Cage fighting: The ultimate challenge

Ten seconds after we meet, Michael Bisping plants his right fist firmly on to my mouth. He follows with a left hook to the ribs and a couple of shots on the chin, before concentrating on whacking my now bleeding nose. Three minutes later, my face is spewing blood like a broken hose pipe.

This is cage fighting, an "anything goes" combat sport where two gentlemen have the sort of punch-up you'd traditionally find in a pub car park after chucking out time. The winner is the last one standing. Bisping, a 27-year-old former postman from Clitheroe, is one of the sport's most exciting young talents.

In our brief and exhausting beginner's session, we only trade punches. In a real bout, you might also see kicks, knees and flying elbows. The action would probably finish on the floor: Bisping says he'd win by forcing a "submission hold", or smashing my face into the canvas using a technique known as "ground and pound".

Neither sounds very pleasant, thanks. But in many people's books, cage fighting is not a pleasant activity. Health and safety campaigners call it human cock fighting. Other critics say it recalls the gladiatorial excesses of the Roman empire, demeaning fighters and audiences alike.

Yet despite the controversy, the sport is booming. At Bisping's gym, The Wolf's Lair in Widnes, telephones are ringing off the hook. On the gritty street outside, a BBC crew has arrived to conduct an interview, Bisping's third "one-to-one" in as many days. Their arrival, and his broad smile, lay bare a remarkable sporting success story.

A decade ago, cage fighting was a minority taste: hardly known, barely legal and just one step removed from bare-knuckle boxing. It took place in grubby boxing halls and was broadcast on a handful of (mostly American) TV stations, to a voyeuristic collection of bloodthirsty enthusiasts.

Today, by contrast, it is a fully regulated combat sport, re-branded as Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA. It boasts a collection of sensible rules banning things like "biting" and "eye-gouging", and requiring fighters to wear protective gloves. Stars boast corporate sponsors and undergo random drug tests.

More pressingly, cage fighting has become the fastest-growing televised sport in the world. Last year, more than 300 million viewers watched it, in no fewer than 130 countries. In the US alone, it supports an industry with an annual turnover of $5bn, and top fighters who earn $1m a fight.

Britain currently finds itself in the early stages of its own cage fighting revolution. Billboard advertising has recently appeared on almost every high street; a dozen-odd satellite channels now broadcast it every night. Live events attract crowds of tens of thousands and enthusiasts say MMA could soon achieve the unthinkable: eclipse boxing as the nation's most popular combat sport.

Bisping is riding the crest of this wave. When we meet in early April, he is 10 days away from a bout with Australia's Elvis Sinosic at Manchester's MEN arena. A sell-out crowd of 14,000 has paid between £25 and £250 to attend; thousands more will watch on Sky.

His fight marks the first stage in an attempt by a glitzy American cage fighting promoter called the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, to establish its "brand" in the UK. They then have ambitious plans to roll their franchise out across the rest of mainland Europe, bringing fame and fortune to the sport's home-grown stars.

For Bisping, this spells once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Defeat Sinosic, and he'll be undefeated in 14 professional fights, making him the nearest Britain's cage fighting community has to David Beckham. It's an alluring prize, worth any number of cauliflower ears, or chipped teeth.

"When I quit my job to start cage fighting, I didn't do it because I wanted a tough image, or to beat people up," he says. "I did it for my fiancée, Rebecca, and our children. I did it to provide for my family. I do it as a career, because in a small town like Clitheroe there's not many opportunities.

"I'm making a decent living now; we're comfortable. If you look at the top guys in the world, they're earning in excess of a million a fight, and that is now my ambition for my family. This is my passion, something I love and enjoy, and I'm very lucky to have been given a chance to follow that dream."

The first time you see a professional cage fight, it's not unusual to feel shocked. The sport's stars are capable of extraordinary aggression; fighters are often knocked out and sometimes suffer gory cuts and head wounds. Occasionally, they'll dislocate a shoulder, or break something.

Brutality is undoubtedly one of the sport's selling-points. In our increasingly pampered, emasculated world, it offers a chance to see hard men lay their bodies on the line. Why else, apart from to indicate toughness, is the octagonal arena surrounded with a mesh cage?

The more you watch, though, the more you appreciate the sport's subtleties. Mixed Martial Arts combines the best of boxing, wrestling, ju-jitsu, kick-boxing, karate and tae kwon do. Each fight is a journey into the unknown and provides an intriguing clash of styles.

Marshall Zelaznik, the promoter who brought UFC to the UK, says its variations are central to the sport's remarkable rise. You might, for example, see an expert kick-boxer with a dangerous punch take on a well-schooled wrestler, who will attempt to grind out victory on the canvas. Or a 24-stone former boxer fight a leaner ju-jitsu champion.

"We keep using this phrase, 'the most exciting combat sport in the world'," says Zelaznik. "You can win in so many ways: by knockout, or submission, or kicks or punches, so you never get a stale fight. And you never get fights like in boxing where very little happens, and two people cancel each other out over 12 rounds. Our contests are short and sharp; most don't go the whole five rounds.

"There's also a big lifestyle element. The guys out there are young and fit and people relate to them. Because of the martial arts background they come from, they're mostly respectful, and shake hands at the end of a fight. There's no bullshit, or arrogance."

The fighters are also an eclectic bunch, far removed from the stereotype of the mindless thug that people tend to associate with this kind of sport. Bisping is a part-time nightclub DJ and music lover. Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, who fought on his card in Manchester, is a Croatian Member of Parliament. Another top fighter, Ian Freeman, likes show jumping and fly fishing.

Combining catchy nicknames and dazzling "walk-ons", promoters have turned top cage fighting cards into showbusiness events that recall WWF wrestling. One of Britain's most popular fighters, Brad "One Punch" Pickett,

arrives on stage in a trilby hat, to Chas and Dave; Tom "Kong" Watson prefers a gorilla suit.

"There's a huge amount of showbusiness coming into the sport," says Rob Hewitt, the publisher of Fighters Only, a magazine with circulation increasing by 20 per cent each month. "Our readers are into heavy metal music, and tattoos, motorbikes and gambling." This month, it carries a cover story entitled "Beauty and the Beast", which highlights the unerring success cage fighters have in attracting beautiful ladies (girls in bikinis are fixtures on stage at most MMA events).

"If you look at a demographic of our readers, there are obviously subscribers who are in prison, or work doors. But there's also doctors and solicitors and university lecturers. It's a myth that this game is for thugs. It's an incredibly athletic sport, which places more emphasis on fitness than any other event in the world."

Bisping's training regime makes that much clear. Five days a week, he spends three hours each morning practising grappling, boxing and kick-boxing. In the evening he does two hours of running and weights. His diet involves protein and energy drinks, chicken and fish, and no alcohol for eight weeks before a fight.

Although he spent his childhood competing in ju-jitsu (and won a silver medal at the world championships in New Zealand at the age of 16), Bisping began cage fighting only two years ago, after deciding to give the sport a shot following several years drifting and doing casual jobs.

"There was so much to learn, and I was very raw, but I managed to keep on winning," he says. "Although I was only getting £1,000 a fight and often having to sleep in the car because I couldn't afford a hotel, I kept on winning and kept on improving."

His big break, so to speak, came last year, when he won a Big Brother-style reality TV show on Bravo called Ultimate Fighter. Filmed in the US, it saw 16 fighters whittled down over several weeks for the right to be offered a contract with UFC.

As a result, he is almost a household name in the United States, and spends much of his time in Las Vegas, where many UFC events are staged. The travelling can be a strain on family life, but he remains a devoted husband, unlike fellow British fighter Ross Pointon, who left his wife in Stoke-on-Trent and set up home with a Vegas stripper.

"My little boy Alan is coming to the fight," he adds. "It's his first time. He's five years old. Do I worry about him watching? Well he'll have to get used to it, and to be honest, I want him there for my own reasons: if I'm on the floor taking a beating, I'm damned if I'm going to lie back and give up if I know he's near ringside. Like the rest of my family, he'll be an inspiration."

Away from the ring, cage fighting is also no stranger to conflict. At present, the sport is locked in a minor civil war over attempts to dominate what has become an increasingly lucrative industry. The row involves lawsuits and recriminations every bit as harsh as the tear-ups that tend to occur in the cage, and Bisping finds himself right at its centre.

At issue is UFC's efforts to launch in the UK. Bisping's MEN fight which was accompanied by slick marketing and much hype, marked the start of an attempt to run "between four and six" events a year in Britain's biggest indoor arenas. The next is scheduled to happen in Belfast next month.

However, the organisation stands accused of attempting to wipe out its home-grown rivals. The heavily promoted Bisping event was scheduled on the exact same night as Cage Rage, the most popular and longest running event in British MMA, at Wembley Arena.

Organisers of Cage Rage claim that the fixture clash was deliberately engineered, in a co-ordinated effort to bankrupt their franchise. The UFC denies such a campaign, but is taking separate legal action against Cage Rage in what a spokesman describes as a "trademark dispute". It is currently being contested.

"They are trying to come over here and put us out of business, it's as simple as that," says Cage Rage promoter Andy Greer. "The UFC are very, very aggressive. They're throwing litigation around and want to bully us out of the top spot. It's a decent market we've got, and they want it.

"They just don't appreciate the way the British do business. They've tried to sign our fighters. They've asked one official to quit on virtually the eve of a show. It is straightforward sabotage."

The dispute has left fans of the sport torn between two franchises and sets of fighters. It has been the subject of fevered debate in the sport's press, and angry recriminations on the internet bulletin boards on which fans discuss their sport.

Zelaznik, on behalf of the UFC, tells me: "I don't like the perception that we are here to bully someone. We are just trying to run a business. I don't think Cage Rage actually warrants being described in the same breath as us. I think our events are so far better that they're simply not competition."

Bisping, who crossed from the Cage Rage circuit earlier in his career, hopes the two circuits can eventually co-exist peacefully. "UFC will make the whole sport over here bigger, and give it more recognition," he says. "More people will watch, more will tune in, and at the end of the day, people should realise that we all stand to benefit."

Ten days after we say our goodbyes, he silences any remaining critics by beating Sinosic early in the second round. His local newspaper recorded: "The partisan support of the English crowd forced him to come back with a series of vicious blows to the face that forced the referee to stop the contest and left his rival with heavy bruising and cuts that require stitches."

Back home, I check my now wonky nose in a bathroom mirror, reflect on the unlikely rise of this extraordinary, hard sport, and realise that I probably got off lightly.