How Mixed martial arts (MMA) would work in a street situation?

I have finally got to sit down and relax
after working my butt off filming some great
new products.

I flicked through the channels and saw that
the UFC 'Fight Night' 40 event was on.

So, I made a coffee and sat down to enjoy
the action...

Watching the action got me thinking about
how Mixed martial arts (MMA) would work
in a street situation.

I thought I would ask Stewart McGill,
creator of 'Urban Krav Maga' for
his views on how MMA training helps in
the world of Reality based self defence
systems (RBSDS).

"Around a year ago I read a critique of
MMA by another RBSDS in an American
magazine...

To be honest the article was little more
than a glorified infomercial for that
system, but it did sum up nicely some of the
case against MMA from a self-defence point
of view i.e...

1. Punching people around the head without
gloves hurts your knuckles and SHOULDN'T
be encouraged in self-defence.

2. In a real fight you shouldn't go to
ground unless forced there; furthermore if
you end up on the ground your priority should
be to get up as SOON as possible, not to roll
about on the floor setting up a submission or
hold somebody in a defensive guard.

3. The reality of the street i.e. biting,
shots to the eyes and groin, use of edged
weapons renders a lot of MMA impractical,
particularly on the ground.

There's something to be said for all this and
as an RBSDS teacher I'm instinctively
sympathetic to much of it; however, I've
trained a little in MMA and been in a few real
rows so there's an important balance to be
struck here."