From the Cheap Seats

New American Gladiators: The Rise of Mixed Martial Arts

[29 November 2007]

Initially seen as little more than back alley brawlers scrapping for beer money, MMA has found sporting legitimacy in meteoric fashion – this kind of fighting offers a truly global and democratic way to kick someone's ass.

By Tobias Peterson

PopMatters Sports Editor

“Are you not entertained?”
—Maximus (Russell Crowe), Gladiator

There’s blood on my television—a lot of it. Surrounded by ominous black fencing (in an arena dubbed even more ominously “the octagon”), two half-naked men are near exhaustion as they pummel each other with fists and elbows. The face of the man on top is obscured by a mask of red, blood flowing freely from a cut on the bridge of his nose. With the body of his opponent pinned underneath him, a crimson torrent streams from his nose, off his chin, and into the trapped man’s eyes. It drips into his mouth. And it covers the mat on which they sprawl with increasing difficulty, their bodies losing traction amongst standing pools of dark liquid.

What horror show could my channel-surfing have produced, and on basic cable no less? Surely one of the dozen Saw movies has made its way through TV censors and onto my screen. Yet, as the show goes to commercial, I learn that what I’m watching is the latest installment of reality television: The Ultimate Fighter. The show’s premise is a kind of Real World meets The Running Man: prospective fighters share a house, divide into teams, train together, and then beat one another until a winner is crowned at season’s end. The victorious fighter goes on to become a professional in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) league. The rest are left to their own devices, presumably (though some have made their professional debuts by other means), and with the small comfort of having spent their 15 minutes of fame in the earnest pursuit of trying to turn another human being into raw hamburger.

Perhaps that’s oversimplifying things, though. After all, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is currently one of the fastest growing sports in the country, if not the world. The UFC is perhaps the league best known in the United States, but other outfits, such as K-1, PRIDE, and IFL command a following in places like Japan, Brazil, and Eastern Europe. The fighters, too, come from around the world. Showcasing a combination of boxing skills, jujitsu, Greco-Roman wrestling, muy thai, and a variety of other martial disciplines, MMA fighting offers a truly global and democratic way to kick someone’s ass.
   
It has managed this growth in part despite, and in part because of, the previously dominant presence of professional boxing. Initially seen as little more than back alley brawlers scrapping for beer money, MMA has found sporting legitimacy in meteoric fashion. Aiding its rise is the unabated decent of pro boxing which has, lacking a truly dominant and (importantly for advertisers) American heavyweight champion and divided by the rancorous infighting of several contesting federations, struggled to keep the attention of casual fight fans. Where once boxing was seen as the domain of the true professionals, it’s now viewed with the same mix of apathy or distaste as its former standard-bearer, Mike Tyson. While Tyson wheezes his way through pathetic exhibitions to stave off his enormous debt, UFC champions are now certified B-listers in Hollywood circles.

“Iceman” Chuck Liddell made a cameo appearance on HBO’s Entourage, and Tito Ortiz has been linked with porn starlet Jenna Jameson. And if we consult that final arbiter of cultural hipness, reality television, we see The Ultimate Fighter featured prominently in Spike TV’s primetime line-up, while boxing’s answer, The Contender, flounders during midday broadcasts of ESPN 2.

All of these measures, as well as the now weekly pay-per-view UFC events that command top dollar, speak to the allure of the league specifically, and MMA in general. What is it about the sport, though, that garners such popularity? The answer has much to do with my first impression: blood. MMA offers more of it than boxing, and on a more consistent basis. With smaller, less padded gloves, the impact of MMA punches is, generally speaking, more severe than those delivered in padded boxing gloves. In addition, MMA allows its fighters to grapple as well as punch, creating scenarios where arm bars, wrist locks, and, yes, choke holds are used to force opponents into a) submission (known as a “tap out”), b) unconsciousness, c) a broken limb, or d) some combination of all of these. As a result, the potential for spectacular violence is greatly increased, and fans move to the edge of their seats in anticipation of the next punishing display.

Few are disappointed. By removing the padding that insulates combatants in other violent sports (hockey, American football), MMA retains, and frequently delivers, the promise of spectacular violence. In an era where CGI and Xbox routinely push the limits of realistic violence-as-entertainment, leagues like the UFC offer the ultimate in violent reality. Though strategy does play into the matches (and is often pointed out by UFC commentator and ex-Fear Factor host Joe Rogan), it’s hardly the stuff of boxing’s “sweet science”. More appropriate is the term favored by many fighters who, after entering the octagon to a blaring dose of nu-metal, look to win their matches via a campaign of “ground and pound”. 

Despite MMA’s shock and awe approach to violence, its defenders are quick to point out that this sport is actually safer than boxing. One reason is that, unlike boxers, MMA fighters rarely survive a knockdown. That’s because it’s legal in most MMA leagues to pounce on a man after knocking him to the mat. Since by then he’s generally defenseless, this is one of the few times a referee (who is generally otherwise just so much decoration) will intervene, often stopping the fight if one competitor fails to actively defend himself. In boxing, on the other hand, one’s opponent gets 10 seconds to recover from a knockdown. If they do recover and continue to fight, odds are that they’ll end up absorbing many more blows than an MMA fighter in the same position.

Over the long-term, this argument in favor of MMA makes sense, but if you ask a fan why he (and the Spike TV-watching audience is indeed predominantly male) watches these fights, the relative safety of the fighters is not likely to be come up. More likely, the response will involve the words “bad”, “kick”, and “ass”, perhaps with a touch of profanity thrown in for good measure. It’s impossible, of course, to account for all the motivations of this growing legion of devotees, but it is clear what kind of enthusiasms leagues like the UFC and others are encouraging—namely, the bicep-tattooed, no fear, overtly physical machismo of the rugged individual. 

The nod to the strong, silent, brute species of force that once pushed forward the United States’ westward expansion is not accidental, I think. In many ways, MMA is purposed in its regression to a rougher, tougher period in history. By lengthening their rounds (five minutes in the UFC versus boxing’s three), shrinking their glove size, and relaxing the rules of engagement, today’s MMA seems more like the boxing of yesteryear, where champions like John L. Sullivan brawled bare-knuckled for 80 rounds or more. Without a three knockdown rule to end the contest, early boxing was a gory affair, emphasizing sheer toughness and fortitude, rather than strategy and out-pointing an opponent for the sake of the judges.

This is not to say that modern boxers aren’t tough, nor is it to suggest that MMA fighters don’t keep the judges in mind during their bouts, but it’s clear that the evolution of professional boxing, in adding gloves, shortening bouts, and instituting more regulation in the ring, is characterized by an increased consideration for the athletes’ well-being. By undoing many of those reforms, MMA seems to be purposefully working against this legacy of increased precaution. But to what end?

Image likely has much to do with it. In a way, the toughness and violence of the UFC and its ilk is reminiscent of the hypermasculine displays of professional wrestling. Unlike pro wrestling, however, MMA is not fake. Its participants inflict and suffer real trauma and endure a greater variety of physical threat. By those standards, MMA fighters, more than boxers, and certainly more than wrestlers, are able to lay claim to a kind of aggressive, unassailable manliness that is prized in great numbers elsewhere.

For, even though its top athletes are newly-minted celebrities, MMA is much more than entertainment—particularly in the United States. Post-9/11, the country’s imperial agendas are debated on a global scale, giving frequent rise to parallels with the Roman Empire. Political similarities aside, however, it seems now that these ultimate fighters fulfill for the Pax Americana a bloodlust once sated for Romans by gladiators in the Coliseum. Of course, there are no tridents, nets, chariots, or lions, but the success of MMA, in direct proportion to the blood and violence that it propagates, should give pause to those who think that our sporting interests don’t inform upon, or take their cues from, the development of our national character.

As the “Let’s Roll”, “Bring ‘em on” mentality continues to showcase spectacular failures on a geopolitical stage, it will be interesting to see how the popularity of MMA develops. Those less hawkish among us may hope for the emergence of more subtle, less overtly bloody way of showcasing competition. At the very least, we should all do well to prevent the metaphor of this sport from creeping into our political metaphors. After all, putting our opponents in a “rear naked choke out”, might make us wish for the days when a simple football “blitz” was all we needed to rout our nation’s enemies.

Chuck Liddell on Late Show 07 June 2007
 
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Tobias Peterson is PopMatters’ Sport Editors and columnist (From the Cheap Seats). He holds an MA in English Literature (with a concentration in Cultural Studies) from George Mason University, where he studied representations of race in professional basketball.

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Comments

I always found it wierd how after many of the fights the two competitors hug afterward.  There tends to be so much bad blood and ill will in boxing that to see a genuine display of respect for you opponen in defeat is rare. I just dont understand how you can let someone beat you bloody or choke you until you summit, then still be mature enough to hug and congratulate them.  Interesting stuff.

Comment by Pete — November 29, 2007 @ 10:31 am

“I just dont understand how you can let someone beat you bloody or choke you until you summit, then still be mature enough to hug and congratulate them.  Interesting stuff.”

Simple—it’s the essence of competition. Two competitors want to be the best at what they love.  In order to do so, you need another to push you. After Jens Pulver was choked out by BJ Penn this past summer, Jens THANKED BJ after for pushing him to be the best that he could be. For pushing Jens to train harder than ever and get his life back in order. That’s how it works. All other sports are full of metaphor and transference: nobody ever really “beats” anyone in other sports. They defeat them. Nobody ever “destroys” anyone in other sports. They can in MMA. All the hostility (and if you’ve ever competed at a high level, you know it does)that builds up in other kinds of competition can only be transferred to a score, or a time or something. However, MMA is the closest we can get to pure competition. No metaphor, no transference. That’s why I love it. And if you think it’s not as technical or strategic as “the sweet science” then you need to study more. Transitioning from an americana to an arm bar successfully is just as sweet as any punch combo in boxing, or even getting to an opponent’s back in order to choke ‘em out. Seems easy to us, but so does anything that we only see performed by experts.

Comment by sonzai — November 29, 2007 @ 11:47 am

Actually, the most popular non-chariot/horse-racing event at the ancient Greek olympics was the “Pankration”, which was basically no-holds-barred fighting to submission/knockout.  The only rules were no shots to the groin and no eye-gouging.  Pankration was *way* more popular than boxing or wrestling, so it doesn’t surprise me that the sport is taking off in modern times.  They actually tried to introduce MMA to the modern olympics as an exhibition sport under the name “Pankration” a few years back.

While I don’t compete in MMA, I’ve trained and sparred with some people who do.  Honestly, after you’ve done MMA-style fighting, going back to something as limited and rules-bound as boxing, even kickboxing, feels awkward.  When it comes to “fighting”*, MMA is pretty much the ultimate.

*Note that I say “fighting”, I mean that in the sporting sense.  When it comes to actually trying to maim and kill people, military-style martial arts are a whole ‘nother world.

Comment by Emil from chicago — November 29, 2007 @ 1:51 pm

Of course, the knockers’ main argument against Emil would be that shouldn’t we have moved on/become more civilized than those slave-owning, warring Greeks? The fact is, no we haven’t and nor do I think can we. The West especially likes to think we are all so much “above” fighting sports, but the current culture certainly tells a far different story. There is as much violence on every down in the NFL that any MMA match. When the trash talk gets out of hand in the NBA, punches are thrown. Tiger Woods sure seems like he wants to do more than just win a golf game! Maybe that’s what makes him the best? His competitive drive is not in the least bit tempered…

Comment by sonzai — November 29, 2007 @ 2:06 pm

Sensational garbage like this is hilarious. “Half-naked men?” would you like to see them fight in jean-jackets and khakis, chief? They’re dressed appropriately for what they’re doing. “mask of blood” hahaha dude, the guy his bleeding, you compare it to a less classy boxing but there is way more cutting in boxing matches than there is in MMA fights.

Another helpful piece of information for you: MMA can’t have big gloves like boxing because it would interfere with grappling, not because it makes the violence more sensational, sorry. I hate to break it to you but this is a sport and there are practical reasons to explain most of the stuff you’re confused about.

Saying MMA isn’t as strategic as boxing is a laugh, too. Have you ever seen a Brazilian jiu jitsu tournament or a no-gi grappling tournament? That takes some serious nuance, as much as the “sweet science” (which can be reduce to two guys punching each other and the guy who hits the other one more wins as easily as you reduce MMA strategy to “ground and pound”).

Is it just not possible for a casual observer to write an ignorant column about mixed martial arts?

Comment by trevor — November 29, 2007 @ 3:19 pm

This article has a number of problems. I will attempt to address some of them below:

Safety of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Relative to Boxing
As Peterson notes, the rounds in the UFC are 5-minute rounds, as opposed to boxing’s 3-minute rounds. However, there are only 3 rounds per bout, or at most 5 for a championship bout, while boxing has 10, 12, or as many as 15 rounds. The longest UFC match that goes the distance is shorter than the shortest boxing match that goes the distance.

Although it may seem paradoxical, the small, fingerless gloves used in MMA are actually safer to the “punchee” than boxing gloves. Boxing gloves primarily protect the puncher’s hands, and each boxing glove adds weight to a boxer’s hand, thus imparting greater impact to a punch while allowing continued striking without breaking the fingers.

Boxing gloves do make cuts less likely, but the amount of blood from a cut in fighting of any kind is typically no more than 5 cc, which appears dramatic, but is about the amount drawn for a typical blood test, and is harmless.

Skill of MMA Relative to Boxing
As other respondents to the article note, UFC competitors are highly skilled, equally or arguably more skilled than boxers. Many of them are former NCAA and Olympic wrestlers (who have no other avenue to continue competition after the very brief window of college and/or Olympic competition closes); many others are championship-level martial artists in disciplines such as karate, judo, jiu jitsu, and others. Some of them are also professional-quality boxers.

The combat in MMA is highly “technical” (as the fighters often say), meaning there is a large and diverse reservoir of technique to rely on, and part of the interest of the fights tends to center on how fighters with either similar or different styles will maximize their particular forte (grappling, striking, holds, throws, etc). In addition, MMA fighters typically train in multiple disciplines, and have often reached the highest levels of more than one.

The Popularity of MMA
The popularity of MMA is of course indisputably tied to the eternal fascination with violent competition (and one could argue, with violent, skilled competition). However, MMA has a number of obvious advantages over boxing that are not connected to its apparently (but fictitiously) greater brutality: MMA is perceived as less corrupt than boxing, and there is no perception (as yet) that the fights are fixed; MMA less monolithic, less one-dimensional than boxing, due to the variety of disciplines involved; MMA is a good fit for a society increasingly obsessed with cross-training and multi-disciplinary skills of all kinds; and MMA takes advantage of the long-standing public fascination with martial arts of various kinds.

In addition, MMA involves a great variety of characters and personalities. MMA certainly attract extreme personalities, but also a range of interesting and very different characters, ranging from overtly macho to humbly disciplined and almost monastic. One well-known fighter, Jeff Monson, is a self-professed anarchist with anarchist symbols tattooed in various places, and is a member of the International Workers of the World. Another, Rich Franklin, is a former high-school mathematics teacher with a Masters Degree in Education.

MMA participants are often remarkably humble and intelligent, and able to articulately provide post-mortem analysis of their own performance. They are more likely to note that “my strategy of consistent shoots worked well, but my opponent countered by controlling the ground game from the bottom” than to shout (with due respect to Ali), “I shocked the world!” In fact, the sport seems to attract a number of “thinking athletes,” as do other martial arts.

The grace of the competitors in hugging after the competition, as in boxing, football, or other sports, is an illustration that there is respect between competitors, and that the competition is understood a formalized ritual, in MMA as in other sports, following a codified set of rules.  In MMA, even more than in other sports, the respect for the opponent seems engrained, perhaps because many competitors come from a background in martial arts that strongly emphasizes humility and respect for opponent, teacher, and the art itself. It is common to see MMA fighters follow the typical “dojo” practice of bowing when entering the ring.

While MMA may appear, superficially, to be a retrogression to a more violent, primitive form of combat, it is both safer and more subtle, varied, and complex than boxing. MMA does appeal on a visceral level, as does boxing, and the more common spectacle of visible blood in MMA certainly plays a role, but MMA has components of skill and even art that reward the knowledgeable viewer. MMA may not have its Norman Mailers and George Plimptons, yet, but it is no less worthy of them than boxing.

I will leave aside the questions of whether MMA is somehow representative of imperialism or America’s “Let’s Roll” attitude. These might be better taken up in some fuller analysis, and in any case Peterson’s article does nothing to demonstrate the linkage.

In closing, I offer these quotes from Barthes’ Mythologies, with the observation that both aspects described are encompassed by mixed martial arts:

“Boxing is a Jansenist sport, based on a demonstration of excellence … A boxing-match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator.”

“In judo, a man who is down is hardly down at all, he rolls over, he draws back, he eludes defeat, or, if the latter is obvious, he immediately disappears.”

Comment by gabos from san francisco — November 29, 2007 @ 4:26 pm

I think the author fails to understand that part of MMAs appeal is due to its sincerity and the attention span of its viewer. Combat sports are the only sports where the final outcome isnt always dictated by time. A fight can last for 10 seconds or 25 minutes. This unpredictability is appealing. What seperates MMA from other combat sports is that you can watch 4 or 5 fights in one night as opposed to 2 or 3. Also the competition in MMA is sincere. We compete to see who is the strongest, the smartest, the fastest. MMA allows us to find out who is the best fighter. Boxing is a limited agreement. IF you lose in the ring, you could always argue that you could beat your opponent outside the ring. I dont think the same can be said for MMA.

Comment by Admiral A — November 30, 2007 @ 10:31 am

I cannot express to this author how wrong he is. To take the side of Boxing (another sport I love) is to take the side of the most brutal sanctioned sport in America.
Boxing deaths in the pros can average over 2 per year. Often the displays, to anyone who actually understands combat, are far more brutal.
The super padded (12 oz for 145-160 pounders)gloves actually can hurt the opponent far worse than the (4-5 oz for 205 pounders.)
Why is this true? A person wearing 12 oz gloves in a standup only contest can continually fire away without causing clean punishment.
Why is this important? Knuckles and knockouts don’t hurt someone nearly as much as the padded shock of hundreds of shots. Force is more dangerous than knuckle.
These men are professionals in a professional sport. You can’t blame a sport for it’s viewers.
The person who wrote this article should never write another article. He states the brutal appearence of the sport while he is very uninformed.
Here’s an idea to you sir, actually research something you write about, I know it sucks to actually have to READ statistics among other things from a LEGIT SOURCE other than your head and first take.
How about actually sparring with someone in 12ozers and then sparring with someone in 5ozers? How about discovering the depth of Brazilian JiuJitzu tactics and Wrestling. How about learning to spell Muay Thai and researching it before adding it into what was supposed to be an informative and intelligent article. You’ve surely missed the mark in this.
If you want to post a gripe than don’t bash things without proper investigation. Next time you want to write about the downfall of America don’t just put down a sport you’ve never probably(because sir, I dan’t know that for sure and I won’t pentend to) paricipated in. Don’t put down the education system (which is one of the finest in the world) or videogames in general (because the vast majority of those who do have never played a videogame in the past decade.
How about looking to actuall problems like the Teen pregnancy rate or AIDS or if discussing the donfall of America why not discuss the child pornography rings and pedophiles. Why not spend your time making an impact. A sport where people bleed on eachother is less dangerous than the ignorance that would produce an article this far oppiniated and inaccurate.

Comment by Sean from Fort Wayne IN — December 2, 2007 @ 12:57 pm

and by the way sir, I forgot to mention this, over the almost 15 years of the spor therehas been only one death, and it happened just within the last month or so. The death was caused by a preexisting condition. He had a bloodclot. 15 years and one death (by a preexisting condition) in all of sanctioned MMA.

Comment by Sean from fort wayne indiana — December 2, 2007 @ 1:02 pm

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