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MMA Clubs Not All Created Equal
Mixed Martial Arts makes its debut in Berks County on Saturday night at the Sovereign Center... Really it's just a debut for competition... MMA Fighters have been training in the area for years... and they've been doing it in a variety of different ways... One look inside The Cage Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Muhlenberg... and you can see why someone would want to train here... From the hanging bags to the weight equipment to the actual Octagon Cage itself... MATT NIEVES: Not to many places have cages and we got lots of room to roll around. JAKE GOMBOCZ: You can practice escapes... climbing up the cage and getting out of certain situation. The gym has produced results... Three of the ten fighters on Saturday night's Pain on Penn Street Card call The Cage home... Things are a little different at the Anthracite Combat Club in Schuylkill Haven... If you can make it up the stairs... across the roof... and around the bees you're safely in the gym... if there's enough room... JEFF WALCOTT: We've been on the roof here since 1993... of course in 93 we didn't start with this concept of mixed martial arts... it was more a police based reality training... me being a career police officer... The Combat Club has been specializing in Mixed Martial Arts since 2000... Like the Cage it will have three fighters in action Saturday night... Owner Jeff Walcott says the lack of shiny equipment is anything but a disadvantage... WALCOTT: I think that it's the intangibles... the mental prepraration... a little bit pushing yourself above and beyond... meaning if I leave this gym at 98 degrees which it normally is on top of a rubber roof... that gives you a little bit more intestinal fortitude... That's certainly something needed in MMA... but fighters from both clubs don't believe there sport is any more dangerous than sports like football... MATT NIEVES: MMA has it's holds and submissions... but football with one takedown you can break your neck so every sports has its dangers and MMA is just like any other sport. The sports still has its detractors... but the fighters believe one reason that Pennsylvania waited so long to legalize the competitions is because the state wanted to make sure they were doing it right with the proper safety precautions in place... You can check it all out on Saturday night at the Sovereign Center...
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