Your take on Ultimate Fighting
 

So, i stand here and i'm watching as UFC 110 is being announced on TV, and they are showing all these fighters and this dramatic editing and all these clips and interviews and Training Montages....

...I know it's a "Sport"... but i don't see it as a sport you know?

Even Boxing (which i'm not really a fan of) has a silver lining. A Control, a "Sportsmanship" aura to it... and even though it's just two guys beating each other, there is still the sense that the goal is to simply outmatch the performance of your opponent.

Ultimate Fighting... just... doesn't give me that Feeling. It's people beating the crap out of each other for no god damn reason. The goal is not to outmatch our out-skill or out-perform your foe, it's to pummel each other until someone crosses the line where it would be too inhuman to beat him any further.

And yeah yeah i know all about the "Oh, but their training is insane!" well... as far as i care, training doesn't make the sport. In any sport there will always be that one guy that pushes the limit to be the best, it's only natural for the others to follow suit if they want to stay competitive. Just look at Tiger Wood's training for an example... beyond anything i would ever imagine.

I also know all too well about how this sport just feeds our basic instincts as humans and men... i just think we don't need to indulge in any sports that require one human being to make another one bleed on purpose as a means to a goal. It's just unnecessary, actually, irrelevant.

Hell, even the ancient Roman Gladiators had a better aura than this... there was an actual goal to win, purpose. And going for the "straw" argument here... it was "the" thing to do. Nowadays? We have options, we don't have to be bored, we can be entertained anywhere at any time... we don't really need to put 2 over-trained muscle men to Beat each other for a cheap rush... yet, we do.

This is just a condensed brainstormed rant to see where the subject goes...

My boss likes UFC. Since this is gonna be a slow weekend, I'll ask his opinion on your post, assuming I remember because, you know, it's 2 in the morning on General and I'm not allowed to say that I'm drunk.

Edit: Yep, printed out and everything. You will get your opinions, dear sir.

gross misconception of MMA.

MMA is just as much a sport As boxing or kickboxing. If you ever see an MMA fight, realy sit down and watch it, It's almost 80% Two Guys Humping Each Other, and by that I mean ground submission fighting, they try to slide into and out of various dominant holds and control their situation. Pshh, most MMA fighters are not as much real fighters as they are sport fighters. No headbutting(my favorite) soft point striking, small joint manipulation, ground strikes, hair bulling scratching,biting, using the walls as braces, or anything else that would happen in a real fight.

MMA(Ultimate Fighting) is nothing but Kickboxing+(real)wrestling with all the pitfalls and benefits.

I'm not a big fan of UFC or boxing (excepting Rocky and/or Antonio Inoki beating up Ali). I have a hard time seeing how boxing is any more or less of a sport though.

I guess a lot of people like the UFC thing better because it seems closer to real fighting, which it is in terms of how applicable the styles being used could potentially be outside the ring/octagon/hypercube/whatever, but it's still got enough rules and structure to it that the whole thing is pretty firmly a simulation. Which is fine - nothing wrong with that, and I'm sure the fighters would kick plenty of ass in a random streetfight too. It's just kind of caught in a weird place, because it wants to be gritty and real, but it still has to have all that structure to be a sport, so whenever I see it, it feels kind of awkward to me.

Rickson by armbar
 

It might not appear so obvious, but what you see in MMA requires a high definition of skill and training.

Especially within the grappling. In fact the grappling I would say is the most technical aspect, although it might not appear like they're doing much than "Wailing on the opponents head" they are both constantly thinking about mount positioning, reverses, shrimping, counters, potential locks or chokes, potential counters to counters etc. Funnily enough many people find this part the most boring part of it, which I understand because it's something I think you can only really appreciate once you try it yourself and see how hard it is.

Boxing is whole big on the smack talking thing too, unless you are defying Sportsmanship as something different.

I would disagree with this and say Boxing is a worst perpetrator than MMA when it comes to pummelling; in MMA the referee will stop the match once it becomes too dangerous for either participant, and this tends happens pretty quickly. Compare this to Boxing, which can require going much longer periods of times getting repeatedly hit in the head.

Not only have you got the grappling as mentioned above, you're got to mix in clinch work and striking ranges. Fighters tend to favour one over the other, and have a game plan.

It's actually evolved quite a bit, if anyone remembers the earlier ones where a 180lb Gracies came in and tied people in knots (This was before weight divisions) it showed the world that if you wanted to be successful in the ring a good ground game is needed. What we've got today are strikers who learn how to grapple so they can defend against it. Also there are now more rules which you can see here.

Mm, what about sports that don't necessarily require to destroy your opponent but in some way encourage or is part of the game? Australian Football, Judo, Union, Ice Hockey, American Football are all games with set rules with a goal of scoring more points, however they all carry a risk of injury.

I'm not saying that as a counter point, but just curious to your opinions on those sports.

MMA might appear to be just people "pummelling each other" but I would disagree with this. If you can you should take some classes and see for yourself how technical it really is.

Personal opinion: I enjoy combat sports mostly because of the technical prowess more so than the actual damage to another human being.

Edit: You should just go over to a site like Bullshido.net instead and read some of the articles they've got.

Edit Edit: We could debate what definition of a sport really is, whether it's defeating the opposition or a scoring system. If it carries a degree of violence make it any less of a sport?

Depends. MMA is a pretty broad category, and it does include some stuff that's closer to bloodsport. In fact, I'm given to understand that UFC was originally almost entirely sans rules until it got popular.

You're thinking of Vale Tudo.

Quick look at wiki says no. Vale Tudo was one of the inspirations for UFC, but original UFC was still pretty much what I said.

In any case, either one serves my point just as well, so it doesn't really matter.

Pretty sure the generally accepted usual outcome for a losing gladiator for quite a while was death, though.

In a weird synchronicity, I just happened to read Sinfest strip #380
 

I want to know what they're going to call the next step in fighting. Super-ultra-awesome fighting?

Also a historical note, courtesy of mister Stephen Fry: Before the invention of boxing gloves, serious injury and death was almost unheard of. Nowadays we get boxing spokesmen who say things like "There have been injuries and deaths in boxing, but none of them serious."

Because they have been hit in the head a lot, you see.