Matty Le, the captain of the mixed martial arts (MMA) society at University of Birmingham(UOB), is confident the sport is ready to be adopted by the governing body of all university sports, BUCS.
This comes after seven universities competed in a large scale MMA competition organised by UOB, at the H suite last Sunday.
Competing in it were; the University of Birmingham, the University of Bristol, the University of Nottingham, University College London, York University, Cardiff University and Oxford university.
As the sport of MMA isn’t governed and funded by BUCS, the event cost the University of Birmingham’s MMA society just over £1,600.
Matty explained why this is an issue: “The event itself was a big challenge to organise, even though we sold a lot of tickets it was really expensive
“Events like this are rare because of how much effort and money it takes to organise them, but they’re really important.”
However he believes that soon that will change: “I think because of the growth of MMA in general, we’re seeing more interest in it at university level, hence why we can have societies and do these events.
“I think inevitably MMA is going to be recognised by BUCS at some point.
“There used to be a stigma around MMA, but the sport is growing now and has more clout.
“Even at this level, in the past, events like this might’ve been done quite poorly, but ours went very smoothly.
“We have some great talent and sold out the H Suite, so I think that proves that there’s enough interest in the sport to justify BUCS governing us.
Recognition from nationwide governing bodies might be the next big step for MMA’s development as a university sport.
He had this to say: “Having a governing body or BUCS to support us would be great because we’d be able to hold more events and have resources, helping grow the sport and our societies.
“I think we’ll get recognition soon, which is great.”
On the night, there were twelve fights. Birmingham were in six of them and won four, losing only twice against Cardiff and Nottingham.
The UOB MMA society Instagram has more information and updates about the society and it’s events.