The Sydney Backlash in Action
Jake Rossen Feb 18, 2010
It took a little time, but Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald
finally
circulated their requisite Chicken Little dance in the form of
a column by Malcolm Brown.
“Those watching on television will see blood flowing and clearly distressed combatants dropping to the canvas, and then having blows rained onto their heads,” he writes. “The fighters are in a cage, almost dehumanizing them…By contrast, boxing is properly controlled. The possibility of brain damage through concussion is well recognized and referees intervene at the first sign of genuine distress….Fighting in the Queensberry Rules tradition had been encouraged by countless fathers - like my own - as a way for boys to demonstrate manliness. But what if there are no more Queensberry Rules?”
Indeed, what if there were no more Queensberry rules? Might fighters actually have an opportunity to enter their middle age without need for a drool cup and adult diapers?
I have a genuine respect for articulate claims that combat sports are exercises in brutality -- after all, they are. But the ignorance and hypocrisy inherent in advocating boxing -- which has plainly murdered hundreds of its own participants -- while finding issue with MMA is a special and spectacular kind of stupid. If your attitude is that cruelty for spectators’ amusement should be abolished, you begin and end with the sport that actually has a mortality rate.
“Those watching on television will see blood flowing and clearly distressed combatants dropping to the canvas, and then having blows rained onto their heads,” he writes. “The fighters are in a cage, almost dehumanizing them…By contrast, boxing is properly controlled. The possibility of brain damage through concussion is well recognized and referees intervene at the first sign of genuine distress….Fighting in the Queensberry Rules tradition had been encouraged by countless fathers - like my own - as a way for boys to demonstrate manliness. But what if there are no more Queensberry Rules?”
Indeed, what if there were no more Queensberry rules? Might fighters actually have an opportunity to enter their middle age without need for a drool cup and adult diapers?
I have a genuine respect for articulate claims that combat sports are exercises in brutality -- after all, they are. But the ignorance and hypocrisy inherent in advocating boxing -- which has plainly murdered hundreds of its own participants -- while finding issue with MMA is a special and spectacular kind of stupid. If your attitude is that cruelty for spectators’ amusement should be abolished, you begin and end with the sport that actually has a mortality rate.
