In one of my previous posts, I played up the prospects of mixed martial arts (MMA) as a worthy alternative to football in the downtime of the lull season (or when there's no live matches on the telly), and promised to provide an introduction to the sport for those who don't know much about it.

I actually did write an entire page — an abridged history of MMA as a sport — but proceeded to somehow close my browser window before posting. With the disappearance of the window went the hour or so of writing and research that went into the unpublished post. I'm sure you've had something like that happen to you before. Extremely frustrating isn't it? At moments like that, I like to go and vent my anger on a heavy bag. After a minute or so of uninterrupted rampage, any frustration would have turned into lactic acid, and you'll feel like the stress has been lifted. That's just one reason why going for a muay thai training session can be so therapeutic, and good for your body.

Even after totally exhausting myself in that one minute of madness, I still didn't feel up to reproducing the unrealised blog post. Fortunately, I did discover this Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) video on Youtube in the lead up to the upcoming UFC 100 event that captures the rise of the MMA sport since the start of the tournament almost 20 years ago. While watching it won't provide as informative an education on the sport as my deleted blog post sought to, I think it does a brilliant job of capturing the essence and excitement that only combat sports like MMA can incite. And it's far more interesting to watch than reading my blog ever will be.

So football fans out there, watch this clip replete with highlight reels of stunning knockouts, brilliant submissions and intense exchanges, and tell me you're not entertained. Save for football, there's no other sport that gets my adrenaline pumping watching it like MMA does. Why regional sports broadcasters like ESPN don't bring this to our tellies is anyone's guess. That's the downside — MMA still isn't mainstream enough here to find their way on to local cable programming (save for sporadic, dated programmes on Star and AXN), but I don't think they can ignore the sport's rising popularity for too long more.

Without further ado, "Let's get it on!"

After this, if you want to find out more about MMA, you might like to check out these links. They'll do a more thorough job of educating you about the sport than I ever could.

• History of the UFC on wikipedia
• Mixed Martial Arts on wikipedia
• History of Mixed Martial Arts on Grapplearts
• CNBC's Ultimate Fighting: From Blood Sport to Big Time Official Site