The UFC today announced that it is entering into a sponsorship with the British Judo Association and will be the title sponsor of the 2015 British Open Judo Championships.
The Championships which will be held at Wembley Arena on 12th of July will now be linked with the preeminent organisation in the world of combat sports. The announcement stated that the sponsorship deal will see the UFC take advertising on the British Judo website and social media as well as other advertising opportunities as they look to support and promote the sport and the national governing body.
British Judo Chief Executive, Andrew Scoular said: “We are absolutely thrilled at our new partnership with UFC, which will bring about many mutual benefits for both the organisations and the sports of MMA and Judo in the UK. We look forward to developing other sponsorship and advertising opportunities with UFC in the future. By partnering with such a leading martial arts brand as UFC, we will receive significant added exposure for British Judo as a core martial art”
Garry Cook, UFC Chief Global Brand Officer said: “The 2015 British Open Judo Championships will be a fantastic event and an important stage on which athletes can perform and promote their sport. Judo is a key component of mixed martial arts, and we are excited at the prospect of bringing together UFC fans, Judo supporters and practitioners of both sports.”
Ronda Rousey the current UFC women’s Bantamweight Champion is the most prominent Judo practioner in the UFC. Rousey is the most decorated female judoka in United States history, becoming the first American women to medal in the Olympics, taking bronze in the 2008 Beijing Games. She transferred her skills over to MMA, debuting in 2010 before becoming the first female fighter to sign a contract with the UFC.
That's cool. I'd like to see more British Judoka in MMA. Since we don't have wrestling, but we've a lot of uber leet judoers, men and womyn, who should be infiltrating the lower tier orgs already, but AFAIK there has never been a high profile Brit Judo fighter involved in MMA, which is too bad. Even at club level I don't think there is much (or any) collaboration, though MMA is finally big enough that every provincial backwoods has a couple of 2-bit 'mma gyms' now.
Reminds me of PRIDE's agreement with FILA, although nothing much really seemed to happen with that (other than a couple of underprepared eurasian wrestlers taking MMA bouts).
Xuh - That's cool. I'd like to see more British Judoka in MMA. Since we don't have wrestling, but we've a lot of uber leet judoers, men and womyn, who should be infiltrating the lower tier orgs already, but AFAIK there has never been a high profile Brit Judo fighter involved in MMA, which is too bad. Even at club level I don't think there is much (or any) collaboration, though MMA is finally big enough that every provincial backwoods has a couple of 2-bit 'mma gyms' now.
Reminds me of PRIDE's agreement with FILA, although nothing much really seemed to happen with that (other than a couple of underprepared eurasian wrestlers taking MMA bouts).
There has definitely been high profile Brit Judoka's involved in MMA
Chris Bacon, Chris Millward and Peter Cousins (Olympian)
That's just off the top of my head giving it a few seconds thought
