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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2377 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 27, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Has anyone ever described the motivation for watching fights, or what people get out of it ? I greatly respect anyone who is crazy enough to get into such a fight, unless they're obviously crazy and unprepared.

But watching the fight itself is completely different to being in a fight, which to me is a very exhilarating experience judging by serious grade school fights or some kinetic sparring I've done a few times.. but that's sadly too risky and I generally prefer to avoid doing it- especially the 'real' fights with hot blood. There's just nothing there, sure it's somewhat more interesting than the fake fights in films, but it's only a very 'academic' interest.

Clearly, that's not other people's attitude so I'm wondering what's going on.

If people healed like in computer games, I'd probably be very much into MMA, but we sadly don't.

Has anyone ever described the motivation for watching fights, or what people get out of it ?

It's the motivation for watching any sporting event + a few additional benefits:

  1. It appeals to the apparently ineradicable male urge to debate Star Destroyers vs the Enterprise/Lebron vs Kobe/whatever. It's basically a simulation to find the best styles/fighters and to see how they match up. You can have the hypothetical discussion in a barbershop about how good a karate guy matches up against a Muay Thai guy or how useful aikido is or you can watch UFC.
  2. It's all of the benefits of watching any competition except fighting is the competition, the last argument. There's just a sort of additional, primal oomph. As Rogan says, you lose a basketball game you say "I'd kick your ass". You lose the ensuing fight and you just lost. An MMA fight is the last stop, not just fighting but fighting with the smallest set of constraints America can stand.

Will speak as a fan.

MMA is really the only bloodsport I watch. First, I love the progression from the prelims to the main event, with the latter often being not worth watching at all. It's very fun to watch in a group with 8 light beers and a pizza showing up.

What it's not: A way to fantasize about my own fighting capability

What it is: A way to observe the pinnacle of human achievement in pain tolerance and performance. Making our bodies into weapons is an insane counterpoint to modern western living. Sure you can get like... 60% of that experience by being a traditional athlete, but nothing comes close to the insane violence in MMA. It gets my blood pumping, and even the women's events are a type of masculinity that the elites have done their best to smother everywhere.

Seconding this.

And if you have a decent amount of training in some of the disciplines on display, you can actually sort of comprehend what's going on in that tangle of appendages, and understand why that particular spinning kick-into-right-cross combo took a lot of skill to unleash, even if it didn't land.

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