Lee Cook holds kick pads at a mixed martial arts training session

After a flurry of punches and kicks to the head, two men collapse to the floor, writhing viciously. Vaughan Harvey, a mixed martial arts instructor, uses his elbows and knees to pin his opponent, Harrison Pettit, to the mat. Pettit counter-attacks, pummelling upwards with his fists. Spit and sweat fly through the air, the sense of danger heightened by the setting, which is a large metal cage.

This ferocious pugilism is a common sight on pay-per-view television, the main outlet for the US combat sport known as Ultimate Fighting Championship. First staged in the early 1990s, UFC now has worldwide audiences in the hundreds of millions.

Here I am witnessing it in the flesh, at the Ultimate Training Centre in Birmingham, a mixed martial arts gym that opened in November 2008, inspired by the popularity of UFC in the US.

Mixed martial arts, the generic term for UFC fighting, combines techniques from boxing, judo, taekwondo, jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, karate – and anything else suitably forceful – in order to secure a submission or a knockout to end the match. Combatants clash inside a cage (known in UFC as the Octagon), which prevents them spilling out into the audience.

Vaughan Harvey (blue vest) applies a triangle choke to Harrison Pettit

Behind the cage’s mesh, Harvey and Pettit are showing signs of fatigue, though they continue their display of kicking, punching and grappling. As this is a training session, the men are wearing protective clothing – gumshields, foot- and shin-guards, wrist wraps, gloves and head-guards.

Gary Millington, centre manager, knows he must keep the combat safe if he wants to “bring mixed martial arts to the masses”. Indeed, he believes that “someone who has seen the sport on TV can now train in our gym next to professional mixed martial arts athletes and not be intimidated”.

UFC has cleaned up its image in the past few years. Many people used to see the sport as distasteful, even barbaric. Senator John McCain once called it “human cockfighting”. But in 2001, new management took over and imposed a tight set of rules that made the sport far more palatable to the mainstream. McCain gave his blessing. “I know the sport has grown up,” he said. “Rules have been adopted to give its athletes better protections and to ensure better and fairer competition.”

The list of fouls that UFC has now outlawed gives you a swift, queasy idea of what people were worried about: no kicks to the groin, no striking the spine, no stomping a grounded opponent, no kicking to the kidney … the list of forbidden horrors goes on.

Rarpreet Singh (right) trains with Grieg Lewis

In its sanitised version, UFC stages around 30 events a year, including a handful in the UK. Millington, meanwhile, has 500 members and rising. Some come just to use the gym facilities, but most want both the fitness and the self-defence that martial arts training offers. “Ninety per cent of our members would never even set foot in an Octagon,” he says. “We’re taking the scariness out of mixed martial arts.”

One reason why mixed martial arts is so effective is that it cherry-picks the best elements of individual martial arts and combines them into one adaptable fighting technique. Punches from boxing, kicks from kickboxing, throws from judo, clinches from Greco-Roman wrestling, chokeholds from jiu-jitsu – if a fighter can perfect skills from all these sports, he can become a very successful pugilist.

Elsewhere in the gym, fighters are working on different techniques in their arsenal. A class of beginners is learning Thai boxing. Upstairs, intermediate fighters are working on submission wrestling. A female trainer instructs a small class of women in kickboxing. Individuals are lifting weights, skipping ropes, battering punchbags or raining blows down on the body opponent bag (“Bob”, as it’s known) – a rubber mannequin of a human torso and head.

Top dog at the Ultimate Training Centre is British fighter Paul “Relentless” Taylor, whose heroic status is confirmed by posters of him pinned all over the gym. Taylor started his career in the British mixed martial arts scene before being invited to compete in UFC. (Inclusion at the top level is always by invitation.)

Taylor is one of just half-a-dozen British UFC fighters. But this number could easily increase if UFC succeeds in developing the sport outside its core market in America. Marshall Zelaznik, president of UFC’s UK division, is convinced that a new deal with sport TV channel ESPN will succeed in placing mixed martial arts within Britain’s mainstream sporting culture.

There have been eight fights staged in the UK so far – at venues in London, Birmingham and Manchester. But America remains the stronghold. In July, UFC staged its 100th fight in Las Vegas, a spectacle that was watched by more than 300 million television viewers in 76 countries.

“Right now, some would argue that UFC is more popular than boxing,” Zelaznik says. “This sport will transcend every culture and every language. Fighting is in people’s DNA.”

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The details

Ultimate Training Centre, www.utcuk.com; 0121 525 5200