The NYT had an interesting article this week that focused not just on the rise in popularity of Mixed Martial Arts, but how the sport ties into the modern culture of manhood:
But in the faces of Mr. Ettari and the 16 friends with whom he had traveled to Atlantic City — including his identical twin, Anthony — one could read the significance of M.M.A. itself. To this generation, who came of age alongside the notorious sport, mixed martial arts has come to represent everything that boxing once did to their fathers and grandfathers: the ultimate measure of manhood, endurance and guts.
“Boxing isn’t the biggest, baddest sport on the block anymore, and it hasn’t been for years,” said Jim Genia, 41, the author of “Raw Combat, the Underground World of Mixed Martial Arts.” Today, he said, M.M.A. is “the one sporting endeavor that encapsulates what it means to be a warrior.”
The author traces some of the interest in MMA to the film Fight Club:
For many parents, their young sons’ near-obsessive attraction to mixed martial arts is puzzling, to say the least. Some pinpoint its origins to the David Fincher film “Fight Club,” a movie that, in the 13 years since its release, has had a cultural resonance far beyond its modest box office numbers.
Jan Redford of Squamish, British Columbia, said that her son, Sam, now 20, became fixated on mixed martial arts when he was 15, partly as a result of that film and the following it generated among his peers.
“They had a fight club at his high school,” said Ms. Redford, who ultimately allowed her son to train in hopes of channeling his aggression. “They’d punch each other as hard as they could and not be able to show pain.”
While some parents like Ms. Redford are “horrified” by the sport, other parents see it as a healthy outlet for their sons. MMA-themed birthday parties have even become popular apparently.
And the popularity of MMA cuts across lines:
The fascination with the sport has even seeped into the walls of academia. Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, said that many of his male students wanted to write papers about mixed martial arts. And they are not always the students you would expect.
“People who don’t know these sports very well think their fans must be these kind of crazed, people-on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown, violent kind of thing,” he said. But the students he sees who are most interested in the sport “tend to have really good grade-point averages and be really fine students,” he said. “This is not something that smart young people look down their noses at.”
He agreed that the impact of “Fight Club” could not be discounted; it became a manifesto for a generation of boys who felt estranged from their masculinity. “It became this kind of magnum opus, and it described a certain culture of this kind of sport,” Professor Thompson said. “This was their thing, and they defined themselves accordingly.”
What do you think of the popularity of MMA? Do you think it relates to modern manhood? And if so, is it a good sign or a bad sign of its state?
Read the whole article: “The Fight Club Generation” (@NYT)
The internet is a big place. A man can waste a lot of time searching for the manliest stuff the web has to offer. Let us do the searching for you. The AoM Trunk is a collection of cool stuff that we find while wandering the vast deserts of the world wide web. Like your grandpa's old trunk, the AoM Trunk is full of manly photos, films, and accouterments. Check back daily for new, manly finds.
Keep up with the latest acquisitions of The Trunk by following it through the following channels:
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
I think a lot of it has to do with the gradual increase in transparency brought upon largely by things like FB, Twitter, etc. Everything about everyone is out there for the world to see now, you can’t hide your true self. I think MMA represents a battle between two people without the constraints and rules associated with boxing. Basically the only rule is don’t kill the other guy. It strips fighting down to it’s barest elements without pretense.
Love me some MMA. Contrary to what Daman’s saying, there are a lot more rules than “don’t kill someone.” Fighters stay relatively safe in the octagon, and injuries are (as i understand it) comparably lower to those in the NFL.
I admire the atheticism of each MMA fighter, and also laud the forum for enacting violence in a safe, controlled environment. I wish we could have MMA matches instead of war.
As for what it says about our generation, I think it’s simply the emergence of a new sport. There is a great deal of rhetoric around how men need to be non-violent. This is a forum for men to get in touch with their primal side in a safe way. The ‘fight club’ that is mentioned at that boy’s high school is an extreme example that doesn’t typify the training, focus, and discipline of the sport.
I have been a fan of MMA for a few years now. I grew up watching boxing, and respect the sport highly. Mind you; I want to say that the demographic the article is refering to is my own, since I am twenty-five years old. Boxing over the last decade, has been filled with pre-madonna, millionaires who have done nothing to further the reputation of the sport. Fights like Wright vs. Tarver- which resulted in a draw, and both fighters saying they would not consider a rematch has hurt boxing. The Mayweather-Pacquaio fiasco has hurt boxing; the fact there is no real heavyweight division now has hurt boxing- I could go on.
Does the rise of MMA relate to modern manhood? I can see it. We are in the beginnings of a new millenium, history is being written every day, and the strides in many aspects of human life are changing. While things change, the more they stay the same. Thousands of years ago Olympians fought to the death, and used any kind of technique or style to win fights. Obviously, fighting to the death is just insane, but the similarites between what was done to prove who was the better fighter thousands of years ago and what is being done now are very apparent.
I like MMA, I like to see the sport grow, for it brings fresh faces that people can look up to. Fighters who are always shown training and having discipline.
Cory, I appreciate the clarification (I am new to MMA). I wonder if the format and seemingly shorter fights has anything to do with our generations supposed shorter attention span. I have found myself getting bored watching a 12 plus round lightweight boxing match more than once.
Sport Cage Fighting.
Martial Arts clubs have been around for a long time – but not on TV, and not able to give the contestants a level of fame beyond a Dojo or Training Hall.
It’s a new form of hyper entertainment – the gladiators are back to entertain and contain the masses.
I have no problem with two people having a contest to improve their skills and see who is the best, hell, my jaw still occasionally pops out thanks to sparing during school – but the lights, cameras and bloodlusted fans turn it into a spectacle first, and a display of ‘manhood’ second.
i have heard this argument a million times. MMA has nothing on boxing, who wants to watch two guys wrestle on the ground for half the fight, who wants to see two guys throw wide looping punches without any technique. I would watch two well conditioned boxers anytime over mma fighters (ex.Ward vs Gatti trilogy, Marquez vs. Pacquaio, Klitschko vs. Lewis). They dont call boxing the sweet science for nothing.
I admire the discipline it takes for fighters to be successful, and the intense training and focus involved (though I do prefer boxing). I also admire the mental aspect of sizing up an opponent and developing a strategy to win that takes advantage of your strengths while limiting those of the opponent. The problem I have with it, and that has kept me from becoming a real fan, is in the way it is packaged for the masses. Much of the marketing involved seems to me to play on some of the worst of masculine stereotypes, and I don’t care for that. Loud, aggressive, in your face, full of bluster and intimidation . . . not my thing. That’s fine in the ring, but the broad-brush culture of MMA I’m not a fan of.
It’s devolution.
I did HS wrestling, water-polo, and swimming and college rugby, so I have a basis in MMA and what it takes to get to that level of sport. As was pointed out earlier, this style of sport has been around for millennia (Gladiators, Greco-Roman styles, etc). So, the rise of MMA is not unexpected. However, in HS wrestling, there was always blood time. That is my major gripe with MMA, the lack of blood time. Even in Boxing (I think a much more brutal sport long term), there is blood time. We are civilized men, and that means you call time for blood loss. Outside of the obvious disease transmission vectors and other medical and safety issues, you can’t control your bleeding or when you bleed. I think it’s a cheap move to go for the blood as it severely weakens your opponent over a 10 minute match to have a bloody nose. You wait until they stop bleeding as a matter of pride, so that you have a more evenly matched opponent. It’s not his fault that he lost 2 pints on the floor, and you can’t penalize for that. If MMA wasn’t so bloody, I could really get behind it.
@monte – There are many UFC fighters with actual boxing fights under their belt, like Anderson Silva and Chris Lytle. These fighters are incredibly technical and can box with the best of them. On top of that, they can also wrestle with the best of them, grapple (jiu-jitsu) with the best of them, and mix in other striking, like Muay Thai and Judo throws.
It’s called Mixed Martial Arts for a reason. These guys are the best of the best in multiple disciplines and top athletes at that. You have NCAA wrestling champs, black belts in BJJ, and so on, who go on to train in many other disciplines over many years. Saying these guys have no technique or making it seem like it’s just a barroom brawl is not only wrong but gives it away that you haven’t watched very much MMA.
@Rob – I understand the blood turnoff, I guess it just doesn’t matter with me. Sticking two men in a ring or octagon and telling one of them to finish another is the basis of this sport; bleeding is part of that and if each fight was stopped for blood, fights would never end.
I think it is much, much more brutal in boxing to give standing 8 counts and multiple knockdowns before a fight ends. That’s how concussions and brain damage happen. I don’t care who you are, no one is fully recovered from a knockdown after 8 seconds. In MMA, if you’re knocked down you’re prone to being knocked out, TKOed, or submitted.
I believe the reason this behaviour persists is because in America we have completely lost our male initiation ritual. I personally believe this ritual was fufilled by the draft for many, many years. I’m not saying this is the modern answer. But ask yourself why young men are CHOOSING to kick each other’s asses to grant a sense of validation. It doesn’t matter that it’s MMA. It could be boxing or karate or anything else. Men need a way to enter manhood to avoid becoming “30 year old boys”. I strangely wish I had had this ritual. I know it would not be pleasant but I have feeling the ritual teaches many things. Respect (for self and others), judgment, HUMILITY, perspective, sense of mortality. I seriously think we lack this as a society. Everyone thinks they’re a badass without having to learn the price of being a badass (maybe not so desirable as envisioned). Just a thought. I firmly believe we ALL need a reality check.
I’ve studied a combat martial art for 25 years and remember when Ultimate Fighting first showed up on the scene.
I remember how absolutely brutal it seemed as I watched a guy’s tooth sail through the air after taking a knee shot to the face, for no other reason than for a crowd of ticket buyers and pay per view fees. Gradually, as I watched more of it, I became desensitized to the brutality for brutality (and money’s) sake, and MMA tightened up their rules some.
There’s a generation of young men who have grown up with it now, and I think the popularity is indicative of a gaping void in men’s lives…unclear/uncertain gender expectations, lack of present masculine role models to guide, and a rise in the overall permission of our culture to sanction and even encourage violence, anger and spite as an answer, have all made a nice comfy bed for MMA to sleep in, in our collective psyche.
Its all but embraced by the culture now. Extreme violence and debasement of the culture through violence for violence’ sake reverberates through our entire culture from incredibly violent video games (now the norm for even 7-10 yr olds) to the cultural sanctioning of a war on innocent people costing 100K + civilian lives (with the ra-ra rallying cry of ‘Regime Change”…whatever happened to war to defending ourselves, instead of ‘our interests?’)
The benefit of MMA is it helps men re-connect with the natural warrior energy we all have. When you strip away all the laws, personal niceties and political correctness, if I can beat you up- I have power over you, and if I want, I can tell you what to do. You can complain, bitch, moan, whine, but I still have the power tell you what to do- and make you do it if I need to. We see that dynamic play out in Boardrooms, Bunkers and bars, and everywhere else, too like with “Regime Change” and “Nation Building.”
So, The downside is no one is teaching how or when it’s truly moral and right and bright to flex that power, and the noble and rare reasons for ever choosing violence in the first place. So you have a culture that’s ok with powerful, even violent means, without the wisdom or experience to know when to use it.
When is it ok to choke someone out into unconsciousness, dislocate their arm, or even put a bullet through their head? MMA and what we’re taught culturally would have you believe that it’s ok when you’re really angry, really upset, or want to have some fun, or you want to prove your ability to others.
The real and noble reason ANY type of violence should be used, is to bring a decisive end to violent animal-like behavior or attack that’s hurting others, and to bring peace, calm and balance back.
There’s a lot of interesting incite in these comments, but I believe we might be over-thinking the issue.
I think much of the reason so many people have a problem with MMA isn’t the brutality itself, but rather the lack of dressing it up like we do in so many other sports. Put a “goal” at either end of the octagon and suddenly it doesn’t seem much worse than many of our other favorite sports like hockey and football. In fact, I’d bet that serious injuries are less common in MMA than in those two. Hell, just by looking at injury statistics, I would rather have two children involved in MMA than one on a cheer-leading squad.
At the end of the day, I don’t think MMA says anything more or less about the status of masculinity that football did for our parents or wrestling did for our grandparents.
I train in MMA, but I don’t have any interest in fighting anybody for money or pride. If I’m going to hurt somebody, it had better be important. Still, several of the guys I train with fight, and they are some of the best guys you could ever know.
I think for some of the fighters it’s about proving yourself, and for others it’s also about the thrill; it’s a real combat high.
But the audience is a different animal. That strikes me as generally young, immature, and, what the hell, white trash. Some of the fights that I’ve attended have a genuinely hostile atmosphere of comparing penis size. “These are REAL men and I’m REAL by association with them!” There are fighters who fall in that category too, but the audience is what bothers me about the sport – and what lends its often trashy nature.
I speculate that the liberalization of our culture has wimpified men. It’s bad to be strong, to stand for something, to yell or growl at others when we have differences or when they are wrong. You can’t tame the beast; you can only cage it. And here we have an eight-sided cage…
I am a longtime martial artist and the increasingly popularity of MMA has given a boost to martial arts as a whole. MMA classes are the bread and butter of many gyms, even when the main “house” style is a traditional one, it’s MMA that pays the rent. It’s good to see young people getting involved in combative sports, and MMA has been much more open to female competitors than boxing was in its early days. However, a lot of amateur MMA students are arrogant and not good sportsmen. I don’t mean all, of course. There are some like Ian who commented above. But of the hundreds I’ve encountered at the large gym where I trained, very few are what I would describe as gentlemen. Friendly competition is fine but I’ve seen a lot of trash talking and other poor conduct. Many have gotten hurt because they are too proud and stubborn to tap out and would rather suffer a bone break. I am not talking about the professional MMA athletes, who overall seem to be a decent bunch. I have to give them credit for mostly avoiding the scandals that plague other professional athletes. But the amateur students are another story. Most traditional martial arts teach discipline and standards of behaviour. The sense I get from MMA students is that they think all that courtesy and etiquette such as bowing to the instructor or shaking hands after the class or refraining from swearing while training is nonsense. I happen to practice a style without any such rituals – no bowing, no uniforms or belts or ranks, it’s very casual and low-key, and yet even we insist on courtesy and respect and do not tolerate excessive bad language or trash talking or aggressive competition in class. Martial arts training should make you a better person as well as a better fighter. I haven’t seen that in MMA classes.
As far as wimpifying men, I believe it’s also the case for women and is partly due to the fact that very few of us have to do manual labor. In the days when most men had blue collar jobs and most women spent as much as 10 hours a day on housework, without the benefit of electrical appliances, we were much more physically fit and strong, but also much more tuckered out at the end of the day, so problems like insomnia or obesity were much less common. I am not advocating a return to those days, but at the same time, we have to embrace our physicality and not view physical effort as punishment, or manual labor as some lowly form of work only suitable for the uneducated. When men can express their physicality in socially acceptable ways, they tend to get in less unwarranted fights. It is an excess of physical energy that leads to anger and often physical conflict.
As far as women, even though I am a feminist and consider myself liberated, I also think we should embrace the domestic arts and not view them as demeaning. Of course, some women have no interest in keeping a tidy home or cooking meals for their families and usually they have a division of labor so that other family members who prefer those tasks pitch in and the women do something else around the home. But we have to stop equating housework with the oppression of women. It has not been that way for decades. It is sad to see generations of women come of age believing that housework is beneath them and that cooking for a man is demeaning. There is nothing demeaning about keeping a beautiful home if that’s what you love to do. In fact it is an art form, as is the art of being a gracious hostess. So-called “women’s work” is just as valuable and necessary as work outside the home.
I don’t approve of yelling or growling at others, though. If differences cannot be settled with calm words, then it’s best to call the other fellow out, if you absolutely cannot walk away. I personally do not think any words are worth fighting over and would only come to blows if I was assaulted, but that’s something that we all must decide for ourselves.
Mixing martial arts is nothing new. Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do is a good example of mixing martial arts. In the real world, you want to stay on your feet in a fight (boxing, muay thai) especially when fighting more than one person. Also, many fights end up on the floor where (jiu jitsu, wrestling, judo) can be applied. The superior mental state will always dominate.
MMA is evolved from the age old question of who’s art was superior as in the old boxer v. wrestler question. It’s also, as A. Gonzalez posted, an outgrowth of Lee’s Jeet Kune Do that got many of us critically examining the “ancient arts” and their suitability for the modern world. MMA also thankfully stripped away the quackery that surrounded many martial arts and got down to the hard core bare essentials of what really works. It’s a field lab for reality which is why the traditionalists hate it.
Another side issue is that MMA is a backlash
against the feminization of men. Young men are lashing out at our liberal society’s hippie-infested “peace-at-all-costs” mentality that has seeped into nearly every facet of life.
Rage on my good men! Rage on!
I would like to say this is one of the best MMA articles I have seen. I am 21 years old, and I fight professionally out of Dallas TX . For me, MMA has been more than just a sport, it’s been a blessing to my life. I have found a home in a community of youn men worried about much more than girls and partying. Fighters that take themselves seriously are always working torwards self improvent in our sport. There is violence, but it’s controlled. There is a deep respect most fighters feel for eachother.
I’ve been involved in martial arts for 44 years….It’s interesting that the stand up martial arts in my experience (boxing, karate, muay thai, etc) have always attracted a rougher bunch than the grapplers (wrestling, sambo, submission wrestling, and especially judo). By rougher, I mean generally more aggressive, generally less respectful….at least at first. Though MMA newbies often come to class with the old style kick ass edge, they soon learn the respect intrinsic to the sport (or quit)……The biggest baddest ass doesn’t always win…results are based on HARD HARD work ….It takes brains as well as brawn…The comraderie is awesome….I think the mentality is a strong sense of belonging to something special….something you can be proud of no matter what the public thinks….I think it is very hard for the public to understand.
Agree with monte- mma can’t compete with a good boxing match. Unfortunately, “good” boxing has largely gone the way of the dodo- especially at the heavyweight division.
Mma training for sport is well and good but will do little to train you for real world combat. Even in a civilian self defence situation, hand to hand combat training should be geared towards putting enouph space between you and an opponent to either flee or deploy a weapon. Preferably one that makes a big bang. I have a friend who is a mma fighter. About a month ago he used the ground and pound technique everyone loves so much on a thug who assaulted him in a parking lot. Worked great on the one guy. Not so good on his two buddies who kicke my friends head in while he was doing his “ground work”. My good friend is still recovering.
Not really into boxing or MMA but I have watched some of both and here is my take.
Boxing to me is more fun to watch but the politics of it are killing the sport.
MMA: I’ve probably seen a dozen fights and they can be divided into two types of matches one has an over protective ref that will call the fight really quick or you watch a guy spend most of the round trying to lock in an arm bar (and you think boxing is boring). However the matches that people want to see actually happen in MMA and belts aren’t as protected.
As far as what the popularity of MMA means to society I think its really the melting pot in action. Think about all the martial art movies from the 80′s and how everyone was taking Karate or judo or tae kwan do. If you have a 1000 years of tradition you have a reason to keep judo, pure judo. But since we don’t have that tradition in the US the idea of mixing them to whatever is most effective just makes sense.
There is a line in the move fight club that describes that ‘our’ generation has no great war. There seems to be so many blurred lines of gray. Seems to be an expectation that we as males need to be more sensitive, passive and at times I think we can equate weakness as kindness. MMA has a winner and a loser. Hype leading to a fight. A cerebral and emotional component that allows for controlled frustration and power to be released and men duke it out..ending in an embrace/handshake that shows the respect of their competition. It’s like if you have ever got into an altercation with one of your best friends or brother..when it us resolved there is a New bond there.
I worry for anyone who gets too much of their sense of self from their sport. I am a very, very keen sportsman…I love it. I’ve competed at quite a high amateur level, including international touring. But I get my sense of being a man by raising my children, working hard in my profession and volunteering in my community.
MMA has zero to do with being a man. In fact, a ballerina may have as much – or more – to do with promoting or sustaining manhood. Some parellel could probably be made between MMA and LACK of manhood.
Being a man is value-added. It is about being a leader, a father, a friend, a mentor. Can it happen in MMA? Sure…but it has nothing to do with the cage or being an entertainer. Hell, a monkey can to that.
Arguably boxing has been in decline for over 50 years. Ever since they lost the training strategies and technical skills of the Golden Age, roughly from the 20s to the 50s. Most of those guys were trained by guys that came up in the era before the Queensbury rules. Broughton rules and bare-knuckle. Dempsey, Braddock, Johnson, Louis, they were great because they of the conditioning and strength training methods and technical skills passed on to them from their bare-knuckle forebearers. Those skills fell by the wayside to the point where modern boxing doesn’t look like it did in the Golden Age when the world revolved around the sport. Where social and racial issues were “decided.” Now the top boxers fight maybe once or twice a year, the level of competition has dropped, and there aren’t nearly as many pro-fighters as there once were.
MMA, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. You have numerous organizations worldwide, fights going on every week with big names. Many guys fight in multiple organizations, and the big name fighters are in the cage 3 or 4 times a year. MMA is so like bare-knuckle it’s a wonder people even bother evaluating it next to the watered down Queensbury boxing everyone seems to be fixated on that laments MMA. The best boxer in MMA is probably Nick Diaz, and his style… either intentionally, or by coincidence, is almost exactly like that of Daniel Mendoza as written in “The Modern Art of Boxing” back in 1890. Diaz has boxed professionally, as well as holding a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. His style is perfect for MMA, and he regularly holds striking clinics every time he(or his brother Nate, for that matter) step into the cage. Be it in Strikeforce or UFC. It doesn’t look like “good boxing” from a modern perspective, yet it works perfectly for the various ranges and defenses he has to work with. No different than bare-knuckle… when they had to worry about grappling, throwing, low kicks in addition to fisticuffs.
The length of these fights isn’t really shorter than the average, non-title, boxing match either. Most boxing matches are 10-12 rounds… usually 2-3 minutes each. An MMA non-title fight is 3 rounds, 5 minutes each. While title fights, and now in UFC all main events, are 5 rounds, 5 minutes each. 5 minutes of action, defending or fighting in grappling and wrestling range as well as boxing and kicking is a far stiffer challenge of heart, skill and wind than boxing. If you’ve ever trained or fought I think you’d be hard pressed not to recognize that.
As for the marketing aspect, boxing’s no different. No classier. Cocky brashness is the rule in boxing. Worse yet, the guys behind the promotions are far dirtier and more in bed with organized crime and corruption than MMA has yet to become. Which has definitely worked to de-legitimize the sport.
It’s actually funny to see the number of people bemoaning MMA on a website that makes such great pains to lionize the 19th century with a picture of John L. Sullivan on every page. MMA is basically the modern equivalent, in style, range and spectacle, to the boxing of that era. And if you disagree, well… I think you don’t know much about pre-Queensbury rules boxing… let alone the boxing just after Queensbury. Today’s boxing is far more limited, if not by rules just by the fact that training methodologies and actual boxing skills have been lost since the 1950s.
One last thing, anyone that really wants to know about MMA should watch a few of the films about fighters today. I’m not talking about watching The Ultimate Fighter because I feel ultimately that that’s pretty bad for the sport morale-wise(though it’s been good for it financially).
Go watch Walking To The Cage(free on Crackle), Jens Pulver: Driven, Fight Life, and Fightville.
Gentlemen… The lore of MMA has been lucrative for the UFC and other fight organizations. I believe MMA is good for the male image in general. I attended End Game CSA a MMA school in NJ in my early 20s for a year and later attended Savaresse BJJ in NJ for a few years. (Blue Belt) The high majority of men I encountered there were good people. Most students were normal guys with families that had other traits in line with classic manhood. (Respectful, helpful, kind, played instruments, drove motor cycles, fished, well read, well educated, loved their families and were stand up guys) The minority were guys that attended because the wanted to feel tough and superior. Most were there for either personal improvement or competition. As for MMA’s superior growth as compared to other sports. I enjoy team sports as much as the next guy, but there is something to respect about individual competition. Look at the individual sports golf, tennis, boxing or MMA. They have one common element, accountability! If you lose it’s your fault 100% not your coach not your team yours. Subsequently, if you win it’s your glory, your doing and your championship. What I’m saying is you can be a subpar football player and have a championship ring. This can not be said about MMA. I also feel once spectators got over their initial bloodlust they realized this is real pure competition in it’s rawest form to date. Now from a business standpoint. For years many men have been engaged in some form of combat sport during their life. They may have boxed, wrestled in high school or college, practiced taekwondo, judo, BJJ, Karate or had a few street fights growing up. This gave MMA a huge base of people to tap into that know what this form of completion is like one way or another. Leaving an untapped market in existence for the UFC to tap into.
Just my two cents..
I think that any two persons engaging in violence for no greater purpose than money, entertainment, or self inflated pride is lacking the very essence of manliness, or humanity for that matter, rather it shows the degradation into mere animalistic peacockary and self centeredness. It is a shame that many praise this wanton violence, true men fight only to protect in hopes of attaining peace, beasts fight for power, territory, and fame.
I’ve been around MMA for the last 5 years almost everyday A lot has been said, so I’ll make a few basic points. 1). The kind of men who simply train in MMA are different than the men who train and fight, even if the fight is a local amateur fight. Training is great, but it takes a different kind of man to step in a ring or octagon knowing the other guy wants to hurt him and knock him out. 2) MMA guys respect their sport and each other. The preflight media hype is just hype. Outside the ring you would be amazed at how respectful fighters are of everyone. A-holes don’t generally make it in the sport because better fighters put them in their place early They either learn to be nice, or get beat on till they quit. 3) MMA fighters don’t generally get in fights outside the ring. They don’t have to prove they’re tough at some bar or barbecue. 4) Chicks love fighters! I’ve seen some of the ugliest dumbest MMA guys with women that looked like they just walked out of Maxim magazine. Women love the confidence MMA fighters exude, and they love the sense of security. And, of course, women love bad boys.
For all you fellas out there lementing at the “fact” we have “lost our coming of age ritual” I remind you there is a war going on. You do not need a draft to get in on it. Go find a recruiter. That should get you your fill of forced “manning up” in a “productive” manner.
If thats not your cup of tea and you still want a coming of age ritual, be of service to your countrymen/community in other ways like firefighing, EMS, or law enforcement. Heck some time in the peace corps or some other volunteer to work hard in crap places type outfit would do too. Don’t just sit there and lement about 30 year old children, serve! You will be a better man for it.
I believe MMA is the greatest/hardest sport in the world. I wrestled in high school and just by doing that it taught me many things in life. It taught me perseverance, determination, and most of all taught me that I am capable of doing a lot more than I think I can. To be an MMA fighter you have to have a mind set that not many people can have and I think it can be good for anyone to train in some type of martial art. Its more than just fighting.
I don’t know if it’s been stated explicitly here before, or if Brett is cognizant of this, but the drive test our mettle against other men in some kind of Fight Club stems from our shared interest in the lost arts of manliness. Tyler says that we are “a generation of men raised by women.” Like Pahlaniuk’s characters, I had a father who followed the status quo, but it didn’t amount to much and the brass ring isn’t what it used to be. Similarly, my father hasn’t passed on much of any of his skills or knowledge to me, (which is unfortunate, because he knows welding, construction, how to fix anything, hunted as a young man, and is still a body builder at the age of 51). Every time I ask how to do something, he’d just do it for me rather than explain the hows and whys.