(Reuters) -The Asian Mixed Martial Arts Association (AMMA) on Thursday announced the founding of a global governing body for amateur MMA, with the goal of the sport's inclusion in the Olympic Games.
The body, called the Federation of International Mixed Martial Arts (FIMMA), is the latest attempt to bring together the often-fractured MMA landscape and comes after the Olympic Council of Asia announced earlier this year that MMA would debut at the 2026 Asian Games.
"Amateur MMA for too long has been divided. It's time to unite our sport and bring it out of the shadow of its professional counterpart," AMMA president Gordon Tang told reporters in Singapore.
"FIMMA will stand as a unifying force. We are ready to collaborate with any and all organisations that share our commitment to protecting and promoting the global interests of MMA and its athletes."
MMA, a sport with popular professional promotions like the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), also has multiple global organisations which organise amateur competitions, with different, often rivalling, national federations affiliated to them.
The International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) organises annual world championships and is recognised by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as the governing body of the sport.
Though athletes train together in teams, MMA is a notoriously individualistic sport, and not everyone believes that it belongs in the Olympic Games.
Several Olympians in judo, wrestling and other martial arts have made the jump to MMA as they sought out professional careers, but former two-weight UFC champion Daniel Cormier said he was not sure the sport was suited to the Games.
“I don’t believe that there is a safe way to have the sport that we view as MMA, to see that in a tournament format with 24 guys, you go through four guys in one week, I don’t think it's right,” he said in 2024.
The power in the sport lies firmly in the hands of major professional promotions such as the UFC in the United States, with the British-based Cage Warriors organisation and Polish promotion KSW also exerting considerable influence.
However, Asia is the spiritual home of many martial arts, and it also boasts the popular ONE Championship, which draws fans from across the continent.
“FIMMA is about putting athletes first and building a truly global sport. We’re creating world-class competition platforms, focused on safety," AMMA director general Galastein Tan said.
FIMMA will adopt the AMMA's rule set, which bans moves like head strikes after knockdown, to make the sport safer for athletes, the Asian body said in a statement.
The first meeting of FIMMA will take place in Athens on December 1, Tang added.
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru and Philip O'ConnorEditing by Toby Davis)
