What do you think of people training in MMA with little to no martial arts experience?

"What do you think of people training in MMA with little to no martial arts experience?" that's a contradiction, isn't that how everyone begins training? Yes, it's annoying what UFC has set among popular culture. It's become a popular form of entertainment and naturally, as a result people will gain influence off of it. This isn't as unfortunate as the fact that the greater population isn't very intelligent and can pick up such an influence so easily without any self awareness. Unfortunately, people will always affiliated themselves with something they don't appertain to. Most of them drop out when they come to their senses and realize they had no real ambition.

it does annoy me, and i think that the major leagues like the UFC, would be able to help with that if they did more bring that up. the fighters that are doing good have been training a single style, long before they started mixing, and thats what most people don't recognize.

Bad, but expected. Mma is the new big thing, everyone wants in on it so they jump in thinking that all they need to be able to do is throw a few good punches. Hopefully, they all learn the hard way that they are all sadly mistaken.

no that's not what people don't realize. mma is a sport if you want to be good at it you'll train mma. if you think training karate for years is going to get you anywhere, your silly. sure the champs these days have been training this art or that art but this is because the sport is new and certain arts and schools are the closest thing to mma. later people will train mma to be good in mma. the problem comes when you think your art is fighting when its just one aspect of it.

nowadays alot of youth are training exclusively in mma, and that isnt neccessarly good or bad. the obivous pro to training in "mma" exclusively is that you become very comfortable in transitioning from one aspect in mma into another: from standup to clinch game to ground game etc. the possible con is that you dont neccessarly devolpe a high level of proficiency in the martial arts neccessary to be a good mma practioner. on the whole thou there isnt anything wrong with jumping straight into training mma as long as you train hard and smart and take the time neccessary to become a complete and effective martial artist.

I think they will miss out on the bigger picture than just learning a mix of the arts for competitive purposes...in the end the traditionalists will always be around and still here.

You're never too old to learn a martial art. Or several, in the case of MMA. Fighters like Forrest Griffin, Takanori Gomi, and Rich Franklin had no martial arts background; all have held titles, with Gomi and Franklin having extended periods of time on top-ten lists. While fighters like this will probably not have the specialty of someone like Demian Maia, Karo Parisyan, Anderson Silva, or Randy Couture, they also won't have any bad habits from other "pure" martial arts that they need to correct when they enter MMA. Other fighters may need years to correct habits that aren't beneficial to the MMA environment.

I think its fine. I trained for awhile at an MMA gym and they broke down the lessons into kickboxing and BJJ, so that you acquired a solid foundation in each. Only once you had achieved a certain level of proficiency in both could you participate in the "MMA" classes, which really trained people for competitions. The instructors were good - very qualified with winning amateur and professional records - which is more than you find at many McDojos!