Many fans don't understand the purpose of gloves in boxing.
There's more than a bit of self-delusion among boxing or football fans castigating MMA as "cockfighting." You watch those sports for the violence. We all do, to varying degrees. The violence of a blindside hit excites everyone here. The uppercut that makes the other boxer's eyes go haywire has the same effect. If you say it doesn't, you're lying.
BTW, one of the reasons ND can't beat the best teams at the right times is because they simply lack enough "badasses." Clements2 used to talk about this and it stuck in the craw of some, which was probably evidence of its truth. ND gets a lot of good students/nice kids. They tend not to be the ones who go out there to take someone's head off. When's the last time ND got into a fight on the field?
But, setting aside long term damage (which is easily ignored by the viewer of the sport), the visible, in-person, immediate-perception barbarity of MMA is the worst.
Keep in mind, that it's simply a combination of various martial arts/combat sports. Arms get broken/dislocated in judo. Noses get shattered in karate and kickboxing. Nasty cuts open in boxing.
Ask any kid who plays football why he likes to play football. It will be the same response over and over: "Because I get to hit people." Thus, why it's hard for me to swallow alleged football fans talking about all the brutal violence of some other sport. The long-term health damage done to football players head to toe dwarfs anything in MMA.
The screenwriter and filmmaker John Milius conceived the UFC, originally. He came up with the Octagon cage. He even wanted water surrounding the cage with gators in it. He got the cage, not the moat. If you know anything about Milius, he's all about men and the heroic. He gets it. He always got it. We idolize guys who will stick their noses and fists out, tuck their chins, and rumble, with no one to support them. Less than a minute into the very first UFC fight in 1993, the victorious fighter kicked out the front tooth of his opponent and the tooth flew out of the ring and into the lap of commentator Kathy Long, a kickboxing great. Back in the locker room, competitor Ken Shamrock said that the room went silent and every guy realized that it just got real, and that's what they would face. Guys tend to like that kind of stuff, regardless if some don't want to admit that. They may just rationalize it and accept it in a more respectable sport like football.
BTW, the guy that kicked out his opponent's tooth was involved in a tournament two years later where he, at 210 pounds, fought a 140 Japanese fighter in the first round. The Japanese fighter wrapped up his leg as the fighter stood over him repeatedly eye gouging the little Japanese guy as the incompetent ref stood by clueless. The Japanese fighter persisted and locked up a kneebar, winning the match. His eye was horrible. As he left the ring and entered the hallway to the locker room, his eye swollen shut, he shouted, "I'm coming for you Rickson! I'm coming for you Rickson!" Rickson Gracie, the overwhelming favorite in the tournament, greatest of the famed Gracie Family, god of jiu-jitsu, was his next opponent. The Japanese fighter, Yuki Nakai, was simply outclassed, but fought until he was choked out. Afterwards, they had to remove his eye. I've never read of Nakai saying anything bad about the fighter who ground out his eye or express any bitterness. That is the kind of guy Milius was thinking about when he envisioned the whole spectacle.
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Not to mention all the guys physically maimed who could barely walk as still relatively young men.
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Pankration was one of the original Greek Olympic sports and was essentially what was called "No Holds Barred" fighting in the 1980s and 1990s. Many, many rules have been added since that time, so many of the assumptions here are off.
I get the whole "man" thing in the context of actual combat, for god, country or family. That is a man I can respect.
I don't get it as entertainment, for money, excitement or notoriety.
Nothing compares to the violence of football. The hardest, high-speed hits can be likened to surviving car crashes.
Did you admire Jack Lambert? Butkus? What about Chris Zorich?
Again, ask a kid who plays football what he loves about football and he will say, "Hitting people."
We all have our preferences. Golf bores me to tears, but I certainly don't claim that it requires no athletic skills. I can't imagine devoting all the time that duffers devote to it, but whatever. A lot of people are surprised after watching MMA how little resemblance it bears to the worst descriptions. Most fighters end fights with some cuts and bruising. Compare that to the injuries we regularly witness in football.
Football's goal is not to injure the opponent, and the long term injuries are removed from the field, as I mentioned, so easy to ignore. Can you say the same for MMA? I don't know; I don't watch it, but the matches I have seen do look like their goal is to inflict injury, and it is hard to ignore the common injuries.
I hear you arguing they are the same, but there seems to be something qualitatively different on the face of the "sports."
What do you think about rugby, compared to football and MMA?
When I was a kid I watched a boxer die on TV.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e8jRdW73Sg
We have retired MMA fighters in their 50s and even 60s, now. I can name a few with significant brain damage, but that's about it. I don't know that the same can be said for retired NFL players.
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It’s been added to the list of things in life that I’ll never comprehend, along with NASCAR, male homosexuality, ice fishing, vasectomies and those open hole ear lobe piercings.
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Those guys could drive and driving stock meant a whole different skill level compared to today. A.J. Foyt could race everything. The sport hadn't been commercialized and was composed of motor heads.
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There are hundreds of birth control methods that don’t involve slicing your nutsack and stealing your ability to procreate.
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