Mixed Martial Arts is the most misunderstood, safest, and popular full contact sport in the
present day. Since 1998, there have been over 70 boxing related deaths, while in sanctioned MMA
events there have only been two! MMA has been around for centuries and it was not widely known
until early 1990s with the introduction of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The UFC at first was
considered violent, barbaric, and criticized by Senator John McCain, calling it, “human cockfighting,”
but in a 2007 interview with ESPN, he softened his stance and said,“Although it's not my favorite
sport, the UFC is making progress of cleaning up the sport from what it used to be.”(Smith 1).
Visually, MMA looks very barbaric and
…show more content…
Since 2006, he has been clean and uses his story to encourage others with their own addictions. The
idea of judging MMA without getting to know it is brainless and shows the misunderstanding of the
sport.
In people's eyes MMA looks dangerous, but they don't know that it is safer than football and
boxing. Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker thinks so. Walkers stated in an interview, “People shy
away from it because they think it's a brutal, brutal sport, and I've said, 'Guys, MMA is safer than
football and boxing,' and they tell me they don't believe it. Am I not the most credible person to give
you the answer to that? Because I played football.”(Non 1). At 49 years old Walkers himself is in MMA
and won all two of his fights by knockouts. In recent years, in American football there have been more
than 400 fatalities, in boxing there have been 70 fatalities while MMA had only 2 fatalities.(Impact
MMA). Unlike boxing, MMA has many ways to win a fight. MMA allows tapping-out or submitting,
which is a common method of winning. A person can go a whole fight without throwing a single punch
because it's not all striking, a fight can go to the ground, wrestle and win by tapping-out or decision.
Boxing however, focuses on punching the head and body. Boxers take up to 500 hits to the head per 12
round fight while an MMA fighter was estimated to take less than 20 hits to the head in three five
minute
Cousins provides that the nature of prize boxing itself is the main factor. He first bring up the style of the fighting that prizefighting consist of. Cousin makes the point that the proponents of the boxing “searched for killers and sluggers and maulers” as opposed to boxers skilled with the technical aspects of pugilism. He links this with fatalities by stating that although a man can take a punch repeated impacts will cause damage and has a risk of killing the man being stuck. Next he also loops the fans into the nature of boxing.
Elliott J. Gorn’s The Manly Art is a unique book that tells readers the origins of boxing in American culture. The book was published in 1986 by Cornell University Press, the book discussed the development of boxing and American society. Gorn takes sport history, a commonly misunderstood and misinterpreted topic and wrote a book that not only was easy to read but allowed readers to gain knowledge on the sport. Gorn says “To understand prize fighting, I have discovered, is necessarily to understand something about nineteenth-century America. Ideology, ethnicity, social class formation, violence, urbanization, gender roles, religious world views, productive relationships, all are a part of sports history in general and boxing in particular.” (Gorn, pg. 12)
Lots of critics are questioning Matthysse’s heart now, because he decided to prolong his career by not getting up. The word going around now is that Matthysse is a “Quitter”. My questions to the people calling him a“Quitter”: Have they Boxed a day in their lives?Have these people spent 6-8 weeks in grueling training? Have
In Joyce Carol Oates’, The Cruelest Sport, she argues that boxing is a cruel and savage sport and that it should not be practiced or even considered a sport. The title of this work The Cruelest sport leads to the questions: Why is it the cruelest sport? Is it because of the physical injuries? Or is it because of the corruption? Oates argues that because the ultimate goal of boxing is to injury someone, it is a barbaric sport. Boxing is the only sport where two men climb into a ring and fight each other like animals. Boxing is harmful because of the injuries, wounds, and deaths that occur during every fight. Victory is usually when one of the fighters is knocked out. Victory is usually achieved when one fighter is unconscious. Boxers fight
to women. Why is it people don’t stress this much emphasis on boxing, where violence is also
Boxing had always been around in which its origin started back in Ancient Greece where Greeks found the sport of violence very entertaining (Hirsley par. 17). Despite its huge popularity at that time, it soon died off with the rest of Greece to where it would not be revived until the 1600’s. Medieval Europe played around with the idea of boxing, but it would later perish due to the rise of the Salem Witch Trials (Hirsley par. 18). Boxing would then come back around once more, but only this time being the most effective. The 1920’s eventually came around, and with the rise of entertainment, boxing was born again. It was previously
MMA is a serious sport that leaves many athletes in critical condition whether it is after a match or later in retirement. They have a great risk of head trauma. The main goal of MMA is to physically harm the opponent. In the end of the match on will be leaving with head injuries. Today researchers are taking serious attention to head trauma. About 900 people in boxing have died because of trauma to the head (“Boxing Regulation”). This does not include people that have died after they have retired, and their cause of death was from early years of boxing.
The fact is that every fan wants to see action, not a couple guys dancing around. This is why the UFC is only interested in fighters who are willing to compete and put on a good show. Whether someone pays the money to watch an event in person, or watch an event on pay-per-view, they expect to see an actual competition. If all they see is two men dancing around trying to wear each other out, they are going to start losing interest in the sport. This is what is happening in boxing today. The question to be asked shouldn 't be if MMA is dominant over professional boxing. The question should be why boxing is still legal?The final facet of the two sports I want to discuss is safety. Both sports are sanctioned by an athletic commission that can approve, deny, revoke, or suspend all licenses for unarmed combat. The fight takes place with a referee in the ring, or the cage, with the fighters. Doctors are always on hand as well. These measures
There are about 6.4 knockouts for every 100 fights, which is compared to 4.9 concussions in boxing, 2.2 concussions in hockey and 8.08 concussions in football for every 100
Mixed Martial Arts is synonymous with UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championship. This promotion company among many, is the most successful that hosted forty six televised events in 2014(UFC). With its growing popularity, the UFC has now cultivated its biggest star that has even seeped out to Hollywood, often making appearances in daily talk shows and other relevant media outlets. Rounda Rousey is the UFC female bantamweight champion and is the most dominant fighter in a male dominated sport. To many she is the reason female MMA has grown to the popularity it is today. However, the outspoken fighter has been at the center of many controversies that have called into question the very participation of
There are no deaths in the ring, just fighting. As long as everyone involved consents and knows what they are getting into, MMA should be legal. Other dangerous sports are legal, this one should be, as
Have you ever thought of being in a boxing ring with someone on the other side that wants to draw blood from you, and his goal is to beat you till you stop breathing? Being in a boxing ring and fighting someone can create a very dangerous, life threatening situation. All it takes is one bad punch to kill you or multiple punches that can cause a life threatening condition. But, there are ways to train and stay alive in this type of predicament. Some things that can help you are: training hard every day, be in best condition of your life for the rest of your life, having a healthy diet, and be mentally strong.
Time limits, protective gloves, banned techniques lists, and many more were added in order for society to accept it and this allowed the UFC to advertise more as a sport instead of a blood-sport. The only problem after the UFC and MMA became legal in many states was attracting attention. In the early days the sport was not profitable due to the ban in almost all U.S states so the original owners sold the company. Dana White, Frank, and Lorenzo Fertitta “…spent $2 million to buy the Ultimate Fighting Championship…” (Anderson). White and the Fertitta brothers were millions in the hole trying to make the company profitable and were ready to sell but, than they came up with the idea of the Ultimate Fighter. The Ultimate Fighter was a reality show where a group of athletes were all put in one house where they would only focus on fighting. This show allowed people to view how the fighters trained and learn the various personalities each athlete had. The finale of this show is what resurrected the sport. The contest between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar was a “three 5-min. rounds of compelling intensity” ( Chua-Eoan et al.). In this fight both contestants put everything on the line which resulted in a brawl than an actual technical fight. This however attracted viewers for as the fight went on, viewers started tuning in. This Fight is regarded as the most important fight in UFC history (Mannion). This led to
According to Silverman (2012), one of the major causes or factors, which were involved in the declining trends of boxing in America, is diminishing use of heavyweight division. It has been examined that one of the major aspects, which caused people of America to get engage in other sports is the stoppage of heavyweight division in boxing. This idea was supported by Bernick and Banks (2013), according to which, the citizens of America loved to experience knockouts, which were quite impossible without heavyweight divisions. With the passage of time, they lost their interest from boxing and found other interesting and eye catching sports, like football, cricket, hockey, etc. It is a fact that Ray Robinson was a middleweight, during his boxing era (Epstein, 2011). In spite
Humans have always found one on one fighting to be an intriguing activity to watch. Whether it is an unregulated street fight, or a regulated sport like boxing. There is nothing like watching boxers fight and sweat until one of them gives up and falls. The rules of boxing are straight forward. However, it is a very complex sport that requires intense training and conditioning. There are no time outs and there are no teammates who can help the boxers in the ring. It is the ultimate sport that requires strength, discipline and skills. although, there are many controversies surrounding the sport, professional boxing should not be banned because it is a safe and technical sport that boxers choose to do by their own free will.