13 Year old looking to the UFC

13-year-old ‘Albanian Bear’ is an undefeated, champion boxing, MMA and martial arts prodigy

By Cameron Smith | Prep Rally –
Fri, 7 Dec, 2012 6:27 AM EST

Has anyone ever heard of a better nickname for a boxer than "The Albanian Bear"? Anyone? Didn't think so. Now meet the 13-year-old who earned that moniker one momentous bout at a time.
As noted by Off the Bench and MMATKO, among other sources, Staten Island middle schooler Reshat Mati is a three-martial arts and boxing wunderkind. He's so advanced in all of the disciplines in which he trains that he is practically unbeatable. He's a United States Silver Gloves national champion boxer, and he may be even better in muay thai, kickboxing and wrestling.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/13-old-albanian-bear-undefeated-champion-boxing-mma-112744978.html

13 years old should not be fighting, thats just ridiculous. he'll be an invalid by 25

nothing under 18. There is no rush to do MMA. There are so many BJJ/grappling tournaments and vasious kicboxing tournaments with semi contact that they can do till there 18. plus your body hasnt even remotely peaked until your 18. like commie said the kid would be trashed by 25 and thats if the kid is that good.

Agreed....there is no reason to put anyone in the cage under 18

Agreed, 18.
That being said, I have no problem with younger kids competing in MMA at the amateur level.

There are already many examples of kids under 18 taking part in full on sports that could clearly lead to devastating body injuries including concussion, torn muscles, ligaments, broken bones etc etc. Full contact football, hockey, boxing, rugby, gymnastics, ski-jumping are routinely played by kids as young as 13 or even younger, at the amateur and competitive level (silver gloves of boxing 10 to 15 yrs). Age limits need to be looked at across the board.

I agree with limiting any athletics for younger athletes where the potential for physical harm due to age or physical underdevelopment is more than average. 18 seems to be a good age which would allow for phenoms like Belfort, Penn, Parisyan to join up early.

There are plenty of avenues for young up and comers to participate bjj, freestyle wrestling, kickboxing, judo... anything... if there is some way to set up "Youth MMA Rules" similar to youth wrestling I would be ok with it. But as a pro fighting grown men... Nope. 18 should be the age IMO

Agree... Unless.... Maybe TRT? OMG.... did I just say that?

Chrom wrote:

There are plenty of avenues for young up and comers to participate bjj, freestyle wrestling, kickboxing, judo... anything... if there is some way to set up "Youth MMA Rules" similar to youth wrestling I would be ok with it. But as a pro fighting grown men... Nope. 18 should be the age IMO

Yeah, would assume there would be different rules for amateurs. However, even if not, there is a big difference (IMO) when youthfulls are fighting outher youths.
It's just like in football. You cannot compete at the professional level unless you are 21 years old OR have competed 2 years at the college level. The last thing a "kid" needs to do is run a crossing route when 260 pound linebackers are going to take off your head.
Similarly, the last thing Dana would want to do is risk having a 17 year old kid die in the ring with one of these monsters.

I think he's probably got his father in his ear non-stop. Look at what happened with Karo.

I'm not sure I understand the question. Seems we're talking about two different things.

If we're talking about kids competing against other kids (like the kid in the article) in MMA tournaments, I don't see a problem with that. That's assuming the matches are monitored very closely and there are some obvious rule changes for safety purposes.

Now, if we're talking about a kid entering the UFC (like in the poll) and competing proffessionally against UFC fighters, I don't even know how to answer that. That's just absurd.

Nothing wrong with amateur MMA ,but I've always thought 18 is a good age minimum for professionals.

It looks like there is not much controversy over this question.

Ahhhhh what if I told you he was a one armed, one eyed, tranny who is running for the chair of the RNC as well?

Im not even sure how I would feel about amateur mma.

Something about the thought of a 12yr old sitting on top of another 12yr old and raining down blows doesn't sit well with me at first glance. Have to give it some thought...

Here in mn certain casino tribal rules that Ammy's can't strike the head at all while on the ground... so that's an option that the youth ammy MMA rules could implement.

FistK wrote:

Im not even sure how I would feel about amateur mma.

Something about the thought of a 12yr old sitting on top of another 12yr old and raining down blows doesn't sit well with me at first glance. Have to give it some thought...

Yep. You're a parent alright lol.. You know I was always butthurt about my mom not letting me fight amateur until I turned 18, and no matter what I said she just would not change her mind. But now that I'll be 35 in a couple weeks, I guess I can see where she was coming from.

I think the fact that there's no GnP to the head makes it alot safer. Although wasn't the minimum age for amateur MMA like 15 or 16?