Mixed Martial Arts: A Controversial New Breed of Sport
"In its December 6, 2006 profile on Ultimate Fighting, USA Today writer Marco della Cava states, ‘Football and baseball may be American pastimes, but for a high-tech generation weaned on immediacy, such sporadic action doesn't compare with UFC's short and definitive flurries of violence’" (Dallas-Based Fight Company Enters the Cage).
According to an editorial in Market Wire, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), commonly recognized as cage fighting, is the fastest growing "Sports Entertainment business in the world" (Dallas-Based Fight Company Enters the Cage). However with the recent success of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), the world’s largest and most highly recognizable MMA organization, a past dilemma has reemerged once again.
Opponents of mixed martial arts deem the combat sport as being immoral, and go against the principles that are considered part of the"American way of life." The sport has been called “barbaric,” and labeled as “human cockfighting.” Adversaries also question the sport’s integrity, as it requires two opponents to enter a ring or cage with the intention of hurting or injuring one another. Further arguments against the sport are that striking a downed opponent is “un-American.”- John McCain (Silverman). Supporters of MMA strongly disagree with these allegations.
One such supporter, John McCarthy, a UFC referee, emphasizes that fighters in mixed martial arts do not fight to inflict pain on one another, but rather they fight for the sake of competition (Inside the UFC). He states that the fighters he has talked to about the issue say that “when they fight, it is all about the sport, and that it is more an issue of dominance, like a game of che...
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...inisters, soldiers, doctors, students, and family members. They are not savages, barbarians or criminals, nor are they a group of social deviants and scoundrels as people like John McCain would have the voting public believe. They are simply people who enjoy a competitive sport that is misunderstood and as a result, feared and hated.
Works Cited
“Dallas-Based Fight Company Enters the Cage.” Editorial. Market Wire.
Accessed 14 Sep. 2007.
“History of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.” Ultimate Fighting Championship.
15 Sep. 2007. .
Inside the UFC. Episode 12. Narr. Joe Rogan. Dir. Unknown. SpikeTV. 10 Dec. 2006
Silverman, Amy. “John McCain Breaks up a Fight.” The Phoenix New Times. 12 Feb. 1998.
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Svinth, Joseph R. “Death Under the Spotlight: The Manuel Velazquez Boxing Fatality
Collection.” Journal of Combative Sport. Accessed 15 Sep. 2007. .
The culture in Mexico is very fond of soccer as it’s the country’s most popular sport, where males of all ages play anywhere they can and leaving the national team as cult heroes. Even though soccer is the main sport, following behind it is boxing, where Mexico has produced many world boxing champions as boxing remains popular among all socioeconomic ...
As long as there have been sports, there has been violence in them. Ice hockey, particularly due to its increasing popularity as a professional sport, has brought up several ethical issues regarding the act of fighting in hockey. There are strong arguments for both sides of this present problem in the world of hockey. Numerous male athletes, including children as young as nine years of age, have suffered injuries as an outcome of fighting and it should be considered if it should be part of a sport that very young people grow up with (Brust, Leonard, Pheley & Roberts, 1992).On the other hand, fights create excitement and the sport of hockey might grow in terms of popularity, making the problem of fighting in hockey complex and difficult to resolve (“Towards An Explanation Of Hockey Violence: A Reference Other Approach”). Even though hockey is known to be a very aggressive and fast-paced sport, the unsportsman-like action of fighting in hockey cannot longer be tolerated.
“The NHL (national hockey league) is not in the business of comforting people, they’re in the business of entertainment, and if fighting represents a way to differentiate themselves from an entertainment stand point, then fighting isn’t going anywhere” In the 2014-15 season 1,230 games were played, and out of those games 391 fights were in action. 29.91% of games had fights, 45 games had more than one fight. Taking fighting out of the game of hockey is too big of a risk. I think the fans will be disappointed and the entertainment level will go way down. In my paper I’m going to write about why fighting in hockey should stay and why people think it should also.
viewed in different lights. To some, the fights represent the risk of gambling and the
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Fight Club is not about winning or losing. Paul Palahniuk’s Fight Club is about the issues of masculinity in our modern capitalist society. It is a novel about men who resist conforming to what society defines as masculine. In our present day culture, men are presented with the ideal form of masculinity that they are expected to achieve such as being successful in the work place, going to the gym, and grooming yourself to look attractive. The unnamed narrator of the story undergoes an identity crisis, which is a result of capitalism; he struggles to find himself by going through various support groups before finally attending Fight Club. The consumer driven society has replaced the traditional values of masculinity, which creates conflicts and becomes the catalyst for Fight club: a place to re-masculinize through physical combat.
Muscular christianity pushes masculinity after some saw the feminization of our culture. This breeds danger in the ring, as it becomes the feminine thing to tap out of the fight. It’s not only muscular christianity that brings danger, it’s the attentiveness of the ringside doctors and referees. In the video “Death in the Ring (2014),” the video showcases Dennis Munson Jr's slow deterioration in his debut fight at the Eagles Club, but it also shows how the ringside doctor was on his phone, and how he deliberately kept the ambulance from coming for a while, as well as not administering oxygen. Even Munson’s coach was shown slapping Munson in the face before he collapsed. Overall, this shows the lack of safety in boxing, and the risk boxers take into their own
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Wrestling is more than just a sport; it is a way of life. And for those who enjoy its opportunities, it is something that takes the mind off of all of life’s troubling times, and puts one man against another to get their hand raised. Competition makes everything evolve, and there is no other sport that epitomizes what competition truly is. Wrestling spans the entire globe, and although it incorporates several different styles and many National and World events, remains overlooked by most.
The popular film, Fight Club manifest a teaching of contempt modern life, society according to the theories written by the founding fathers of Sociology. This film reflects a lifestyle of controversial issues we as a society have become conformed to live through. Nonetheless, the main character of the movie encapsulates a perspective of changing these regulations by creating a persona of the type of person the narrator desires to be. A person who does not abide the enslavement of civilization, when in fact, he is free in every way the narrator feels he cannot be, “People do it every day, they talk to themselves... they see themselves as they 'd like to be, they don 't have the courage you have, to just run with it.”(Durden 1999). Above all,
"How Fight Club Relates to Men's Struggles with Masculinity and Violence in Contemporary Culture." HubPages. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. .
In order to full understand the subject of sports violence we need to know the full definition of it. Violence in sports is defined by M.D.Smith as, "a physical assault or other physically harmful actions by a player that takes place in a sports context and that is intended to cause physical pain or injury to another player (or fan, coach, game official, etc.), where such harmful actions bear no direct relationship to the rules and associated competitive goals of the sport." This definition suggests
Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is new to many states and is an evolving sport in many aspects. The combination of mixed martial arts being relatively new in the country and the physical nature of the sport opens a window for many legal issues to arise. There are two areas of law that we at MMA Fantasy Sports Alliance want to focus on. Consisting of the U.S. Trademark Law under the Lanham Act pertaining to the Mixed Martial Arts Industry, and the potential legal issues regarding the healthy well being of the fighters we will be promoting at our venue. These two areas of law within the sport are two of the aspects that could cripple a promoters business, and need to be addressed in order to be successful.
... Its fans and fighters can be found all over the country. They represent every race and class of people in the United States. They are teachers, student, attorneys, truck drivers, accountants, ministers, soldiers, doctors, police officers, and family members. They are as much American as the fans and athletes involved in any other sport that is popularly and culturally accepted by the people of the United States of America. They are not savages, barbarians or criminals, or are they a collection of social deviants and miscreants as people like John McCain would have the voting public believe. They are simply people who enjoy a sport that is misunderstood and as a result, feared and hated. With this stated, MMA should be completely legalized in the United States.