Human Bloodsports ( the Guardians)
Blood sport
While boxing struggles for its very survival, viewers are turning to an even more brutal form of entertainment. Mixed martial arts is violent and gruesome – but it is accessible and unpredictable. A fight game veteran reports from his first MMA contest and finds that, like it or hate it, you can't ignore the rage for the cage Action from Michael Bisping (r) vs Chris Leben (l), Michael Bisping went on to win after 3 rounds. Photograph: Colin Williams/PA
For more than a century, the turbulent business of sanctioned violence has been conducted on a square of stretched, padded canvas between men wearing cushioned gloves who, to appease the squeamish, are constrained by a code of discipline and vaguely civilised behaviour. In time, boxing became an art, albeit a brutal one, and a sanitised business suitable for sale at the box office and in homes.
But something strange is happening in the fight game: millions of fans have tired of cleansed combat and are embracing old-style contests closer in mood and execution to the anarchic, caveman excitement of the bare-knuckle days. Welcome to the world of mixed martial arts.
Its fans - typically males between 18 and 34, quite a lot of them suburban and white, and accompanied by wives or girlfriends - neither see the artistry of boxing nor care much for the sport's history. The centre of their universe is not the ring but the octagon, where fists (housed in small, fingered gloves), unprotected feet and sharp elbows propel bouts of three five-minute rounds towards dramatic, unscripted conclusion. Heads are bashed. Necks are choked. Arms are twisted. And money is made, most of it under the banner of the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, an organisation Forbes magazine estimates is already worth more than $1bn.
Its army of addicts would not disagree with the words of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk: "I just don't want to die without a few scars." Or watch someone else getting them, at least.
Beaten
While boxing struggles for its very survival, viewers are turning to an even more brutal form of entertainment. Mixed martial arts is violent and gruesome – but it is accessible and unpredictable. A fight game veteran reports from his first MMA contest and finds that, like it or hate it, you can't ignore the rage for the cage Action from Michael Bisping (r) vs Chris Leben (l), Michael Bisping went on to win after 3 rounds. Photograph: Colin Williams/PA
For more than a century, the turbulent business of sanctioned violence has been conducted on a square of stretched, padded canvas between men wearing cushioned gloves who, to appease the squeamish, are constrained by a code of discipline and vaguely civilised behaviour. In time, boxing became an art, albeit a brutal one, and a sanitised business suitable for sale at the box office and in homes.
But something strange is happening in the fight game: millions of fans have tired of cleansed combat and are embracing old-style contests closer in mood and execution to the anarchic, caveman excitement of the bare-knuckle days. Welcome to the world of mixed martial arts.
Its fans - typically males between 18 and 34, quite a lot of them suburban and white, and accompanied by wives or girlfriends - neither see the artistry of boxing nor care much for the sport's history. The centre of their universe is not the ring but the octagon, where fists (housed in small, fingered gloves), unprotected feet and sharp elbows propel bouts of three five-minute rounds towards dramatic, unscripted conclusion. Heads are bashed. Necks are choked. Arms are twisted. And money is made, most of it under the banner of the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, an organisation Forbes magazine estimates is already worth more than $1bn.
Its army of addicts would not disagree with the words of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk: "I just don't want to die without a few scars." Or watch someone else getting them, at least.
Beaten