Saturday, August 16, 2008

Cage fighting

Last week I went to my first cage fight. It was an interesting experience. The first fights weren't really fights. They were all match-ups with first time fighters. The fighters weren't very good, but they there was nothing horrible about them. The crowd though, they were scary. They got most excited when a fighter went down and wasn't really able to defend themselves. When this would happen, the crowd would leap to their feet and start cheering as the downed fighter was pummeled until the referee stopped the fight. The crowd wasn't interested in the skill of the fighters at all. Their only interest was in seeing someone get pounded bloody and senseless. The crowd's demands for blood and destruction were genuinely frightening. Most of these people weren't there to see a fight. They were there to see someone beaten and damaged. We haven't advanced a step beyond the Romans and the coliseum.