I've got a couple friends that are
crazy about MMA, and one of them has even taken it to a level that he now trains at Jorge Gurgel's jiu jitsu gym in Middletown.
In fact, just a couple months ago he actually got a chance to roll with Joe Riggs at the gym. I remember him calling me up and saying, "Yea, Jorge has us all in a small circle just discussing technique and there maybe only eight guys there. I look around the circle and sitting next to me are Tim Sylvia, Brad Imes and Joe Riggs!"
The Cincy area is also really starting to become an MMA hotbed, due in large part to Gurgel's gym. Rich Franklin also trains there, and the "mad scientist" Billy Rush is based out of this area. Since Gurgel is mostly at the Middletown gym, quite a few big name MMA fighters come to Cincy to train from time to time. Kerry Schall also runs International Combat Events (ICE) at Metropolis in Cincinnati Mills.
If you're looking into MMA journalism, now's the time to do it. You probably realize that most MMA journalism so far ... isn't the best quality.
As it becomes more mainstream the writing quality will improve, but if you've got more writing talent than most of the current writers then you're a notch ahead.