When Ultimate Fighting first came out in the 90s bringing Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) to prominence, I must admit that I was pretty impressed by the new sport. Perhaps, being at my hormonal peak around the age of 20, the element of primal struggle had a certain appeal. However, I have come to see its popularity and widespread acceptance as having some disturbing implications.
While there is definitely a great deal of skill involved in fighting, the end goal is undeniably beating another man into submission. The same can be said for boxing, but boxing obviously has more rules than MMA fighting, and there is more of a sense of sportsmanship (although this point is arguable), when combatants are not allowed to beat a man while he is on the ground, which is how a great number of MMA fights are won.
Adding to the anarchic nature of the sport is a mentality of showmanship, trash-talking and disrespect that has come to characterize many of the champions — American fighters in particular. It seems that rather than showing respect for an opponent willing to risk life and limb in the ring, competitors offer gratuitous humiliation before and after matches.
I suppose this wouldn’t matter much if MMA were simply an underground phenomenon with little cachet in popular culture, but it has gone global, and appears to have overtaken boxing in popularity. What worries me the most is that boys might see the beating and humiliation of other men as worthy of great admiration. We can’t deny that combat and physical valor are inextricably tied to the male psyche, but when these are stripped of all honorable ideals and reduced to the bare essentials of men locked like beasts in a cage, fighting to the bloody finish, we are left with a dark and sobering view of the meaning of contemporary life for men.
17 responses so far ↓
1 Lukobe // Jul 13, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Interesting. You should see The Wrestler and Brüno, or at least the scenes in both that deal with MMA/cage fighting.
2 Lukobe // Jul 13, 2009 at 2:53 pm
It does make one wonder why this sport is legal at all, considering it’s outlawed when actual fowl are involved. Then again, if MMA isn’t OK, why is boxing?
3 emarel // Jul 13, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I’ve thought for some time that MMA was a manifestation of the decline of civilization, another and cruder element of the bread and circuses that distract the masses. The MMA fighter as gamecock surely fits this image, as men pummel one another for the delight of the audience.
4 wahler // Jul 13, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I too remember when Ultimate Fighting began in the 90s. It was quite different from the specialized pummel-a-thon it has become now.
No doubt it was extremely violent when it started, but as Steve Sailer has noted before, Ultimate Fighting began as a kind of competition to answer one of young competitive men’s biggest questions: which is the “best” fighting method or martial art.
If you recall the early Ultimate Fighting, you can remember it usually pitted a skilled practitioner of, say karate, against a Greco-Roman wrestling athlete, or kung fu master, etc. So the competitors were highly trained and skilled individuals in various martial disciplines that had history, tradition, rules, norms, codes of honor, etc. They were violent, competitive male activities, but those which were comparatively civilized.
After a while though, a few techniques from the various martial arts disciplines came to be identified as the most effective in combat, such as striking from Thai kickboxing, jujitsu takedowns/body throws, Greco-Roman grappling (hence the term “mixed martial arts”), and competitors began specializing in a few techniques picked from these disciplines rather than immersing themselves in a particular, traditional discipline and absorbing all the civilizing tendencies of the attendant rules, codes of conduct, honor codes, etc. in it.
So in the context of our already debauched culture, a new competitive martial art untempered by civilizing tendencies that traditionally accompanied martial arts has formed, and the result is just as you noted: anarchic, primitive, violent, brutal, bestial male combat.
5 Eric // Jul 13, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Boxing is a more violent sport than commission-sanctioned MMA; a number of boxers have died from brain trauma suffered in the ring. Those who survive can end up like Muhammed Ali. In contrast, MMA refs stop the fight when a fighter is out or can’t defend. Dislike of ground fighting is your personal preference. Is grappling unsportsmanlike as well?
Watch any UFC event and you’ll be sure to see fighters touching gloves before the fight. They know how hard it is to train and then perform in front of thousands – hence the mutual respect that is prevelant.
UFC going global is due to the Dana White’s vision and passion. In the early 2000s, the sport was misunderstood and on the fringe. His dream is for MMA to be a sport on par with soccer. I’m rooting for him to pull it off; winning in combat is something universally respected.
No one has problems with boxing, kickboxing, grappling, wrestling, karate, judo. However, when you’re allowed to use any of the above, it suddenly becomes barbaric and worrisome. That doesn’t make sense.
6 Niko // Jul 13, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I always marveled at the fact that the ancients (who were immersed in a world of violence) stylized the fight game into a technical wrestling contest.
7 miles // Jul 13, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Wahler’s sentiments are about what mine own are.
I think there are 17 rules in MMA. Without any rules it would really be ugly (neck strikes, groin strikes, open hand fingers strikes to the kidney/liver/spleen area, fishooking, biting, eye gouging, small joint manipulation, achillies heel and shin kicks, kicking an opponent when down, footstomping, and a few other sunny practices).
I kind of found out what I wanted to early on (that its best to be able to grapple, kick, and strike and take multiple arts that train one in all three instead of an art the focuses primarily on either all strikes or grappling alone). Now its kind of a bloodsport that people gamble on with modern day gladiators pummeling each other for the amusement of the masses, seemingly like the Romans in the Colusseium.
Real cockfighting, believe it or not, still goes on in America. Its sad that people enjoy watching something as awful as that.
8 whiskey // Jul 13, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I go with Eric on this one. Boxing is more brutal, more injuries, more deaths, and more corrupt (most matches to fans appear fixed). MMA on the other hand has produced classy champions like Randy Couture, who epitomize extremely hard training.
Some of the newer, hyped guys like Rampage Jackson, or Kimbo Slice, or Brock Lesnar, are all bulk and muscle, but eventually those who can link the skills (striking/kicking, shooting in for takedowns, and grappling) will knock those guys off. I’ve seen matches end in submission with a guy getting a knee-ankle-shoulder lock and forcing the opponent to tap out.
MMA is also not locked in for one group, both White and Black guys as well as Latinos compete fairly equally in all weight classes. It’s not like say, Boxing in the early 1990′s when it was all Black in the Heavyweight division. This makes it more exciting — a Brazilian, Black or White America, Russian, or European has a reasonable chance of winning even in the Heavyweight division, in any given match.
Also as noted, refs have a lot more power to stop matches and will, vs. boxing. Most of the matches I’ve seen on the weekend have a min of trash talking, if you can pound a guy when he’s down, the ref will stop the match if he’s deemed ‘helpless’ and you get a TKO. Since in that position (mounting the other guy) you are basically using your arms and some of your upper body, though the blows look bad, it’s nothing like a right hook from a standing boxer, who shifts his whole weight into the punch.
In short Boxing looks “nicer” but is far more brutal, MMA looks more brutal but is more sophisticated (requiring linking three different skill sets together) and less punishing to the fighters.
9 wahler // Jul 13, 2009 at 10:31 pm
“MMA is also not locked in for one group, both White and Black guys as well as Latinos compete fairly equally in all weight classes.”
This is true. It certainly isn’t black dominated like boxing.
This is probably due to the more diverse skill sets that can be applied in MMA. It’s probably also due to the fact that non-blacks are not very motivated to go into a black dominated sport like boxing, so they focus on something on MMA.
I along with many of my friends got into lacrosse in high school and joined the school team when we realized that we had slim chances of making the basketball and football teams or getting a decent amount of playing time.
10 wahler // Jul 13, 2009 at 10:35 pm
“Boxing is more brutal, more injuries, more deaths, and more corrupt (most matches to fans appear fixed).”
Boxing has the consistent blunt force trauma to the head that you don’t really get in MMA.
11 Justin // Jul 14, 2009 at 9:15 am
The “disgust factor” with MMA boils down to two elements: 1) the blood, and 2) the pummeling of the fallen/unconscious opponent.
No other sport ends so often with the competitors faces and bodies covered in blood. If there wasn’t as much blood, we wouldn’t view it as so primitive.
Any sport evolves according to its own rules: in MMA, it is the gloves and the floor. The gloves in MMA are there to protect the hands from being broken (not the face being hit). Punching is magnified by those gloves: more knockouts and lots more blood.
The soft springy floor also biases the results. Imagine MMA on concrete… Yeah, exactly. Wrestling/judo throwing techniques would be supreme in that environment.
In short, the rules of MMA are guaranteed to produce maximum punching damage.
Because of it, most matches have turned into little more than boxing contests, that get finished with “boxing on the floor”, as one man falls to the floor the other continues to beat him. THAT is primitive, and a huge step back from the rules of boxing, which require a fallen man to be left alone.
There is absolutely no question, MMA is a step down the cultural evolutionary ladder.
12 Justin // Jul 14, 2009 at 9:36 am
MMA is stupid on a martial arts level as well. What are they training for, a fight on the grass at the beach? What else approximates the soft ground, lack of clothes, and no physical obstructions?
Better to study ju-jitsu, to throw someone to the ground, then finish with the ancient martial skill known as KICK THE SHIT OF HIM. Not much science to kicking a fallen man’s head, but it is still the most effective and widely used combat technique ever invented. Magnified, of course, by the boots you are wearing. Note: flip-flop wearing beta boys don’t get that advantage.
13 Eric // Jul 14, 2009 at 10:53 am
Justin,
The % of UFC fights that are bloodbaths are in the single digits. When this happens, it’s due to facial cuts that look worse than they actually are.
Pummeling an opponent who is unable to defend coherently results in a ref stoppage.
MMA is the next level above boxing due to it being safer and more complex.
14 Justin // Jul 14, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Eric, you are not getting the meaning of my post. You are trying to minimize my characterization of the blood spilled or the amount of time a helpless man gets pummeled. I am not arguing about particulars.
The fact that ANY fights go on with blood spattering, or that ANY downed semi-conscious man is beaten, demonstrates that the sport is more barbaric.
Did you SEE Henderson do a leaping body slam / forearm punch onto Bisbing obviously uncounscious face? Are you totally inhuman? Do you seriously approve of that?
Obviously MMA is a skill level above pure boxing.
It is also a level above it in barbaric spectacle. That is what I’m objecting to.
15 emarel // Jul 15, 2009 at 10:31 am
wahler: “MMA is also not locked in for one group, both White and Black guys as well as Latinos compete fairly equally in all weight classes.”
This is true. It certainly isn’t black dominated like boxing.”……….
Blacks actually do not dominate boxing these days. The top boxers in every division from middleweight on up are white, almost every champ is white, and most of them are Europeans. You don’t hear much about it in the U.S. press because American blacks are not the best boxers these days, and are routinely taken out by the likes of the Klitscko brothers.
Read about it in castefootball.us.
16 Espio // Jul 15, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Welmer, I was thinking how this article might compare to your article on alpha male? The article where you go into the Illiad and how Achilles was an alpha male from male standards, while Paris was an alpha from female standards, and this is why Achilles side was able to win, because he had the honor of being an alpha male from the male point of view. Didn’t Achilles get this honor by being the best warrior and honorable fighter, in something similar to what MMA is today?
17 Welmer // Jul 15, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Well, Espio, I think the point about Achilles still stands: he ultimately paid for his disgraceful treatment of Hector, who was the model of the virtuous man. Keep in mind that it is Paris who ends up killing Achilles, which is a great humiliation considering who Paris was as a man.
And as for the “victors” in the war, most of them died or lost everything. It was Odysseus who ultimately ended up as the hero, for striving through all adversity, and for having a loyal wife.
Homer’s sagas have much to teach us, and he does not fail to condemn pride and brutality even as he exposes the treachery of flighty men and women.
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