Ultimate fighting -- it's not just for adults anymore

The Associated Press

Which one will say "uncle?"

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Ultimate fighting -- it's not just for adults anymore

Ultimate fighting was once the sole domain of burly men who beat each other bloody in anything-goes brawls on pay-per-view TV. But the sport often derided as "human cockfighting" is branching out. The bare-knuckle fights are now attracting competitors as young as six-years-old whose parents treat the sport as casually as wrestling, Little League or soccer. Is this a good thing? And what does our love of violent entertainment say about us?

Ben likes: Bleeding into the mainstream

Greg Beato/Reason

A decade ago, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other legislative strongmen had choked the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) into near-submission. Nearly 40 states banned mixed martial arts events. The cable industry, over which McCain exercised considerable influence as the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, took note too. In 1997 TCI and Time Warner stopped carrying UFC pay-per-view events on their systems. Semaphore Entertainment Group, the company that produced UFC, nearly went bankrupt.

When he attacked the UFC, McCain never pushed for reform; he wanted to eliminate it entirely. But despite its initial image of lawless, bone-crunching mayhem, the UFC ultimately proved quite capable of policing itself. Apparently, the public’s interest in the fights was not as base as McCain had perhaps imagined. Today, the UFC is a sanitized, bureaucratized, more genteelly marketed version of its former self, yet it’s also more popular than ever. As much as we like violence, we apparently like it even more when it’s tempered by a senseof order.

Joel likes: Hitting a man when he's down

King Kaufman/Salon

I appreciate the rules that have taken mixed martial arts fights from pure brutality to true sport. The rules are fairly straightforward -- no gouging, attacking the groin, manipulating small joints, kicking an opponent when down, that sort of thing -- and don't get in the way of good action, as overly aggressive rules in amateur boxing and other combat sports sometimes do.

As a lapsed boxing fan, tired of the talent drain, corruption and long-term health effects for the fighters in that sport, I'd welcome a sport that provides that same pure one-on-one competition without the problems that have all but killed boxing. I'm still not sold. The legality of hitting -- though not kicking -- a man when he's down still makes it look a little back alley for my tastes.