None of my stories are ever short...
Prologue: Two Decades AgoI used to rent UFC VHS tapes from a small, local movie rental place. I was interested in Wrestling and was curious to see Ken SHamrock and Dan Severn in real fights. I watched about the first 16 UFCs (which was all they had). They did not get more. They eventually shut down. No internet, no PPV capabilities, money, or interest, I lost all contact with everything UFC. Gave it no more thought, really.
Part 1: Sim sitesI met Mike in like, 3rd year University? Maybe the end of second year. Anyways, around 2007-08ish. We met because he signed up to work on a film I pitched (later turned into ". . ."). We hung out a lot doing casting, editing, writing, everything, and hit it off really well, then, if my old man memory serves, summer came and he went back to Bum-Fuck Hades Dick Rape Town for the summer. When he came back in the fall, he brought with him the concept of sim sites, and got me hooked on them right away. I fell in love with them, and we worked on ManNHL and other sites a lot together.
Part 2: Years LaterAfter graduating and moving our separate ways (but still maintaining close contact via MSN and Skype). Hockey sites continued. Parallel story - People at my work were talking about UFC, and I had watched WWE and heard Brock Lesnar was fighting. I downloaded UFC 91 to watch Brock vs. Randy Couture (who I had heard of). Somehow, simultanously, I got back in touch with my old grade-school friend Norm (
xx - Camp Cannon), and learned 1) he lived literally around the corner from me, and 2) he got the UFC PPVs every month. So I started going there to watch with him, and got hooked.
Part 3: UFC Undisputed 2009One afternoon, for shits and giggles, I download the Undisputed 2009 demo for PS3. After my first headkick KO, I am hooked, go out and get the game, and play the hell out of it. But since I had a mixed interest and knowledge of MMA (OLD school, from UFC 1-16, and new stuff from watching at Norms place), I was very interested in the "What-ifs" of like, ROyce Gracie vs. Anderson Silva, that sort of thing. I talked to Mike and we tried to work out a way to create a UFC Sim Site.
Part 4: The UFC Sim SiteIt was terrible. And stupid. And I don't think we had many options. I think at one point we had to have Mike and his cousin play against each other to try to make it work, since we had a problem simming a PC vs. PC match or something? I don't remmeber. But it was basically a little footnote of a "sim site" on one of his Checking From Behind sites or something. It was bad. It had like, 3 members. It died. And sucked.
Part 5: UMSI do not remember the details. But one day, I guess I was really, really itching for some fantasy MMA, and my some miracle of God I found the UMS program. It had problems, but I liked it. Once I learned most, if not all, of its problems, learned how to customize rules and match-ups and such, it was about as close to perfect as I could get. After that, it was just a matter of collecting members, and getting shit rolling. I was VERY excited. We started collecting info on who might be interested, sending out messages or polls or whatever, and get ready to go!
Part 6: "ManMMA? That's a stupid name. WTF?"The name ManMMA was a natural extension of our "brand" at the time of its launch. We had done several ManNHL sites, and, at one point, they were a bit popular. So since that was doing well, we felt it made sense to just extend the brand. Now, ironically, ManNHL has retired, and we are left with ManMMA. What is the story behind the "Man" part? I don't really know. Mike made it up one day when he created ManNHL 1.0. I remember thinking it was the STUPIDEST name for a hockey sim site ever. What i thought was stupid about it actually made it stand out. There were definitely no other "ManNHLs" around, so we were unique.
Part 7: There to NowLong story short (too late for that. Sorry, I babble), we launched, did a draft, gained and lost members, evolved, and expanded the rules and especially how the site worked (when we launched, we had no points and you could not upgrade your fighters - their default builds were pretty much permanent). Time passed, and 350 events later, here we are.
Part 8: Thank youI don't know if a day goes by that I am not incredibly grateful for all of you here in our little ManMMA community. I didn't really expect ManMMA to last more than a few months, and told myself that even if I was the only member, I would sim until it was no longer fun. 5 years later, we're still at it.
So again thank you SOOO MUCH to every single one of you. Thank you for your time, dedication, spirit, input, and your time. And thank you for taking this experimental little journey with me. It's been such a blast, every rocky and smooth step of the way!
Have 9 points in celebration of this monumental achievement!