MMA styles are great for fighting MMA fights. For all other weaponless fights that one may encounter, knowing ANY martial art is probably best - Judo may be suboptimal for a street fight unless you've got some striking techniques thrown in.
When you gaffle someone in the nutsack with a front snap kick and render them sterile, or break a shin or instep and effectively cripple them that's one thing and will likely make an attacker quit AND will bring you limited or minimal, if any legal trouble. If they continue attacking and you break their ribs a round or side piercing kick, you're still very well justified.
However, when you throw someone to the ground, effectively stopping their attack on you, THEN attack back by jumping on them and choking them out, you've gone beyond your legal right to defend yourself unless you can show that the person presented a clear threat to you while laying on the ground - tough to do.
Yeah, if you want to bring a kid up into MMA fighting, get them instruction in a wide variety of throwing, striking, boxing, grappling styles.
If you want to bring a kid up with a healthy constitution, strength, coordination, and self confidence, get them into TKD. TKD is fun to spar with, fun to compete with, and popular - there are TKD schools everywhere, as you noted - and it's EXTREMELY effective for self defense outside of the MMA ring - what's not to like?
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If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.
Everyone playing WoW knows everything about playing two classes: 1) their own and 2) Hunters
