Distasteful and mindless violence?
I watched a short documentary on MMA and Thai Boxing which was filmed at Glasgow’s premier martial arts gyms, ‘The Griphouse‘. The documentary was generally a ‘Pros and Cons’ film in which the directors/producers of the short docu-film asked members of the general public, students of the gym and so called ‘professionals’ what they thought of MMA.
This is a very touchy subject that has been addressed countless times on radio, TV and magazines. Often when watching the ‘against’ arguments, you come across statements such as “human cock fighting”, “mindless and distasteful violence”, “brutal and pointless” and my thought to every single one of these arguments is simply, “FUCK OFF”. You see, I got into a heated debate earlier in the week with somebody from work who had watched a “Greatest Knockout” programme on MMA and was sat in the break area talking about “…it was disgusting, punching, kneeing, elbowing and punching to the face when on the floor…”. I had to reply. I’m not going in to what was said but the conclusion was “People dislike what they don’t understand”.
For someone who was so against the “destruction of a human body”, she was more than happy to condone going out to get absolutely bladdered on drink and drugs on the weekend with her friends. “That’s my choice, I’m not getting forced to get in a cage to fight for money”, neither are the athletes who train so hard to get to that level. What all these ‘professionals’ seem to forget is that the fighters who participate in this sport, train as hard if not harder than our British boxing heroes Ricky Hatton and Amir Khan. How can these people criticise MMA but yet condone boxing where the fighters are hitting each other a few hundred times a fight?
The main argument for MMA is the comparison on glove size to boxing. Boxing gloves are generally around 8-12 ounces when used to fight, MMA gloves are lighter at 4 ounces. When hit with a 4oz glove, you are more susceptible to an immediate visible injury eg, a cut, which the referee will acknowledge and address dependant on the size and whether or not it is hindering the athlete’s performance. When hit with a 12oz glove, there is less chance that a visible injury will occur and using simple maths (if comparing to MMA), you would need to hit the person 3 times in the same place before the same result is to be seen on the fighter. Now with that in mind, you need to think of the internal damage that the athlete will suffer. In MMA and boxing, if there are visible signs that the participants are injured and cannot continue, the fight will be stopped, now because smaller gloves are more likely to cause immediate visible effects than thicker, heavier and more padded gloves, the fight can be stopped sooner. Being hit in the head with a thick heavy glove may not LOOK damaging but the internal injuries could be greater. You don’t know a banana is bruised until you peel back the skin.
Now these people who are so against MMA always say the words “Human cock fighting” as if the people inside the ring/cage don’t have a choice. WRONG. We’re no longer living in the dark ages where people have no choice in what they want to do. Fighters are more than aware of the consequences and will make up their mind to step into the ring/cage knowing those consequences. What you are seeing on the screen is not “Human cock fighting” but 2 human beings competing to see who is greater their chosen sport. They just choose to do it in an environment you choose not to understand.
*EDIT 06/06/2010*
More recently with the boom of the UFC, Mixed Martial Arts has attracted criticism from the public and athletes alike. Particularly boxers, with Floyd Mayweather stating that “…it takes skills to be in the sport of boxing…”, as if Mixed Martial Arts doesn’t take skill. What people fail to realise, especially boxers, is that boxing, Olympic/Freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman Wrestling, Judo and many other olympic based martial arts play a huge fundamental part in MMA. Many former NCAA collegiate wrestling champions compete in MMA as after all the competing at collegiate level, there isn’t a channel for all that experience and talent to go to – except MMA.
The dedication, hard work and mindset separates MMA from boxing and other combat sports. No other combat sports focus so much on conditioning the body, to run hill sprints on multiple repetitions, to balance nutrition perfectly, to be aware of how your body works. To label MMA as brutal, thuggish and unskilled is far from the truth.
*END EDIT*
Bill Aitken - MSP
“I dont think this is a sport, by all means, sport should be competitive, we all like to win but winning to the extent you’re knocking somebody insensible [sic], I dont think that’s terribly nice frankly.” – Bill Aitken – MSP
“It’s not exactly fox hunting, it’s like it, it’s the same level of violence for absolutely no reason.”
“I’d say it’s a bloodsport because it’s not like 2 people are competing to win anything in particular, all it seems to be is pounding blue murder out of each other.”
“Rugby and motor racing, nobody is going out to hurt someone deliberately, in cage fighting, someone is.” - Bill Aitken – MSP
MMA, like other any contact sport is actively competed in to test each and individual fighter. What people seek from that competition differs from person to person. Saying MMA is a bloodsport and that it you dont win anything in particular is complete rubbish. People make a living out of MMA so this quite simply says, “it puts food on the table”. In a less Rocky-esque approach, I train for myself, for self satisfaction that Im pushing my body further than I know it can go and the results of this is far greater than I can put into words. With that in mind I would one day like to see exactly how good I am by pitting myself against another individual and seeing how good I really am. If it means “knocking somebody insensible”, then so be it. There are winners and losers in every sport.
“We have the danger and the (?) cases in this where kids for example, watching violent video games, seek to emulate what’s in that video game.” – Bill Aitken – MSP
“Everyone tends to copy what’s on TV these days so I don’t think it’s good for young kids especially.”
MMA is aimed at everyone and unfortunately in this day and age, violence seems to be rife everywhere you go. Blaming violence on video games, music and TV is the most ignorant thing anyone can ever do. If a child can not separate fiction from reality, I dont think I’d feel comfortable with speaking or sharing a room with that child. If an individual cannot tell the difference between having a knife in their hand to a control pad, then that individual needs professional help. There are many sick people in the world and blaming video games, TV and MMA is society’s way of looking for a way out. Grand Theft Auto blatantly has an ’18+’ age tag on it, if you find your 9 year old impressionable child playing on said game, think about who bought that game for them and look to blame them, NOT the makers of the game. If you find your child listening to rock music with expletives and specific instructions on how to kill/maim another person, look to WHY your child is listening to it, look to who bought them the CD, dont look for the easy way out. Free will. People CHOOSE to do bad things, I dont run red traffic lights because Method Man told me to. I didnt beat up my friends ex for beating her up because I spar with my training partners and I sure as hell didnt set my bin on fire when I was 5 because I was playing ‘Heavyweight Champ’ on the Game Gear… I did it because I was cold and accidentally threw the lit match into the bin.
Kids are always going to copy what is on the TV, no matter how dangerous it looks but just because the British Medical Association are telling us that small joint injuries are the most common problems, it will not stop the sport from being practised (just off the top of my head, there isnt one example that the BMA has given to this date of why MMA is so dangerous). My little brother and I copied ‘Gladiators’ when we were younger which resulted in him busting his lip and injuring himself, Im sure thousands of kids experienced similar if not worse injuries, ‘Gladiators’ to this day is still being shown on repeat and a new series with even bigger ‘Gladiators’ is now being shown. Personally, I cant wait until I have children in my own, I’d rather them take part in MMA and experience REAL combat than traditional martial arts where the element of ‘reality’ is hidden in forms and pretty swords.
