![\"Last](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Last-Pirate-696x464.jpg\" "\\"UFC")
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 05: Morgan Charriere of France poses on the scale during the UFC Fight Night weigh-in at UFC APEX on April 05, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)<\/p>\nLAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 05: Morgan Charriere of France poses on the scale during the UFC Fight Night weigh-in at UFC APEX on April 05, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
France is a country that has a solid showing in the UFC. There are 10 fighters in the UFC at the moment across eight different weight classes. However, what recent fans might not realize it was that it was just under six years ago when MMA became legal in the country. UFC Vegas 112\u2019s Morgan Charriere looks back to the time prior to legalization.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sport is growing so fast here in France. When I started, we were so not many people doing MMA. It was not called MMA in France,\u201d Charriere recalled. \u201cIt was called \u2018free fight\u2019 and then pancrase. We were not allowed to throw a ground strike. We were fighting in a ring and not an octagon, all that kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Not only was it hard for him to compete in the sport that he wanted, but it was hard because people of his country didn\u2019t see what he was doing as legitimate. Instead, it looked more like a hobby or something that went completely unrecognized.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sport was not recognized by people. So we are not a real athlete for the French people. We had no support, no response,\u201d Charriere said. \u201cSo there was no money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite it not really having all of that much money connected to it \u2013 and it being a fragment of what the sport was worldwide \u2013 he felt drawn to it. It was that love that kept him going and helped him get to where he is today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always like to do hard stuff. I love sports since a really young age and I love martial arts. I started martial arts because I love what I\u2019ve seen in movies, that kind of stuff. So I just wanted to be able to do the same things,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I found MMA just by luck because there was not big even France, and once I found it, I just fell in love in this sport. And I would just love to get a fight and fight someone win or lose \u2013 I didn\u2019t care. I just love the sport so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now that he\u2019s run through that tough time, he sees how big it has become in his country. Not only have they had an interim champion and a title challenger, but the fans of the sports believe in what they\u2019re doing and support it. That grassroots respect has led to even more athletes coming through.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn four years, you know, it\u2019s legal. The UFC came three times. The sport is maybe the third biggest sport in France. I think in terms of people looking at it when there is the UFC, it\u2019s probably the second sport just behind the football because football is so big here. But it\u2019s growing so fast,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe have so many high-level amateur coming. They have a good regional circus. Like when I look at that, I\u2019m like, that\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll look to continue bringing more hype to the country when he steps into the cage this Saturday at UFC Vegas 112. He fights Melquizael Costa as part of the ESPN+ main card with that portion of the fight card beginning at 9pm EST.<\/p>\n
You can hear the entire audio of this interview on the latest edition of the Top Turtle MMA Podcast. It airs at 21:55.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 05: Morgan Charriere of France poses on the scale during the UFC Fight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[1857,49,48,639,641,1868,1858,1866,1860,1262,1296,638,1865,1864,1863,1859,1867,82,1861,640,1862],"class_list":{"0":"post-340949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-bellator","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-conor-mcgregor","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-gsp","14":"tag-invicta","15":"tag-jon-jones","16":"tag-lfa","17":"tag-martial-arts","18":"tag-mixed-martial-arts","19":"tag-mma","20":"tag-one-championship","21":"tag-one-fc","22":"tag-pfl","23":"tag-rizin","24":"tag-ronda-rousey","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-titan-fc","27":"tag-ufc","28":"tag-wsof"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}