I have a great deal of respect for athletes, and I must say, I enjoy watching a game of football just as much as the next person. But where do we draw the line when it comes to contact sports? Or is there a line?
I grew up in a big sports household. Not because of my dad, I mean the man could care less, but my mom is a sports guru. Her sports of choice were always football and boxing, but I’d say boxing was always her first love, probably because my grandfather was a huge boxing fan. I think boxing just kind of strikes us both with nostalgia, because we were both very close to my grandfather before he passed away. As a little girl, I remember sitting around the TV and watching fights, but my mom remembers sitting around the radio and listening to fights with him.
Today, I think less people are watching boxing and more people are getting into the UFC and MMA, a sport that I cringe looking at. Sure, both sports are fighting and tend to be violent, but something about MMA and watching two people beat the living daylights out of each other just seems barbaric. I haven’t been able to get into it, but my mom seems to like it enough.
Moving right along with my story here, UFC came to Atlanta the week of my mom’s birthday. I figured it would be a cool thing to take her to given they never come to our city, so happy birthday, Mom! We actually got pretty lucky, our seats were upgraded from the nosebleeds to near the octagon. We could see Shaquille O'neal from our seats, and I got about as close as you can get to Joe Rogan without floor seats!
Anyway, here’s where the story really takes a turn: I enjoyed the fights. That’s right, I somehow got wrapped into the sport, yelled and cheered like I knew who the fighters were and slightly disgusted myself with my animalistic nature. How could I possibly enjoy a sport that I have bashed more than once? I don’t know if it was the energy from the crowd, the gin and tonics or the hip-hop throwbacks the fighters came out to, but I was into it.
That is until the headlining fight took to the octagon, Max Holloway vs. Dustin Poirier. From the perspective of someone who doesn’t watch the sport regularly, I thought the fight started kind of slow, but by the last round of the fight, I could barely watch.
If you’re wondering how I can sit through a boxing match and not an MMA or UFC fight, let me explain. To me, boxing is far more technical. They don’t allow fighters to kick each other or use mixed martial arts in the ring, and they certainly don’t allow the boxers to fight to the death. Okay, maybe I am being a bit dramatic, but it is true that people have died fighting MMA – these fighters are literally beat to death. In MMA and UFC, not only are the fighters going until blood is spewed everywhere and they are unrecognizable, they are exhausted beyond belief. MMA and UFC fighters fight to their fullest potential for 5 rounds, 5 minutes each; In boxing, fighters go for 12 rounds but for 3 minutes, and really, they don’t always fight the full 12 rounds. Sure, they both sound terrible if we are being honest, but in MMA and UFC you are taking blow after blow with kicks, hits, punches and exerting so much energy for a solid 15 minutes, 5 minutes at a time.
By the end of the Holloway vs. Poirer fight, both fighters looked like they were about to fall over dead. It was hard to sit and watch the bloody mess with two men who could barely stand. And as someone who works with video almost daily, I did notice that the production was skewed a bit. It was far more brutal to watch the fights on the big screen than it was directly from the octagon. I noticed the feed coming from the screens were much brighter in red coloring, the saturation levels were bumped, all so that blood and bruising were far more apparent to the audience. I said to my mom, “Look at the difference, I don’t think I can watch this anymore.” She replied with, “Just don’t look at the screen, Joy.”
Is this just a game of modern-day romans? How do we as human beings find entertainment in another man’s pain and suffering? Does this speak on our character, or is this just a sport?
Whatever your thoughts are on MMA, UFC or boxing, to me it comes down to one thing: We are all animals by nature.
Click the photo above to see the difference in looking at the octagon compared to the screen.
