If they think they are the next Bruce Lee because they can trick then they really don't Bruce at all. :)  Bruce, in my eyes, was the originator of the MMA concept.  Good tricks does not equal good martial arts by any means. 

Well, Randy, I ain't no old guy from New York set to give a long speech, but I will say this.  While XMA is not built upon combative principles, it is not without the possibility of applying itself in combat.  When you look at Capoeira, it carries similar movements of 'extreme' twists, flips, and kicks, all of which really do hurt when you accidentally get hit during a roda.  Just last year, I was taught how to play in Capoeira whilst holding razor blades in either my mouth, my hands, and even inbetween my toes.  Now, is that even close to MMA.  No, and here's why: MMA is not martial arts.  It's just fighting.  Out of all the fighters I see training in Muay Thai or Jiu Jitsu, or any other style, if they are standing up, most of the time, the guys just wait and wait until they can hit a combination, and if they are on the ground, I see constant stalling, and people trying to strengthen through a movement, opposite the principles of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  When you practice techniques of martial arts systems without giving thought to principles and concepts that flow through that system, then you are just practising moves in a system.  MMA, to me, is no different than Olympic Tae Kwon Do Sparring, or any type of point sparring.  While it looks impressive visually, it is still with the concept of limitations set upon people to derive from their ranks what the quorum of America's public would want to call a hero, or a champion.  Does that mean that the guys in those cages aren't worth a damn.  Not at all, but to call every one of them a martial artist is lacking in truth.  For me, personally, I don't like point sparring.  To me, flash is trash (And don't try to harp on me for this comment, Mike Chat has personally told me the exact same thing).  I'm a combative person, and while I enjoy practicing things like Wushu (China was awesome, btw), I still look for the principles of arts that will help me prepare my body for war and my mind for peace.  That doesn't mean that point sparring and the like have no place in this world; I've met plenty of people that are more about competition than anything else.  And with that note, my computer's battery power is just about dead, and I need to go finish a college paper (8 pages worth).  Darn, wish I could have said more on the subject.

-David