MC versus UFC

There is one more thing I’d like to address before closing this chapter; my outlook on MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) or more commonly known as UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). Hank gave a pretty persuasive explanation of his opinion on the matter two posts ago, and I respect how he feels about it. However! I am, after all, the primary author of this blog. I am normally a very passive, un-opinionated person, so I understand that asserting my perspective may come as a shock to all of you. (Haha.) Know that there is no judging and no soap box.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with two fighters testing their skill in a voluntary competition. If someone, including our friend Hank, wants to volunteer himself to compete in a fight, a wrestling match, a thumb war, rock paper scissors; by all means, have at it. I’ll hope he does well. My concern is not for the fighters, rather, for those who watch UFC.

I understand that there is physical risk involved in almost every activity we deem to classify as a “sport”. And maybe statistically, more people get injured every year in football than they do in UFC. I do not know the numbers. Regardless, you cannot tell me that watching a dude in pads and a helmet get tackled as he’s running towards the end-zone has the same psychological effect as watching one guy punch or kick another guy in the face(not to mention hearing the crowd roar along with it). I will never ever believe that. We can talk about other contact sports another time, but I believe whole-heartedly, that specifically UFC trivializes the trauma of hand-to-hand combat, and exalts violent aggression rather than condemning it.

One article that I found especially chapped me. An article recently released from a magazine entitled The Gauntlet: Undergraduate Students Newsweekly, stated the following: “Fans of physical violence have been ignored for years. Boxing is fixed, wrestling is staged and fights in hockey are few and far between. Luckily for combat enthusiasts, the last decade has seen the rise of a new sport that made its appearance in the early 1990s…the Ultimate Fighting Championship”.

Hmmm. Does the expression “fans of physical violence” not sit right with anyone else? I’m certainly glad, of all of the world’s problems, that we’ve seemed to come up with something that finally meets the needs of “fans of physical violence,” who have been just so unfairly deprived for so many years. Poor, poor dears.

“In what has been termed ‘human cockfighting,’ fights take place inside a cage and contestants are allowed to use a wide range of fighting techniques to defeat their opponent. They punch and kick each other until one contestant can no longer get up while the crowd screams in approval… If you saw two men fighting in your home in the way they do in UFC, you'd be horrified and upset. If you see it in an arena, you cheer and shout with enjoyment. By witnessing and engaging in what would otherwise be considered cruel and inhuman behavior, we endorse and glamorize it. This has implications for the way that individuals behave in society” (Max Pemberton). Max, I could not agree with you more.

It is particularly a threat to our home sweet home, America. Maybe it’s the bad combination of overindulgence and boredom that some struggle with. In his book entitled, The Gift of Fear, Dr. Gavin DeBecker, one of the nation’s leading experts on violent behavior, stated the following: “While we [as Americans] are quick to judge the human rights record of every other country on earth, it is we civilized Americans whose murder rate is ten times that of other Western nations, we civilized Americans who kill women and children with the most alarming frequency. Are we in denial about the effects that being exposed to violent behavior has on us? If we studied any other creature in nature and found the record of interspecies violence that human beings have, we would be repulsed by it. We’d view it as a great perversion of natural law- but we wouldn’t deny it” (DeBecker 9).

Lastly, and possibly the most significant motive for refusal to participate in my opinion, I don’t believe that we feel elevated, enriched, motivated for good, or closer to God in any way, shape or form as a result of watching these fights. I believe the exact opposite to be true. You can say this about a lot of extra curricular activities, but we’re not talking about those things right now. I’m just saying. Isn't it fundamental to our human journey to seek that which elevates the mind and soul and lifts us to a higher plane? Hmm. That's what I thought we were doing here on Earth. So there you have it folks, I speak my piece! But like Tupac says, I ain't mad atcha.