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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1384 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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Ufc 317 this weekend and highly encourage you all watch it. @Tanista comment on lat weeks thread about Jon Jones, one of the better mma fighters, behind only the likes of GSP, Fedor etc retired after holding up the worst division, heavyweight, for two years has made people who watch the sport happy.

Ilia Topuria, Payton Talbott and Joshua Van are three entertaining young fighters who are blockbuster entertainment whilst also being extremely talented.

Topuria was the featherweight champ and knocked the last two greats out in succession, something that is unprecedented and this was likely the greatest title run in the UFC impact wise for the division. Topuria is a pressure fighter, defensively sound, sleeps people with one punch and wants to be in the pocket. He fights a now past his prime Charles Oliveira who himself was the pressure fighting guy at lightweight, the division Topuria is fighting in now.

Talbott is a very online young guy and the first fighter to tweet about Sam Hyde incessantly making him someone I root for now. He fights at 135, a division above Van who's at 125. Mma is very stale, boring and not worth watching now. The UFC wants no big superstars to emerge as they want a total monopoly on the business so that they pay fighters as little as possible. The thinking of this kind has made the peak we saw in 2016-17 look like a different world.

The other fight in this card features 125ers who can sleep people. Lower weight classes are a treat to watch. As a long time fan, I hope you folks tune in, buy, pirate, watch it at a bar, whatever. Ufc 317 is on this Saturday, you can watch the embedded vlogs ufc produces to get some more context about the fights if you wish to.

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.

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