Ultimate Idiocy

Ultimate fighting has now become a favored sport of children as young as six. Problem? Well, maybe.

As someone who worries about the general pussyfication of the male population of the US I'm certainly not opposed to children learning how to defend themselves, but can we expect an impressionable first grader, who spends his recreational time immobilizing his peers with painful wrestling holds so that he can pound them into submission, to grow up to be a peaceful, rational, good-humored adult? Or are we creating some new breed of demented nutcase whose relationship to the world around him is subconsciously mired in violence.

Back in Fairfield there's a small gaggle of idiots who have delved into this sport in their teens or early twenties apparently as some sort of compensation for their lack of ability to read, write, and generate original, constructive thoughts from the modern myriad of complex sensory inputs that inundate the average human every day. There's nothing particularly charming about them, nor does one get the sense that they would use their newly discover machismo to do anything noble such as defend the innocent and vulnerable against the jaded and belligerent. After all how would such risky, selfless behavior help them win their next match? In fact they seem much more like the type one would find oneself in need of protection from. In the bars they remind me of an old t-shirt slogan: "Instant asshole. Just add alcohol."

And what is this crap about ultimate fighting being a "mixed martial art"? Mixed with what? Gay snuff porn? All I see are two Spartan queers, frozen in a contorted embrace with their noses buried in each other's armpits for what seems like an eternity while trying to smash each other in the head. It's reminiscent of those tasteless Chinese gladiator fights between arthropods e.g. emperor scorpion versus rose hair tarantula, where the two multi-legged opponents circle each other for ten minutes then both pounce into a stagnate tangle of appendages until one dies of the other's venom. And I make this comparison at the risk of insulting arthropods who are involuntarily thrust into these sadistic situations, rarely drink, and are probably not repressing latent homosexuality.

Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal.....that's martial arts, not this Brazilian jiu-jitsu / grappling / taint-sniffing bullshit. If you're going to entertain me by beating the shit out of someone then you need to be launching your caterwauling ass six feet into the air with a triple roundhouse back flip and landing on your opponent's chest with both feet. If I want to watch two burly, sweat-soaked rednecks hump each other I'll install spy cams in the RNC's bathroom facilities.

But back to the children.

All other points aside, isn't there something just instinctively wrong about encouraging six-year-olds to do anything they can to hurt each other as long as it doesn't involve eye gouging or trachea crushing? Maybe it's just me.