I've started digging MMA after quite a bit of time hating it, mostly for the guys who surround it.
"HURR HURR, mY MMA is Better than your krotty hur hur hur"

It's one thing to discuss the flaws and benefits of various martial arts styles, I do this all the time to grow as a person and martial artist. It's another thing to be an ass about your SPORT and claim superiority in REAL COMBAT because of it.

MY capoeira beats your MMAbecause the minute you lock me down, I'll headbutt( Sooo many headbutts in Capoeira) or bite you until you let go. and my FIRST thing is to strike you in the nuts. NO question.
Your MMA Beats my capoeira becaue your grappling is better.

You're not the best fighter in the world because you train in a gym and not a dojo or somesuch.

They say the Acropolis where the Parthenon is...
 

The reason is mostly because gloves allow you to hit quite hard with minimal damage to your fists. Hitting someone full power in the face with a closed fist is a good way to get broken wrists, fingers and cut up knuckles.

Take away the gloves you're not going to be hitting someone as hard to protect yourself, or it will have more emphasis on body shots.

Two men trying to see which one can hurt the other's eyes with their chin while they hug on the floor is just comedy.

Manly comedy!

Not saying this is at all what happens in any professional combat sport but some of the best times I've had in 9 years of Karate involved trying very hard to beat the crap out of a friend while they reciprocated. Then at the end we'd pat each other on the back shake hands and compliment each other on the injuries we inflicted. I'm not a particularly violent person but it really is a pretty awesome feeling even when you lose. My style actually does a basically no rules, except for the obvious, type of sparring wearing Kendo gear and that's like 10 times more awesome than sparring. I guess I'm trying to say is that fighting for fun in a situation where no one is actively attempting serious injury can look brutal and totally crappy while being great fun for the people doing it. Even when they are getting their heads kicked in.

I will say one thing though I look back know on my black belt test and realize it was pretty damn great despite being so tired and sore I couldn't walk the day after and I just sort of collapsed after I got home from it. Somehow it managed to be even better then sparring in that kendo gear which kinda makes me want to go through it again as soon as possible and on the other hand it was so rough I don't know if I do. The moral of the story is that there is something to gain from even seemingly brutal experiences if the intent and focus isn't the brutality. Although I may have a sadomasochistic streak cause hitting things and being hit is just fun. I don't know its 4am and I think I'm rambling. Its a hard thing to explain if you haven't experienced it.

Or it might just be that it's legitimately extremely boring to watch to dudes rolling around on the floor. Well, or sexy, if you're into that kind of thing.

I mean, I know how to play chess. I know that chess players are constantly thinking about where each piece is, about established plays, and are always thinking of counters, and potential counters to counters, etc.

However, watching some people play chess is still boring as fuck.

Watching some people punching each other in the face, however, is not.

Rocky> Never Back Down.
The Karate Kid> Never Back Down
Getting shot in the face> Never Back Down

Well, to be fair when i think "Boxing Vs UFC" the first thing that comes to mind is "I can SEE boxing as a Olympic sport..." i know it's not much, no doubt everything south of The Mike Tyson days isn't really pretty to look at... but at least Boxing is built in the sense that a Match can be purely technical and still works, might not be as visceral as anything the MMA puts out (and i get the "Entertainment value" of spectacle), but a purely technical ultimate fight would be called a "Flop".


I've trained for quite a few years Karate, Judo, Aikido and even a little Kendo... they don't really encourage harming the opponent. Sure, they have chance of Injury, and these ARE martial arts and Self-Defense techniques, so you can inflict some serious pain... but in the execution of the sport in a formalized manner, it's all technical. About reading your opponent and reacting quicker to strike first or counter fast enough.

As for Football and Rugby and the such... again, there is areal danger of people getting hurt, but it's the nature of the Physical game, not a part of the objective. In most of these games (as far as i know, all of them!) you get penalized if you intentionally hurt someone or even if you unintentionally hurt someone sometimes.

"Sport" just on the definition of the word, i would go for Wikipedia: "A sport is commonly defined as an organized, competitive, and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play. It is governed by a set of rules or customs. "

Under those guidelines, pretty much anything can be a sport.

Just for fun, to keep with the Wikipedia Bullet points... talking about Sportsmanship

"Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors. Being a "good sport" involves being a "good winner" as well as being a "good loser""


and Violence in Sports
"Contact sports such as American football, ice hockey, rugby football, boxing, mixed martial arts, wrestling, and water polo involve certain levels of physical violence, but include restrictions and penalties for excessive and dangerous use of force. Violence in sports may include threats, or physical harm and may be carried out by athletes, coaches, fans, spectators, or the parents of younger athletes."


Well, yeah... and the Winner would still be a slave, just treated better. I know it's straw argument, but still, there were dudes with swords and spears and doped lions, nobody has anything to lose... and even then it was more about the show than the bloodshed, then again, back then a good fighter was harder to replace.

Headbut followed by Open hand throat punch, followed by pretty much anything! Can't beat that!!

The sad part is that this is one of the reasons for many of the "Female Versions" of these sports.

Oh I understand completely that it's boring for most people to watch, I just wanted to draw attention that it's a bit more complex than two dudes hugging eachother and going Hulk Smash once so often.

Edit:

Ah, I see your point with the entertainment aspect of it. If you wanted something a bit more upbeat you could always tweak the rules to something a bit more viewable or did not encourage deadlocks (As mentioned before, MMA is a broad encompassing term and UFC has never been my favourite rule set).

You have to remember that the Ultimate Figther stuff you see on TV is half about spicing it up for showmanship and attracting people to watch it. There are events and tournaments where there is better lack of ego, bravado and showmanship compared to fights shown on TV which can be pretty much purely technical as you seen in Boxing, Judo, Kickboxing and Muay Thai. If the producers wanted to make the sport appear more of that like boxing they could tweak the rules and change the general atmosphere. They probably decided against this because the realised what they're doing now is getting more attention and money.

Bwhaha, was about to say until I read the rest of the paragraph; things like Judo and Kyokushin are pretty harsh even with the ruleset and scoring system of the sports. See above paragraph about the technical thing.

What I gather from watching Australian Football is"Here's the guy with the ball...but let's cut over to a fistfight breaking out."

You get penalised too in MMA for certain moves that are deemed dangerous to the participants health. I agree though that it is a different objective altogether though.

For the record no matter how much I enjoy watching UFC (which is a so-so amount), I have always enjoyed watching a good Muay Thai, BJJ or Judo match more. I miss K-1 Pride.

Edit edit: For those in North America; is it true that there are guys who are now trying pick up women in clubs and bars by saying "Yeah, I'm an ultimate fighter"? They might as well say "I am a Master of the Universe".

UFC//MMA competition is mostly about strategy, skill and endurance within the same martial art, therefore it's a sport and not a fighting match.
Take the MMA out of UFC and you'll see why real fighting is less about strategy as it is about concentrating on YOU and understanding the simple physics behind your own body, then apply that bluntly to others. You'd see 60 year old zen masters flooring these guys with a tap, sumos just crushing the living hell out of them, monks coming from a childhood of monastic training taught to continually batter and forge themselves into musculoskeletal steel, able to rip the inefficient flesh from these UFC guy's arms with their bare hands.

North America, which is essentially European fighting style has ALWAYS been about the simplicity and ease of the weapon to make it more viable... you give a peasant a pike and suddenly you have a soldier, you give 100 peasants bows and suddenly you have a wall of arrows. Only since guns have we really started to REALLY value soldiers for more than just bags of meat in front of kings.