I recently got asked another, less benign version of this during a job interview--"So what's the deal with this UFC business?"--and besides reminding me that Twitter is now a Mecca for background checks, the interviewer's bemused expression reminded me of another sober reality. The life of the closeted mixed martial arts enthusiast is a lonely one.
For over five years now my favorite sport has been professional Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA, but this would be news to most of my friends and relations. It's not that I'm ashamed; I'll divulge my enthusiasm to anyone who cares enough to ask, but more often than not I recognize the looks of judgment and dismissal before I can even get going, their interest waning as mine piques. So I keep it to myself; I've learned the hard way that sometimes it's just easier to lie about the things you love, rather than be persecuted for them.
Persecuted, you say? Dramatic, yes. Inaccurate? Probably not. The MMA-ignorant typically fall into two distinct camps, each with its own excuses to dismiss, to reject. The first camp is made up of people who cannot get past what seems to them to be gory, inarticulate violence. They can't see the beauty and craftsmanship present in all the various techniques and disciplines, practiced and perfected with the same level of dedication a basketball player puts into his jump-shot or a quarterback puts into his throwing motion, because they're too busy flinching away from black eyes and cut lips. They look at the MMA enthusiast as brutish and base, a sadist who derives pleasure from the pain of others. That a thoughtful, intelligent person could be interested in such a thing doesn't compute.
The second camp looks on MMA as one big game of grab-ass; mixed martial arts as the subtle expression of one's latent homo-erotic fantasies through the domination and subjugation of another scantily-clad alpha male. Boxing's flamboyant, soft-headed little brother. MMA makes them uncomfortable--"It's just two dudes rolling around and lying on top of one another... that's so gay!" They're unwilling to recognize mixed martial arts as a legitimate competition because it's too culturally deviant. They prefer sports where the bodies of athletes are covered by pads and jerseys, not exposed. So much muscle on display, in 1080-P no less, inevitably reminds them of their smoking habit and penchant for frozen Snickers ice cream bars, and we can't have that.
Both these viewpoints are lazy and dismissive, but what's a guy to do? The stigma's always going to be there, and I've accepted that. I maintain no dillusions about MMA one day becoming as popular as football or basketball; mixed martial arts is not for everyone. Despite the fact that nine tenths of the sporting world thinks of bald, meat-head simpletons in Tapout tees when they think of MMA fans, mixed martial arts is actually both the ultimate thinking-man's competition, and the purest form of sport known to man.
Anyone can understand the simple, visceral thrill of a knockout; it's dramatic, it's decisive, it's meaningful. It's physical competition stripped of all its abstractions. No this means that; catching a ball means one thing in football and another in baseball, and until those particular sets of rules are explained and understood, no meaning can exist in the act. Beating someone in a fight has never needed explanation; the meaning is the same, no matter what language you speak or what culture you come from. It's something that's felt, instinctively. It is, as they say, as real as it gets.
But just because something makes sense without explication doesn't mean it's crude or unsophisticated. There are dozens of different strikes to master, hundreds of positions and stances to recognize, scores of submissions to set up and guard against. No part of the body is safe; every part of the body can be used. An MMA competition is nothing less than two competitors using any and every physical tool at their disposal, including their mind, to best their opponent.
My opinion of the sport is pretty high, as you might be able to tell. But are my arguments going to make any converts? Probably not. I've accepted that too. Like any hipster worth his weight in flannel, I've learned to revel in the scorn. Mixed Martial Arts is my best kept secret, and I'm fine with it staying that way.
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