UFC - Human Cockfighting

U.F.C. - Human Cockfighting

This new form of human carnage is touted as being one of the world’s fastest growing, if you will - sports.[1]  Lest this impress, some of the fastest growing/moving phenomena in the world today would include ISIS or Tsunami’s – neither of which are particularly sporting.

In other words, its growth and influence bear no resemblance to its value.  Its fiscal value is through the roof – its moral value through the floor. 

But its proponents and promoters – there are always promoters – insist it is a sport, thugs don’t indulge in it, and it is safer than boxing.  To begin with, whoever said that (professional) boxing is safe?  And what terms adequately describe someone kicking another person, and bashing their heads with all their ‘sporty’ energy?  Our heads were never, ever fashioned to be assaulted so viciously and senselessly.  Besides, if this happened in the streets the protagonists would be jailed.  

Most other (actual) sports are facing years of litigation, and are quick-smart introducing new measures to protect the head from trauma, whilst this sideshow finds new pleasures in bleeding heads and battered bodies.  A head clash in football is largely incidental but not in U.F.C. – where it is often the point.  Were it not for ‘rounds’ that are timed, I postulate we would have dead people in the cage. 

Let’s be plain - this new version of the old coliseum is brutal, thuggish, and dangerous.  The British Medical Association unequivocally condemned it in 2013 because of its shocking and chronic effect on the brain, which may go along way to explaining its participants.  Doctors, I'm afraid, are a voice in the wilderness.  Popularity and profits are the Promised Land. 

The CEO of Headway, the brain injury association in the UK, is nonplussed that U.F.C. can even be considered a sport, let alone that it is allowed to continue legally.  Cockfighting is banned but we promote the human version - go figure?

And of possibly greater concern are the crowds who attend these events.  They bay for blood, plain and simple. 

What culture leads to this that doesn’t lead to worse? 

[1] The Times.  Saturday March 12, 2016 – Danielle Sheridan.  Most of the facts mentioned (not necessarily the responses) are her research.