{"id":1325,"date":"2016-03-23T17:11:05","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T17:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/?p=1325"},"modified":"2016-03-23T17:11:41","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T17:11:41","slug":"a-gritty-look-at-mumbais-underground-fight-nights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/?p=1325","title":{"rendered":"A Gritty Look At Mumbai\u2019s Underground Fight Nights"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1326\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1326\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/homegrown.co.in\/mumbais-fight-nights-in-photos-and-text\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1326 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Untitled-2.jpg\" alt=\"MS Gopal\" width=\"700\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Untitled-2.jpg 700w, https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Untitled-2-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Untitled-2-199x128.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1326\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">MS Gopal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Despite being a niche sport, the popularity of\u00a0Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has grown rapidly on an international level with a legion of fans across the world. And since Asia has a rich history of martial art, one might see the appeal that MMA has in the continent. But in India, where cricketers are revered as gods, MMA still has a long way to go\u2014although it is making slow progress. Organisations such as<strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fullcontactchampionship.com\/\">Full Contact Championship<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(FCC) are paving the way for this martial art in India with regularly hosted Fight Nights in Mumbai and Goa.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1327\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1327\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/homegrown.co.in\/mumbais-fight-nights-in-photos-and-text\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1327 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/52.jpg\" alt=\"52\" width=\"700\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/52.jpg 700w, https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/52-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/52-199x128.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1327\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">MS Gopal\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Based out of Mumbai and founded in 2007, FCC is the brainchild of\u00a0<strong>Prashant Kumar<\/strong>, who has long been a practitioner of martial arts. With a black belt in taekwondo, training in kickboxing, muay thai, judo and wrestling, it came as no surprise when he told us he was a big fan of Bruce Lee as a child, who fed his fascination about all things related to martial arts. \u201cI used to participate in Free Style Fighting in Mumbai in the early 90s (1990 to 1993). In 1994, I read about the UFC [Ultimate Fighting Champion] in\u00a0<em>Black Belt Magazine\u00a0<\/em>and that\u2019s where the idea of launching an MMA network in India on a professional scale came about,\u201d he told us. (<strong>Words: Sara Hussain)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1328\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1328\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/homegrown.co.in\/mumbais-fight-nights-in-photos-and-text\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1328 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jkl.jpg\" alt=\" MS Gopal\" width=\"700\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jkl.jpg 700w, https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jkl-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jkl-199x128.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1328\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">MS Gopal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">See more pictures and the whole article on:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/homegrown.co.in\/mumbais-fight-nights-in-photos-and-text\/\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">http:\/\/homegrown.co.in\/mumbais-fight-nights-in-photos-and-text\/<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/msgopal.com\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Gopal<\/strong><\/a> is not a full time photographer and does not aspire to be. \u201cI left advertising and tried to be a photojournalist for a year in 2011. It left\u00a0me unhappy and unsatisfied. I enjoy photography, but trying to make a career out of it, killed the joy for me,\u201d he says. He now photographs for publications on and off and continues to work in advertising. (source: http:\/\/betterphotography.in)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/msgopal.com\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; color: #ff0000;\">http:\/\/msgopal.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite being a niche sport, the popularity of\u00a0Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has grown rapidly on an international level with a legion of fans across the world. And since Asia has a rich history of martial art, one might see the appeal that MMA has in the continent. But in India, where cricketers are revered as &#8230; <a title=\"A Gritty Look At Mumbai\u2019s Underground Fight Nights\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/?p=1325\" aria-label=\"Mehr Informationen \u00fcber A Gritty Look At Mumbai\u2019s Underground Fight Nights\">Weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiajournalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}