Another term for martial arts is combat sports, and this includes most forms of contact sports where the objective is either to land scoring hits or else to pin the opponent to the mat. It excludes combat simulation sports such as paintball and refers mostly to hand-to-hand martial arts. For a magazine that wants to start covering these events, try looking at this directory to find writers who excel at combat sports articles.
Without question, one of the most popular spectator sports is watching two opponents fight. It gets audiences revved up, unlike most other sports because of the interest competition between two specific individuals. In comparison, football is a contact sport and yet the conflict is between opposing teams where the struggle is not personal. In a ring, two people have to do their absolute best against each other.
In the past, professional wrestling was popular for its visual appeal, but it was mostly a staged performance. Now, real wrestling such as mixed martial arts is becoming popular because the blows and the trauma are quite real. There is no denying the primal draw of two people contesting for dominance.
There is less dramatic forms such as boxing and more structured forms of martial arts, but they are all popular because of the physical skills and endurance involved. Tapping into this market means being able to put the excitement of a visual spectacle into writing, something that takes a certain way with words to do. A good sports writer should be familiar with a sport and its terminology as well as the writing conventions typical of sports coverage.
Articles are written either for the general public who are entertained by celebrity matchups or else the audience is a smaller group of enthusiasts who are knowledgable of a traditional sport. Fewer people read about karate matchups than professional martial arts, but they read more enthusiastically because they know the history as well as the terminology. Writing for a niche audience means understanding the terms and traditions very well.
From the viewpoint of an editor, writing articles to attract readers of a specific form of martial arts means respecting their intelligence and customs. A writer should be deeply familiar with that community, and finding a writer like that can be a challenge. It is best dealt with by inspecting a large listing of combat sports articles. Somewhere in the listing is a writer with the exact same interests as the editor.
