UFC: Cool... in theory.

back in the early 90's, my brother, cousins, and uncles were all getting into the then-budding tournament known as The Ultimate Fighting Championship. there were different names for it. "No Holds Barred", or the now commonly used "Mixed Martial Arts." it's now one of the fastest growing sports in the country.

now, i LOVE martial arts, so you'd THINK this would be a sport i might actually be a fan of.
but as it turns out, not so much.

let me tell you what was lost along the way.

the initial thing that drew me to UFC was the premise of the tournament. the basis of SO many great stories and video games. fighters from around the world with colorful, unorthodox styles coming together to see whose art was best. this, in my young naive mind, was shaping up to be a real life Street Fighter 2, Tekken, Van Damme's Bloodsport, and to a lesser extent, Van Damme's The Quest.
Back in say, UFC IV, they would still list a fighter's martial art. it was like an experiment, where we could see Chinese Kung Fu against French Savate, Korean Tae Kwon Do versus Hawaiian Bone-Breaking (yes, some dude really listed his art as Hawaiian Bone-Breaking. awesome, i know.)

but eventually.... the MELTING POT took effect.

Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu, a grappling art, soon dominated the sport, and all the striking arts took notice. Soon the strikers had to learn grappling... and so the grapplers learned striking to keep up them. And now, it's not about the culture, or the style, or the art, or histories, or philosophies passed down from sensei to student.

I realize this is just the practical reality of competitive fighting. part of this melancholy is the kid in me, broken hearted that he'll never see a drunken fist master prove himself and his fighting style against douche-bag jocks that care nothing for art.

at the end of the day, MMA competitors stripped down and mixed their arts into one practical, efficient, homogenized, cold, soulless fighting style.

and so now,it's just a sport.
it's just a fight.
it's mixed martial "arts."

and so another sport bites the dust in my book, leaving me to seek haven in Jackie Chan, Tony Jaa, WWE, and the familiar, comforting bliss that is choreographed violence.