MMA: The Superior Sport

Every Saturday me and my friends from elementary school get together to watch people beat the shit out of each other. (I originally wrote that sentence as “men and women beat the shit out of each other” but phrased that way, it just sounds like domestic violence.)

To an outsider it probably looks like a bunch of mentally disabled Romans watching colosseum events on an electronic box.

We go outside and one of the apes shows the rest how to properly shotgun a White Claw. Man has discovered fire. The possibilities from here are infinite.

Time to go back inside. One of our favorite fighters are walking out. Why we like him over the other guy I couldn’t really tell you. He says entertaining shit and he seems like a decent guy. He’s well spoken and his last fight was tremendous.

While the fighters are being announced, my friends are yelling nonsense across the room. But to anyone in particular, more to the group as a whole. One yells his prediction. He thinks the one fighter will knock the other one unconscious with a head kick—that he will swing his shin into the other guys skull so hard that his brain will shut off in order to protect him from further damage or death. Another friend yells a bunch of profanity. Someone says something about his mom. We all laugh.

The two guys in their underwear meet in the middle of the cage and touch gloves. They are ready to fight. The room gets quiet. The apes are hypnotized. I’m hypnotized. I’m an ape too after all.

There’s something special about this sport, the way it can get a room full of us 10 retards and make us focus on one thing. If the stakes are high enough or our emotional attachment to the specific fighter is great enough your palms will sweat. Your heart rate will rise. Knees weak, arms are heavy. Moms spaghetti.

There’s a few ways a fighter wins. They can shut the other fighters brain off either by strikes or strangulation. They can bludgeon the other fighter enough to make the referee jump on between and stop the fight. They can manipulate the other fighters joints or squeeze their neck, and make him or her tap out or concede. Lastly, if they go the full time without any of the previously mentioned things happening, 3 judges will decide the winner.

How could anyone possibly enjoy this sport?

I can’t speak for my friends, but Mixed Martial Arts—or fighting in general—is the only sport that I will take time out of my day to watch.

The first round is over. We have 60 seconds to say ridiculous shit with the intention of making someone in the room laugh. Nothing is off limits, so long as it’s funny. This shit would get us all ostracized from society as a whole, even if just by association.

Time for the second round. Five more minutes of two humans in survival mode trying to shut off the opponents brain. It’s more than just trying to put a ball in a net. Each decision has real consequences.

That’s what makes this sport so great. You know you are watching something real. Something that matters. You see raw emotion from fighters that you couldn’t possibly see from baseball players or golfers. Nervousness before a baseball game pales in comparison to the primal fear before being locked in a cage with another man who’s trying to put you to sleep. You can see it in the fighters eyes.

The referee jumps in between the two fighters and stops the fight at three minutes into the second round. The winner is ecstatic, running around the cage. You feel for the guy on the ground, nose broken, but soul broken too. Everything he put into this.

“Damn, I feel bad for that guy.”

“Nah fuck that pussy!”

Everyone in the room laughs. But everyone feels for the guy despite the laughter. Feeling bad for him doesn’t change anything for the guy. Plus there can only be one winner, and the guy we like won.

You get to see glimpses of the highs and lows of humanity.

Now if you said that around my friends, you’d be sure to hear “it’s not that deep” along with a personal insult about you or your family. Regardless, it’s true.

With fighting, your background doesn’t matter. No one gives a shit about your race, your economic situation, if you’re handsome or ugly. All that matters is can you fight and are you entertaining. And it also helps if you can take a punch. Maybe that’s why we like MMA so much.