on Facebook & Instagram
