What's with people using the term MMA as if it's a thing?
Mixed martial arts. It means their training can not be lumped into a single category, so don't treat it as a category. Your military training? That's mma. The emphasis is just different from the styles you see in UFC bouts.
UFC is a sport, and as a sport there are rules and precautions taken so that a loss in the ring doesn't mean the end of your career or months and months of rehab. If it was a street fight it wouldn't go to the ground as much, and you'd probably see more people getting their knees kicked in, their testicles shattered, and their necks crushed. It's a sport, and so it's not going to be as deadly as combat training with survival in mind. Sport vs life and death - it's a retarded comparison.
UFC is "As real as it gets" in so far as prize fighting for entertainment. Take a UFC champ and tell him the next fight is life or death. Think you'll see the same kind of fight?