If this might shed a little perspective, I train MMA in the United States, but I rarely make a point to watch the UFC (or WEC for that matter) when it's live.
That doesn't mean I don't try to keep up. However, I find myself catching clips of other productions, like DREAM, PRIDE, Rio Heroes, etc.
They're all different, with different rule sets. But who cares? It's MMA, and why not mix up the rules a bit from production to production?
Basically, I'm saying that it's MMA first (ironically, that sounds like a really good name for a production... MMA 1st...) for the folks that train in MMA. Forget the production. Forget the decreasing masses that associate MMA w/ only the UFC. They'll come along.
This might sound a bit harsh on a TKD thread, but that's like this scenario:
A: "Hey! I'm going to my TKD tourney, wish me luck!"
B: "Huh? What's that?"
A: "Tae Kwon Do, it's a martial art. I have a tournament. Wish me luck!"
B: "Is that like karate?"
A: "It's a Korean martial art."
B: "Oh well, good luck at your karate tournament."
Does it really matter? Does it bruise one's ego to casually mistaken one art for another? In this case, mistake one production for another? It's all the same thing (Disclaimer: karate and TKD are different)
People who aren't that involved in whatever MA will always code-switch. It's not a big deal.
I think I just wrote myself into circles... I guess my entire point is that arguing semantics, whether it be on the production-association level, to the individual arts, to the names of universal techniques can play a huge part in destroying an individual practitioner's viewpoint of his/her own art, and that of others. Why play that game?
