Why is MMA popular today?
Fighting has always been a favorite past-time of all civilizations. Whether for physical spoils, ego affirmation, or sheer aggression, people have committed their lives to improving their skills at hurting others. Today, violence occurs not only in wars but in the very institutions that support society. Most notably in the US, school shootings such as Columbine have baffled authorities for years - even middle class kids are subject to random acts of destruction. There has been a widespread campaign to stop violence in the media, so that hopefully the future will be more peaceful than the past. However, despite countless attempts to curb the human thirst for bloodshed, it continues to be a facet of our daily lives. MMA has a very special place in this analysis: like many sports, it channels male aggression into a form - a ring, a round, a crowd, it creates the space where violence can be celebrated once again.
Celebration? It seems odd to say it, but at some point violence is no longer just a brutal, intrusive thing but becomes skillful. MMA fighters train hard, not simply on their muscles, but on a wide range of tactics that can be used versus specific types of opponent. From a cursory glance, many have written off UFC and the like as merely exaggerated machismo. But those critics ignore that every sport requires a kind of machismo, defined as the belief in oneself to overcome obstacles, to overcome oneself. Exaggeration is the rule, not the exception, and this applies to almost all entertainment in modern America.
The main reason that MMA has a bright future ahead of it is because people want to get as close to the real thing as possible. In every other sport, from football to chess, the players are out to destroy each other within the rules of the game. MMA continues this tradition, but with a more classical approach, that of physically dominating the other. Indeed, the ancient Greeks held a similar passion for hand to hand combat (see history of ancient MMA). With less rules, people are given a more visceral experience. A person who doesn't understand the rules of chess won't appreciate a grandmaster's play, but it is quite a different matter to see Anderson Silva clinch his opponent and do this:
