During the Animalia Summer Events, the one event that everyone was looking forward to, besides the Mesozoic Fight Club, was the UFC-A Inaugural Tournament. But because of how many Animalians would be participating, it was decided to have the preliminaries before the official tournament, mainly to cut down on how many would be participating in the tournament proper.
Also because of many advantages that Animalians had over humans for offensive/defensive adaptations, there were a lot more protective gear than would otherwise be in the UFC and/or more powerful versions of things like mouth guards. This last one was deemed mandatory for predators because of their sharper teeth.
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As part of their "registration" for UFC-A, many of the competitors had their height, weight, etc. registered at the main office, not only for "posterity" and "record-keeping" but also for trading cards and similar souvenirs. What was also included was a single "catchphrase" on the card. These were explained to uplifted Animalians as sayings that were unique to one person.
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One part of lessons for uplifted Animalians about professional fighting, whether "wrestling" or MMA, was trash-talking before blows. This often involved opponents trading insults to either make them angry enough to make mistakes or lose focus. The oldest example of this, at least in video games, was "You fight like a dairy farmer./How appropriate you fight like a cow." from The Secret of Monkey Island. But sometimes this wasn't a good way to open up a fight.
"If your opponent is used to trading words with his own," advised Shao Xua on one such occasion, "remain silent and make him outsmart himself."
However it went, the "opening blow" was the only time that things like horns/antlers, tails, etc. were used in a match, afterwards it was confined to mainly fists and feet.
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It was no secret that organized crime was interested in gambling on major sporting events, but due to increasing security measures, from both the Rhino Guard and increasingly streamlined surveillance, There weren't any actively visible. But this did inspire one thing that was for fun.
It involved putting money on who people thought had the best chances of being in the main tournament, even though it was technically a donation thing. What was also made clear that there was to be now "throwing" a match or cheating due to making it a more impressive show. One result of this was that both the first members of Project White Lily and Shamus had the highest "chances" (at least according to the "bets") to be in the tournament proper, though a lot of Shamus' "bets" was due to the fact that he now had a new daughter.
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The UFC-A Inaugural was also a chance for uplifted Animalians to learn more about advertising and endorsements. This was due in part to both Buford, Aleta and Esteban recorded their commercials for Twinlab's Shark's Blood Protean powder and Gatorade, respectively (Buford and Aleta planning to go to the African colonies after the tournament), but it also helped explain what uplifted Animalians saw on TV sometimes, even if they still didn't get it sometimes.
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There was actually two separate fighting leagues for both Lightweight, Middleweight, Heavyweight, Super-Heavyweight, and Ultraheavyweight matches for men and women. There was some disappointment at this, but this was due to the fact that males and females, both in the human and animal world, had very different fighting strategies, and they were trying to keep things as even as possible.
One such thing that carried over to keep things as even as possible was the fact that no jewelry was allowed in the Octagon due to high risk for different kinds of injuries, which was the reason why Aleta's pearl-cage necklace with yellow, thumb tip-sized pearl from Mieni Atoll was left in her locker. This also explained why there was high security outside of the locker room during matches, to prevent celebrity newsmonger "spies" from getting candid "shots" and to prevent theft.
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The preliminaries for the UFC-A Inaugural tournament were preceded by a historical lecture about the evolution of hand-to-hand combat throughout history. It was rather interesting to learn about how competitive fighting was done in Ancient Rome, and didn't really resurface for entertainment for until the late 19th, early 20th century. It was really interesting to learn that bare-knuckle brawling didn't have any real safety regulations during prohibition due to the fact that such things were done underground.
With the way that everything was shaping up, the UFC-A Inaugural Preliminaries were considered a great way to start the summer off, especially since the Summer Solstice was considered the traditional "start" of summer.