It’s the softer, caring side of the anything-goes sport of mixed martial arts.
Ultimate Fighting Championship, the billion-dollar company that stages MMA bouts, teamed up Thursday with the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and three other groups to publicize the importance of HIV testing and safe sex.
Two young UFC stars, Dennis Bermudez and Miesha Tate, are the face of their new campaign, called “Protect Yourself.”
“No other sport reaches young demographics like UFC, and I feel like young people might listen to UFC fighters like ourselves,” Tate, 27, said at a Manhattan news conference.
“I think it would be an injustice to have a position to be a role model for young people and not do something with it.”
The Protect Yourself campaign comes at a time that UFC is trying to improve its image.
New York is the only state where professional MMA fights are illegal. The state Senate passed legislation four times to permit the combat sport, but it always died in the Assembly.
In addition to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the Latino Commission on AIDS and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center are partnering with UFC on the campaign.
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