The Cage Fighters
Photographs, interviews & book design by Jules Trudeau
Blurb 2010
Now shown in 36 countries, mixed martial arts (MMA), commonly known as ‘cage fighting’, is one of the fastest growing sports worldwide. The UFC (Ultimate Fighting Competition), an American-based MMA promotions company, boasts a pay-per-view industry revenue of $227 million, surpassing World Wrestling Entertainment and boxing combined.
In sharp contrast to the bright lights and big pay packets of mainstream MMA, this narrative is set in the Southern Highlands of country New South Wales, Australia. The local community hall played host to two trainers and four fighters as they prepared to compete in their first amateur cage fight. Their preparation was a physical and psychological journey.
I had intended to capture the personal transformation from man to warrior by recording their training sessions leading to competition night. Instead, what resulted were “rapidly paced photographs of ‘unemphatic moments’, the ones audiences don’t applaud but that establish the spell of the evening”.1
The photographs capture the countless hours of training. They are not typical of current sports-style photography. There is no grandeur to the moment, no records being set: they are of the mundane. There is no glory in these behind-the scenes moments; there is no audience and the fighters are invisible to all except themselves.
The violent nature of the sport is abhorrent to many, but the glimpse I had proved it otherwise. Capturing the fighters in black and white and freezing their movements left little graphic violence. Ironically, what came to the fore was an ambiguous sensuality and an emotive quality far distant from what was, in the moment, a fast paced and furious struggle.