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The Cage

By Roel Torres

November 18, 2008

The Violent Saturday

It is Saturday, November 15, 2008, and I am home, in my living room, watching sports. It’s not an uncommon development. But in this case, I am watching a sport that was introduced in the United States only fifteen years ago. This is the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a mixed martial arts organization where men are legally encouraged to kick a man on the ground, to break a man’s arm, and to choke an opponent until he’s unconscious. These are some of the ways you can win a fight in this competition. I’ve seen them all. And now, I am watching a superhuman physical specimen named Brock Lesnar dominate his opponent. Lesnar stands 6’4”, weighs 280 pounds, and, according to ESPN, ran a 4.65 in the 40 yard dash when he played for the Minnesota Vikings. (For a frame of reference, that’s faster than the Combine times of either Emmitt Smith or Jerry Rice – the all-time rusher, and the all-time receiver in NFL history.) In addition, he won a NCAA freestyle wrestling championship in 2000 for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Lesnar is freakishly big, freakishly strong, freakishly athletic – and one hundred percent terrifying. On this night, he is raining down 38 consecutive unanswered blows (I hit the rewind button and counted them) to the head of Randy Couture, a 45 year-old man who is lying on the ground defenseless, 60 pounds smaller than Lesnar, and who came out of retirement a couple of years ago. It’s quite a sight. And I am experiencing confusion. Again. Which, I suppose is no surprise. Because, as I continually discover, this is just one more, transitional moment in my personal lifetime of confusion.

The Hard Truth Between Friends

A little more than a year ago, Kendall was sitting in my living room. She was asking questions, trying to learn more about me, trying to figure me out. She knew I liked sports. I liked them more than she did, that was for sure. I followed the Sox. I followed the Patriots. I followed the Celtics. It was something she didn’t fully grasp, didn’t fully understand. She wanted to measure everything, to quantify it. “What’s your favorite team?” she asked. “What’s your favorite sport?” My favorite? Ah, I don’t know. I don’t. But I’ve known Kendall too long. As always, she deserved an answer.

(Note: Parents are given a free pass on the predictably sinister variation of this question, because giving any other answer would be cruel. It’s not worth it. When one of their kids asks “Which one is your favorite?” a mom is allowed to say “I love you all equally.” That’s fair. That’s how it works. But I don’t think you’re allowed to do that when you start talking about sports teams. The stakes are lower. The potential damage to human lives is less severe. When it’s just two friends, sitting around the living room, talking to each other and asking questions, it’s a little lazy to get evasive. A little cowardly. Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. Sometimes, you have to answer the tough questions.)

I thought about it, and tried to sort out my answer while talking out loud. Basketball was the sport I loved to play the most. It wasn’t even close. I grew up playing pick-up games every week for years and years – in someone’s driveway, in a gym, on a playground. Went to basketball camps, played on varsity teams. I’ve played more hoops with my buddies than any other sport. And my favorite sports team of all time is the ’86 Celtics with Bird, McHale, Parish, DJ, Ainge, Walton, Wedman, and Sichting. That was a beautiful crew. They were exhilarating to watch.

Patriots games are an event. Must-see viewing. Because they only play once a week, and because the franchise had established such a high-level of consistency, I would re-arrange my schedule for every game. Three Super Bowls in four years. A perfect regular season. Bob Kraft and Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. What other local franchise could make that claim? Who rewarded our expectations more faithfully?

But I spend more time on baseball than either of these sports. More time watching it. More time reading about it. More time writing about. Exponentially more time thinking about it. That was true, long before I was given the opportunity to write for Bill James Online and The Hardball Times. And it remains true today. Football has a greater weekly peak. And basketball had the most meaningful stretch in my life. But in terms of long-term devotion, the answer was probably baseball. Probably.

Unless you factored in cagefighting. Then things got murky. Then things got muddled. I told Kendall that I might like cagefighting more than any other sport. What a weird answer. What a weird thought. Kendall didn’t react much. She just smiled and nodded. She knew me well. In the end, to her, the answer really wasn’t much of a surprise.

The Person You Would Like To Be

So, like I said, I was experiencing another moment of confusion on Saturday night. They weren’t new questions. But they were the questions that I was struggling with all over again. Firstly, I was trying to figure out which sport I enjoyed the most, baseball or cagefighting? And secondly, and possibly more critically, what the hell kind of question is that?

I suspect that you are always two people at all times. The person you are. And the person you would like to be. And deep down, I know that I would like to be a man who values the graceful artistry and the gentle rhythms of baseball more than the compressed violence and uninhibited destruction of cagefighting. It sounds better. It’s more a more acceptable answer during a conversation at a cocktail party in polite society. But it’s not necessarily an honest one. It’s not necessarily true. I would like to be a man who likes baseball more than cagefighting. But in my lifetime, I have learned the lesson over and over again that I am not in control of my own heart. I’m not.

Ah, the hell with it. I don’t go to any cocktail parties, anyway.

The Box

As much as I care about the Celtics and basketball, as much as I cared about the Pats and football, and as much as I cared about the Sox and baseball, cagefighting operates on a different level. The sport itself is more primal. The appeal to me is more primal. There is something visceral and gripping and cathartic about cagefighting. It’s explosive. It’s pure.

Fifteen years ago, when I was in college, my sister bought an illegal black box converter that could de-scramble the pay cable stations. (She got this from a co-worker with a drug problem who was often selling items of questionable origin.) We were able to pick up all the movie channels: HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, The Movie Channel. We were also able to de-scramble the porn channels – which, for a teenage boy in the age before the internet, was a dangerous development. But another consequence of the purchase was that we could watch all the pay-per-view events we wanted for free. We got to see recent Hollywood blockbusters. We got to see random concerts from big-time recording artists. We got to see Professional wrestling cards featuring Bret “the Hitman” Hart and Flyin’ Brian Pillman and the Great Muta. And in 1993, we got to see the introduction of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the very first mixed martial arts competition to be broadcast in the United States. Muay Thai flying knees to the head. Running powerslams. Brazilian jiu-jitsu guillotine chokeholds. People representing different martial arts disciplines facing each other in blood-soaked battles. It was eye-opening. What was I watching? Fighting. I was watching fighting at its highest level.

I was hooked. From the start. I loved professional wrestling. And this was the same thing – but better. Much better. This was professional wrestling, but legit and real. Perfect.

I watched each Ultimate Fighting Championship event, one after another. The sport evolved, my understanding grew, and it slowly started gaining societal acceptance. At this point, it’s getting covered in traditional mainstream outlets. ESPN covers it. One of my local papers, The Boston Herald, has reported on the sport for years. I noticed that recently, our other paper, The Boston Globe, also decided to follow suit and write about the fights from this past weekend. (And now, I suppose in thanks to this article, Bill James Online has decided to write about it, too.) One small step after another, that’s how you build acceptance.

(Note: After years of service, our illegal black box cable de-scrambler died a long, drawn-out death. In the end, it was literally held together by duct tape, unable to change channels successfully, pieces rattling around and threatening to fall off at the slightest touch. But it served us well. And I can only hope that the statute of limitations has expired on cable theft. It has, right?)

Undisputed

When Brock Lesnar threw one punch after another into the side of Randy Couture’s bald, unprotected skull, I was not aghast. I was not disgusted. No. I felt wired, alive, and full of adrenaline. I loved it. It was the highlight of my weekend. And I’m not ashamed to say that.

Which sport do I love the most, baseball or cagefighting? Ah, I don’t know. I don’t. I pretend that I’m a parent. I pretend that I’m a father. “I love them both equally.” It’s not an answer. But that’s my only answer. Whether it’s true or not, I can’t really tell. It’s a tough question. And of course, I’m not surprised. I’m not. I don’t control my heart. Once again, this is just one more fleeting, passing moment in my ongoing lifetime of confusion.

If you have any thoughts you want to share, I would love to hear from you. I can be contacted at roeltorres@post.harvard.edu. Thank you.

COMMENTS (26 Comments, most recent shown first)

RoelTorres
Hi Tim,

It would not surprise me to be wrong on any given issue. In my essays, as with all things in my life, I do my best to try and figure things out to the best of my ability, then go from there. I can’t say that I have fully resolved all my internal conflicts about cagefightig. But I can say that I have tried to educate myself on the topic, and tried to make an informed, knowledgeable decision about the issue. Whether I reached the proper conclusion or not, I don’t know. But I am comfortable with the process I followed to reach that conclusion.

You say that “the people who will one day be victimized by the anger, hostility and disrespect that cage fighting creates are exploited.” Maybe. I would propose that a thought counter to that one would be “the people who experience catharsis from cagefighting and find a healthy and safe release for their internal aggressions and hostility will benefit from having found a socially acceptable outlet for their violent nature.” That’s my general take on things.

(I will also say that, as a fan of the sport, the competitors in cagefighting often do not disrespect each other. In fact, I have never seen another sport where opponents have such a deep, genuine, mutual respect for each other. Really. It’s pretty cool, actually.)

Finally, I don’t know that I deserve any admiration for the way I have handled the criticism. Writing for Bill James Online, I realized very quickly that the readership on the site is thoughtful, smart, and generally very supportive. When you guys take the time to share your thoughts, I am very receptive to what everyone has to say.

Thanks for your thoughts.

2:14 PM Nov 22nd

timconnelly
Roel,

I favor an immediate ban on any sport where the primary objective is to hurt another human being. Sports have a positive role when they create healthy outlets for competition, when they tend to feed respect and good sportsmanship and when they produce skills that can be useful outside of the sport.

Cage fighting is a brutal, destructive and barbaric way of exploiting everybody in sight. The athletes are exploited, the audience is exploited and the people who will one day be victimized by the anger, hostility and disrespect that cage fighting creates areexploited.

I admire the way you have reacted to all our criticism and still think you're a great writer. But boy are you wrong on this one! ( :

1:03 PM Nov 22nd

RoelTorres
Hi Chuck,

No problem. It was a reasonable request on your part. You wanted to know what was allowed in the world of cagefighting and, because I'm fully responsible for opening this can of worms, I feel like the least I can do is try to discourage any misconceptions on the issue.

Again -- I concede that cagefighting is violent and not for everyone. But I do believe that it is, at the very least, more structured than a dogfight. It is also completely voluntary, which is another important distinction between dogfights and human cagefighting.
2:19 PM Nov 21st

chuck
Roel,
Thanks very much for taking the time to list those rules. Even if I never watch it, at least I will have a better opinion of it as sport than I previously had.
I would bet that most people, like me, who saw it briefly and were turned off, jump to the conclusion from the level of violence that there are no rules or structure to it- that it's no more structured than a dogfight.

1:54 PM Nov 21st

RoelTorres
As a calrification, I just wanted to point out that when evan says there are 31 rules listed in Wikipedia, that's actually only a list of the possible fouls in the sport. There are actually far more than 31 rules that govern aspects of the sport beyond the list of fouls (number of judges, number of rounds, length of rounds, scoring system, etc.)
12:12 PM Nov 20th

RoelTorres
Hi Evan,

I think you are being unnecessarily self-critical when you say you are “getting off your high horse.” Even as a fan and advocate of cagefighting, I will be the first to admit that it is undoubtedly a violent sport. Your comments indicate a natural instinct to protect people, keep them safe, and to reduce the level of violence in athletic contests. That doesn’t strike me as being on the high horse at all. That strikes me as being admirably sane.

I could not agree with you more that “the back and forth on this topic has been very insightful and informative.” This has always been one of the great joys in writing for Bill James Online. People who follow and admire Bill’s work tend to be fans of critical thought, empirical evidence, and they are willing to question conventional wisdom. Every essay I write feels merely like a starting point. The dialogue with the readers after each piece is really what elevates the level of discourse. It also keeps me vigilant, because this audience will not tolerate any opinions that I cannot support without solid logic and common sense. Always a terrifying prospect, I assure you.

As you say, I am very aware of that part “of human nature, that primal desire to strike violently at times, that is destructive to society and to interpersonal relationships, yet present nonetheless.” I know that desire. I believe that it is an ugly side to me. But it exists, and therefore I need to acknowledge it. I attribute it to the reptilian part of my brain, the part that has been developed by thousands of years of Darwinian evolution, natural selection, survival of the fittest, and hunter-gatherer behaviors. There is something in my coding, something in my wiring, that enjoys watching fighters compete. I’m not proud of it. But it’s there. That was pretty much the theme I wanted to explore when I wrote my essay.

In terms of the effects of violence on society, I will borrow a medical analogy and say that we need to treat the disease, and not the symptoms. It is easy to identify the ways that violence manifests itself. It is much harder to find the roots that cause these behaviors. I agree with the points you have articulated so well: the capacity for violence is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of human nature, and that violent behavior in young males is often caused by violence in the homes. I am not presumptuous enough to suggest that I know what to do about this. But I am self-aware enough to know that something should be done on a global level.

Thanks for your continuing contributions to the discussion.

11:49 AM Nov 20th

evanecurb
Chuck:
Wikipedia has a list of 31 rules under its article titled "Ultimate Fighting Championship" so I think there are lots of rules.

Roel and others:

I decided to come down off my high horse and join the discussion. The back and forth on this topic has been very insightful and informative. Roel has touched on one of those parts of human nature, that primal desire to strike violently at times, that is destructive to society and to interpersonal relationships, yet present nonetheless. Author Michael Schaar used the phrase "Killer Angels" to describe the civilized men who went to war at Gettysburg. The phrase captures both aspects of the warrior - the sense of duty that provides a moral basis for going to war and the bloodlust (whether born of fear, hatred, or pure adrenaline; it is bloodlust nonetheless) that enables a man to kill a fellow human being in hand to hand combat. So we all have these killer angels within us, as well as (Lincoln's phrase) the better angels of our nature. Where does UFC fit in? Roel said it best - it is primal, a catharsis. Our killer angels, needing an outlet to express themselves, thank us for our interest in blood sports, video games, and R rated gangster movies. I don't know whether these outlets, on balance, provoke more violence in our society or not. But make no mistake about it - human beings' - specifically young males' - capacity for violence is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of human nature, and issues that touch on this capacity for violence should never be taken lightly. By the same token, (as Roel correctly points out) the fact that young men who commit violent acts enjoy violent forms of entertainment does not necessarily indicate a cause and effect relationship.

I do believe that the biggest cause of violent behavior by young males is violence in the home ('home' meaning both one's actual home and the surrounding community). I further believe (and this would support Dave's point regarding Japanese entertainment vs. U.S. entertainment) that placing violence into a context of "righteous" or "good" behavior implies a sanctioning of violent acts. I have no studies to cite but it just seems like common sense to me. It may well be that violent entertainment provides a stimulus toward violent action in those who already have that propensity. I don't see UFC/MMA are bigger culprits than boxing or certain other forms of violent entertainment. To sum up, we shouldn't single out UFC/MMA when trying to cut down on violent entertainment. People will find another outlet.
10:35 AM Nov 20th

RoelTorres
Chuck,

In that long response, I also forgot to answer one of your questions. There are a lot of good reasons why fighters are allowed to hit a man that is down. But the primary one is that most fighters are not defenseless when they are on the ground. As a matter of fact, all of the early Ultimate Fighting Championships were won by a small, skinny Brazilian man who won his matches while lying on the ground.

That was one of the most eye-opening and jaw-dropping discoveries from the early Ultimate Fighting Championships – the fact that the fighter on the ground, lying on his back, was actually more dangerous than the person standing over him and hitting him. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a martial art that teaches you how to fight even when you’re off your feet, no longer standing up. Personally, I think it’s a beautiful martial art. And one of the strongest reasons I became attracted to the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the first place.

10:34 AM Nov 20th

RoelTorres
Hi Chuck,

I can try to give you a general sense of the rules, but there are a lot of them, so I probably won’t end up being comprehensive. Different organizations can have different rules, but the Ultimate Fighting Championship is consistent in using the Unified Rules, which were created by the New Jersey Athletic Control Board, and adopted by other state sanctioning committees such as Nevada, Louisiana, California, etc.

Fights are three rounds, five minutes in length. There is a referee and three judges. The winner of each round is assigned ten points, the opponent usually receives nine or less. There are different weight classes (155 lbs. 170 lbs., 185 lbs, etc.), to separate fighters of uneven size and strength.

There is a long list of rules on what behaviors and actions are absolutely not allowed in the cage. Here are some, but not all, of them:

No headbutting
No eye gouging or eye poking
No biting
No hair pulling
You can’t insert your fingers in a man’s mouth and fish hook him
You can’t strike the groin
No gouging a cut or laceration
No small joint manipulation
No striking to the back of the head
No downward strikes with the point of the elbow
No strikes to the throat
No clawing or pinching
No kicking to the head of a grounded opponent
No knees to the head of a grounded opponent
No stomping on a grounded opponent
You can’t spike your opponent’s head or neck into the ground
You can’t hold an opponent’s shorts or gloves
No spitting
No use of abusive language
No attacking during a break
No attacking after the end of a round…

And so on. There are more rules, but I think that addresses some of the general issues in your question, in terms of whether there is a sense of structure, sportsmanship, and fair play. I believe there is. The state athletic boards believe there is. And the fighters believe there is. It’s organized, and it’s a sport, and there are regulations in place to try and protect the fighters.

(note: because the Ultimate Fighting Championship has only been around for fifteen years, the rules continue to evolve and change. Not all these rules have been in place from the start. But all of them have been in use and accepted for years.)

It is only my opinion, but I think that it is far less likely for a fighter to toy with an opponent to punish them in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, than it is for a boxer like Ali to do it. For a few of reasons.

Firstly, most fights are only scheduled for three rounds, as opposed to twelve to fifteen in boxing. So there really isn’t a lot of time and opportunity to mess around.

Secondly, in boxing, if a fighter is hurt and grabs and clinches his opponent, the referee is instructed to break it up, so that the fighting may resume. You can’t hold the guy. But in the cage, you can hold a person for minutes on end. That’s allowed, and even encouraged. For many fighters, it’s a critical part of their strategy. (You will note in the comments above that this is one of the reasons “jollydodger” finds the sport boring.) If you are getting hit and don’t like it, you can wrap you arms around your opponent. When you hold him standing up, that’s called “the clinch.” When you hold him tight on the ground, that’s called “closed guard.” And like I mentioned, you can do that for a couple of minutes at a time. Which is plenty, since each round is only five minutes long.

And finally, in boxing, if one man is a superior boxer to another, then the dominant fighter can feel invincible and in absolute control. An inferior boxer who can’t hurt his opponent with his punches is unarmed. But in a cagefight, a man who is unable to hurt an opponent with one skillset has such a wide variety of other attacking options, that it is hard for an opponent to feel invincible. With techniques from Western Boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai striking, judo, Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and more – there are a lot of possible ways to catch a superior, dominant fighter by surprise.

I appreciate your efforts to educate yourself on the nature of the sport. Again, it’s not for everyone. But there is certainly a lot of structure, organization, and state-sanctioned regulation in place that makes it an athletic contest, and not just pure, barbaric mutilation.

10:23 AM Nov 20th

chuck
Roel,
I never watched more than a few seconds of one of these matches, and so am ignorant about what sort of rules there are in them. My assumption watching it at first was that there are no rules- anything goes. But I'm guessing this is not the case. I imagine there are scoring points involved. But limits...for instance - and I'm having trouble coming up with a for instance without getting intensely gruesome- can one competitor put out another one's eye(s), bite him, permanently cripple him with a well-place blow to the knee, open a new airhole for him, etc, etc? If there are no holds barred, and you have the man down, what is the point of hitting him in the head until he has a severe concussion or worse? Isn't putting a person in a helpless position enough?

I guess what I'm trying to ask is where is the sportsmanship in this kind of sport? If it's an attempt to really crown the world's toughest person, shouldn't it really just be a fight to the finish- just go back to gladiator times, dispense with the niceties and allow people to fight as they would for their lives in an alley?

I remember vividly something I saw once in an art exhibition hall. It was a chicken coop, raised up on posts to eye level. Just a wire mesh box about 4 feet x 3 feet. Inside was a chicken. It had food and water. And a tv. And on the tv played a tape loop of a chicken getting its head chopped off. And my first impression and also that of my friends who saw it was: "That's horrible!- making that chicken watch and listen to that!". And then it hits you- that's what any of us who has sat down with our bowl of popcorn to watch a human being get injured or killed (fictionally or not) has done, by choice.

Ali was to most other boxers as the '86 Celtics were to the Pistons. So I guess I can grant you that art can be found in just about any skill, even the bludgeoning of another human being in a sanctioned match. I do remember a match Ali had against a British guy, who was I think the first man to knock Ali down. Ali had been toying with the guy, it seemed. But after he went down, he got up and he punished that guy. It looked to me like he purposely tore the guy up without knocking him out. And unlike other fights I saw of Ali, that one was revolting. He had crossed the line of sportsmanship. So my question re: these matches is: Is that line present in them?

3:32 AM Nov 20th

RoelTorres
Hi Evan,

Thanks for the clarification. I commend your sense of consistency. I think that the world would be a better place if everyone agreed with your level of standards. I don't imagine that there will be a realistic enforcement of your suggestions, but in principle (if not in practice), I think you are more right than wrong.
12:01 AM Nov 20th

RoelTorres
Hi Ryan,

I had a similar experience watching the early Ultimate Fighting Championships. The level of skill, technique, courage, and heart these athletes put on display was something unprecedented for me. It was groundbreaking. For me, watching a world-class practitioner demonstrating his mastery of a martial art is fascinating to watch on an artistic level. I like listening to great blues guitarists. I like looking at the paintings of great artists. And I enjoy a master of judo, or jiu-jitsu, or muay thai practicing his craft.

I think that your point about auto fatalities and Nascar circles back to a running theme in the comments concerning causality. It's so hard -- if not impossible -- to draw the line between cause-and-effect sometimes that discussing it can be like a dog chasing his tail. One of my fellow Bill James Online writers, Matthew Namee, will point me to an article showing a correlation between games and violent kids. Another fellow Bill James Online writer, Dave Fleming, will point out that studies show exposure to violence is not the problem, it's defining the heroes and villains. I think the comments have been very thought-provoking so far. But I'm not sure they've resolved some of the issues at hand.

I don't know if my take on this issue is really anything to applaud. Most of these essays are really just a reflection of my thought process, and an attempt to articulate some of my inner conflicts. Basically, I just write what comes to mind and hope that I can produce something halfway interesting.

Thanks for your thoughts.
11:56 PM Nov 19th

RoelTorres
Hi jollydodger,

There is absolutely no way that I can dispute the logic of your position. It is, in many ways, similar to mine. You have taken the sport into careful consideration, and have decided that you don't find it entertaining. I basically ran through the identical process, but reached a different conclusion. And in the end, you can't debate a "personal preference." Who am I to tell you that your boredom is unwarranted? That wouldn't make a lick of sense. Thanks for the response.
11:43 PM Nov 19th

evanecurb
Roel:

I also think boxing should be illegal, and football should have a weight limit and padding on the outer shell of helmets.
10:14 PM Nov 19th

RyanTorres
I remember seeing the first UFC and seeing this slight Brazilian man end a fight simply because their opponent made the mistake of placing their arm in a certain position. It fascinated me how precise a fighter had to be, to have something as innocuous as letting someone trip you and grab your ankle ended a fight. Nowhere else are small mistakes so quickly and fiercely punished. As a purple belt in karate, I appreciate the skills of these cage-fighting athletes. They are willing to stand there and say: I have nothing except my skill and training to protect me and that is enough.

Vehicles kill more people per year than fighting, speeding kills. More deaths have happened in auto-racing per than in any other sport, yet I would never deny a Nascar fan Daytona. Nor would I say that going fast in auto-racing is the reason people speed on the highway. Does it glorify it? Equate it with masculinity and desensitize people to its bad effects? Yes, but we live in a world of choices. Anyone stepping behind a car who decides to speed makes that choice. Anyone who decides to beat someone to death made the choice of violence and putting blinders on and baby-proofing the world isn't going to change that.

I would give everything I have in the world if wars were settled in cage-fights rather than gunfights. I think it important to also make the distinction between an irrevocable decision like using a firearm and punching someone who signed up for it, and whose black and blue marks will heal with time. If we could bring the troops home after a giant country-to-country UFC. I say yes, bring it on.

Roel, I applaud you putting yourself out there and stating a politically incorrect position. One that I personally agree with, but an unpopular one nonetheless. Good work.
8:22 PM Nov 19th

jollydodger
My friends who dislike baseball say its boring. It's not boring to me, but I can understand that it can be boring to some. That being said, watching ultimate fighting to me is boring. I don't think it's because I don't understand the intricacies. Strikers hope to catch a guy on the chin. Wrestlers hope to wrangle the guy down into a position to make him tap out with a submission maneuver, etc. It's violent, but its supposed to be. I have no ethical problem with it. The guys signed up for it--they train and dedicate their lives to it. But more times than not (not always, but over half the time I have personally sat down and watched), the two men end up on the floor, pinned where the fence meets the floor, grabbing, punching in close quarters, etc. To some, exhilorating...for me-boring.
8:03 PM Nov 19th

RoelTorres
Hi Dave,

I appreciate your two cents, and I think that it introduces a very insightful aspect to the discussion, which is that violence has a context. It does not operate in a vacuum. As you said, it's important to have an interpretation of violence.

A pride of lions killing an antelope isn't doing it out of malice. That's how they feed themselves and promote the survival of their species. The fighters in the Ultimate Fighting Championship are highly-trained consenting adults who voluntarily engage in a state-sanctioned competition to test their athletic skills and martial arts abilities against equally matched opposition. Like I've said, I understand that the spectacle is not to everyone's taste. But I still defend the activity as a legitimate and respectable sport.
4:59 PM Nov 19th

DaveFleming
I've always been fascinated by this debate.

In a 1981 study of violence on television in Japan and the US found that youth in both countries were exposed to similiar amounts of violence, despite the fact that Japan has far fewer violent deaths per 100,000 citizens than the US.

The study concluded that a major factor was how violence was portrayed: in Japan, the characters who caused violence were typically the bad guys, and the good guys were the victims, the ones who suffered. In the US, the opposite is typical: usually the good guys inflict violent, and villians are made the victims.

This is dangerous because it unconsciously ties our empathy to the assaulter, not the assaulted.

To cage fighting: the danger isn't the presentation of violence, but the interpretation of said violence. That is: it's fine for two men to beat the holy hell outta one another. It only becomes dangerous when we imagine winning fighters as 'heroes' and losers as 'villians' that we run into problems.

Just my two cents.
4:13 PM Nov 19th

RoelTorres
Hi evan,

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I hear ya. But to be honest, the statistics indicate that mixed martial arts is safer than sports like football, boxing, nascar, or even equstrian events.

There really isn't a big fear of someone being killed. It's not a gentle sport by any means. But the threat of death isn't one of the major concerns.
2:06 PM Nov 19th

evanecurb
Mixed martial arts should be illegal. I don't care how popular it is or whether or not I might personally enjoy watching it. Someone is going to get killed.

12:52 PM Nov 19th

RoelTorres
Hi Matthew,

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I read the CNN article you linked to. It brought to mind one point that I felt I should make -- even though I enjoy watching cagefighting, in absolutely no way do I advocate that kids should be allowed to watch it. That may seem weird and/or contradictory. But as a grown adult, I feel like I can make a healthier separation and a rational assessment of the sport. I think that kids don't have those critical faculties in place.

I understand and respect your dislike for the sport, and do not have any problem with it. I'm certainly not here to try and convert anyone with a distaste for cagefighting. If you are truly curious and searching for reasons why you find it so unpleasant, I would suggest that your respect for the human body might be a separate (and more relevant factor) than your religion. Many of the top fighters and most prominent champions in the sport are deeply religious, and are able to reconcile their faith with their practice of the martial arts. Still, I don't think it's really that important to identify the underlying reasons why cagefighting doesn't agree with a person. Often, all it takes is an instinctive gut reaction to know whether it's for you, or not.

Question: since you have an old buddy who participates in some form of combat sports, can I ask you for your opinion of his personality? Is he naturally aggressive, violent? Does he share your religious views? Does he seem to have an innate disregard for his own body? Just curious as to whether his participation in cagefighting seems either a) internally consistent, or b) completely contradictory to his personality profile.
11:13 AM Nov 19th

enamee
For what it's worth, here's a link to a recent study connecting violent video games to real-life violence: http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/11/03/healthmag.violent.video.kids/index.html

A old buddy of mine does ultimate fighting or some similar sport, and awhile back I searched YouTube for his name. Watching one of his fights made me sick. I had to turn the thing off. It offended me in this way: It degraded the human body. To do that to someone, or to allow it to be done to yourself, is appalling to my sensibilities. Maybe it has something to do with my religion; I don't know. I guess I just think we should treat our bodies -- and the bodies of others -- better than that.
9:27 AM Nov 19th

RoelTorres
Hi Richie,

I'm going to take a couple of quotes, one from Chuck, and one from your comment, and try to respond to both:

From Chuck:
"A couple weeks ago he was robbed, beaten to the ground and kicked in the head by a bunch of 15 year olds."

From Richie:
"I've known violent people, and they didn't go to the ballet, they didn't take in poetry recitals. They really liked violence in their entertainment, too. ."

Basically, it is my belief that the kids who killed Tuba Man, and the people that you know who were personally violent would have been that way even without media stimulus. No, they don't watch the ballet or go to poetry recitals. But even if they didn't watch violent entertainment, I would suggest they would still be violent people.

My belief is that violent people are wired that way because they enjoy violence. And not because of entertainment. Predatory animals -- like tigers and sharks and bears and hawks, etc. -- all engage in violence. They hunt, they kill. And it's not because of media stimulus, which seems to be Michael Medved's theory (or am I reading that wrong?)

It's a violent world, and the history of the human race is filled with war and death and murder. And the Ultimate Fighting Championship is fifteen years old. I don't see how you could blame something like The Crusades on rap videos. I think that there is probably some other, stronger, more relevant factor that leads people to commit acts of violence.

Uh, I don't know. I sort of feel like this is a different line of discussion than what my essay was aimed at. I'm not really a psychologist, nor an expert in human behavior. I'm a little over my head talking about why people do violent things. But I'll go where the comments take me, I guess.

12:39 AM Nov 19th

Richie
There is absolutely a positive correlation between watching violence and doing violence. I doubt there's a psychologist working who would deny that.

The correlation's strong enough that obviously 'A' is causing 'B', or 'B' is causing 'A', or perhaps there's some causal loop between the two, or maybe some 'C' or 'D' factor is causing both. I dunno.

I've known violent people, and they didn't go to the ballet, they didn't take in poetry recitals. They really liked violence in their entertainment, too.

I'm not suggesting UFC fans are personally violent. I'm sure most are not. I'm not suggesting we illegalize UFC stuff. I suggest we don't.

But of course there's overall some linkage between what people choose to watch and what people choose to do. TV critic Michael Medved put it best. We have 60 years of evidence that TV commercials influence behavior. Else people wouldn't buy the commercial time. How can one argue that the commercials we incidentally take in affect our behavior, but the content we're tuning in to watch has no such effects at all?
12:08 AM Nov 19th

RoelTorres
Hi Chuck,

Those '86 Celtics really spoiled the Boston fans. Passing, movement, teamwork, fundamentals. They had such a ridiculously high basketball IQ. That's what basketball is supposed to look like.

The death of Tuba Man was a very sad loss. Having read the tributes to him, I can only hope that he realized how beloved he was while he was still alive. I do think, however, that it's very important in light of your comments to distinguish the idea of a) fighting in a state-sanctioned organized martial arts competition, and b) murdering an innocent man. Clearly, I acknowledge the inherent complications of following the sport of mixed martial arts. There is something a little disturbing about it. Having said that, I do NOT believe that violence is spurred on by media stimulus. Violence has been in the history of the human race from the very beginning (according to the Bible, the human race was in existence for a single generation before Cain decided to murder Abel, so that didn't take very long) while the Ultimate Fighting Championship has only been around for fifteen years.

Kids have never needed an incentive to violence. Violence exists because it's a physical expression of power that has always been a part of the human race.

But you're right -- the violence of the Ultimate Fighting Championship isn't for everyone. The violence of boxing isn't for everyone. And the violence of football or hockey isn't for everyone. In this case, I am forced to admit that the sport of cagefighting holds a deep and strong appeal for me, no matter how unflattering that seems.

Thanks for your thoughts.

9:38 PM Nov 18th

chuck
Roel,
I agree with you on the '86 Celtics. It was a beautiful thing to watch. Like watching Pedro around '99, it was excellence to such a high degree that it was art. After the Pistons took over and every game seemed like an 82 to 78 elbows and shoving match, I lost my love for pro basketball. It's a shame, because in the mid-80's I liked it better than baseball.

Can't agree with you on the cage thing, though. I can agree that watching it makes my adrenaline rise. But I can't agree that it's a wonderful sport that should keep gaining viewers and popularity. When you have kids emulating people whose skill is bashing and stomping the bejeesus out of someone, is that a desirable thing?

I might not have answered this a couple weeks ago. But here in Seattle we lost a street musician recently. This was a guy (Ed McMIchael) known around town as Tuba Man. He wore funny Cat in the Hat hats or jester hats. He sat outside the Seahawk games, the Mariner games, the Sonics, and played as people filed into the stadiums and he played when they left, often with a mournful dirge after a loss. He'd play outside the opera and ballet, playing snips of what patrons were about to hear inside. He played if it was sunny or if it was raining. For twenty years, he did this- not asking anything of anyone but grateful for whatever people gave. If you think about it, he likely played for more people, live, than anyone else in town- for millions of people.
My first Mariner game, my girlfriend and I walked by Tuba Man, crooning out the tune to Bolero, which just made us both laugh with delight. It's a great memory for us- such a bizarre thing to hear walking into the ball game, but really fun.
Not only this, but the guy was delightful, and had a phenomenal memory for peoples' names and faces.

And a couple weeks ago he was robbed, beaten to the ground and kicked in the head by a bunch of 15 year olds. A few days later he was dead from his injuries. So a lot of people in Seattle are sad and pissed about this right now.

Now I'm sure not saying that these kids did this because they may have watched cage matches. But neither do I think that kids need any more incentives to violence than they already are getting via the tube, and especially in the form of real life violence; and I can't see that kids having one tough m-f like Lesnar as their role model is going to benefit communities.

I'm not saying this shouldn't be your favorite sport, or imply that your purpose here was to build popularity for it. I'm not saying every kid who watches it will turn into a thug. Kids learning a martial art for self defense, discipline and achievement-? I'm all for it.
I doubt if it's a sport that's going to go away. All I'm saying is that I think it's one sport we could do without and which might have more potential to wreck lives than to build them.

9:03 PM Nov 18th

The Cage

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