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Question in the title. Friend and I have been arguing about this for a while. I love it seeing it as one of the best sports around today, MMA deffo being best of the fighting sports that I have seen. what do you guys think? Is it mindless thuggery, or true sport, maybe its a mix? (Sitting watching TUF GSP vs Koscheck while writing this)

Great sport, especialy to watch

It is a sport of mind as much as body. And unlike the fakery and melodrama of pro wrestling, it is a genuine contest, and in the vast majority of cases, the fighters have great respect for each other.

I love the sport and have been doing it for years but i hate the culture (outside of my gym mind you).

Are the two things really mutually exclusive?

I guess I've never seen any really good fights, but what I've seen hasn't been too impressive.

Two guys swing at each other like five or six times and one falls to the ground...then the standing guy jumps on him and pummels the crap out of the dude on the ground...I don't think that's very exciting.

Plus, I HATE the fans.

Well i train with a great group of people and enjoy it thoroughly but i just don't go to bars where the Affliction wearing masses cry for blood rather than a good match.

Softcore gay BDSM.

Softcore gay BDSM.

Oi! That's just good, wholesome family fun!

It's entertaining until it inevitably turns into a dry humping missionary position.

I don't deny that it's a good sport but i do think that it's trying to be something it isn't...

It can be pretty boring to watch, though I like MMA as a sport having done a little BJJ in my time.

Oh, and kids: Wearing a Tapout T-shirt doesn't make you look 'hard'.

The sport and discipline is awesome

the culture could use some work though.

As for the tapout t-shirts etc, I'm guilty but mostly because they are actually big enough to cover me long frame. Some of the fights can be boring and I do prefer more active matches than constantly lying on top of each other on the ground doing little to advance.

warpcrafter wrote:It is a sport of mind as much as body. And unlike the fakery and melodrama of pro wrestling, it is a genuine contest, and in the vast majority of cases, the fighters have great respect for each other.

The fakery and melodrama are an essential part of the experience, as Roland Barthes put it:

"There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque."

The irony is of course that modern pro-wrestling evolved from a genuine contest that very much resembled MMA at the turn of the century, the promoters of the time switched from a legitimate sport to a fake or "worked" spectacle because the fights were boring, drawn out and turned off the audience, thus killing the box office.

I don't enjoy MMA, and the fights look pretty much to me like the descriptions of the old style wrestling, but then I am biased.

But if history has a lesson to teach, it seems to be that MMA will probably evolve towards pro-wrestling rather than away from it.

Carmine the Wolf wrote:
But if history has a lesson to teach, it seems to be that MMA will probably evolve towards pro-wrestling rather than away from it.

Doubt it. Its the fastest growing sport in the world and combines the discipline and skill of every style of fighting, rather than a bunch of huge hairy lads lifting each other.

It has FAR more scope than wrestling ever had.

I like to watch it, its a good sport. Its just the fans I don't like.

Toastedandy wrote:

Carmine the Wolf wrote:
But if history has a lesson to teach, it seems to be that MMA will probably evolve towards pro-wrestling rather than away from it.

Doubt it. Its the fastest growing sport in the world and combines the discipline and skill of every style of fighting, rather than a bunch of huge hairy lads lifting each other.

It has FAR more scope than wrestling ever had.

If you choose to ignore the history of the similar sports that have gone before it then you can speculate that it'll cure cancer and secure world peace as well.

Also, describing pro-wrestling as a "bunch of huge hairy lads lifting each other" is pretty much the same as me describing MMA as a "bunch of barefoot, sweaty guys dry-humping each other".

On a side note, the Dutch rock at it.. like most fighting sports.

Fedor is my fav though...

I love it and it's one of the only sports I enjoy watching. However even I find the idea that it's a peacefull skill which helps you outside of fights to be a bit far. IMO it is just two thugs (albeit very skilled ones) beating each other up and I don't have a problem with that.

it's not much different than WWE, and I hate it.

mega_bassist wrote:...Plus, I HATE the fans...

I think this should be QFT. MMA has some of the WORST fan-base in terms of understanding the game. Most just want to see blood. But the game is no different from any other sport. There are VERY few people who trains for MMA for the blood and violence, but instead enjoy the competative nature, physically, and the decent money that can be made from it. Most of the competators, you can see their genuine camaraderie for their competation.

Honestly, the rules of the game, I find, are a bit on the safe side. They should allow knees when on the ground and a few other tweaks (think Pride). So with that mind set, I think the game is a great sport.

Love it!

It is always a good substitute for when you want to watch some gay porn but don't want to visit questionable web sites or store fronts.

I hate it.

Because reducing ourselves to neanderthals is supposed to be entertaining.

Actually, I play Hockey so I probably shouldn't be berating other sports for being too violent.

coolyo294 wrote:Actually, I play Hockey so I probably shouldn't be berating other sports for being too violent.

Actually, hockey is entertaining.

+1 for Great sport

Though some of the fighters do make it look mindless.

I quite enjoy the stand up scrappings, but as a former boxer turned Kung fu practitioner i get bored when they start the cuddles on the floor...