Violence In Sports

Chris Davidson

In our never-ending search for more interesting forms of entertainment, as a society we have turned towards more and more violent subject matter. It used to be simply football and baseball (1900), relatively fun sports where no one really got hurt. But then it turned to boxing (1920) which we now accept as a regular sport (when it is really just two guys beating the crap out of each other). Now, all of a sudden so-called harmless sports are becoming more and more violent to meet the demands of the audience (bigger hits in football and hockey, Ty Cobb in baseball). Finally, in the '70's and '80's, wrestling went mainstream--people putting each other in dangerous moves trying to knock each other out. But when even that wasn't enough, weapons were brought in (chairs, wrenches, even cattle prods).

However, people realized it was all fake and they wanted something real. So the '90's invented the "Ultimate Fighting Championship". This is definitely the most violent sport (if it can even be called a sport) that we have come up with yet. Full contact professional martial artists, grapplers, and kickboxers going at each other in an attempt to make their opponent "tap out" in pain, or simply to save the breaking of an arm, leg, or even back. Is this entertainment? A lot of people seem to think so, enough for them to host 18 of these UFC's.

Unfortunately, we have digressed as a culture into taking pleasure in seeing some poor guy get beaten up over a cash prize. Obviously, this trend of violence is not just going to stop. It will grow and grow. In ten years time we could see what we now consider to be too violent, and like it. In fact, we will probably be willing to pay for it. Eventually we will become sick of seeing the same fights in UFC's, and then the promoters will have to come up with something new. They might put three or four men in the ring, and let them stomp each other. Or they might randomly drop in weapons.

As we tire of this, we may see a whole new brand of entertainment arise, one where prisoners with life sentences are given a chance at freedom in exchange for participation in the new sport. A sport where prisoners are hunted as they try to escape their hunters. It might seem fair, too, in our 2009 mentality because the prisoners are just going to die in prison anyway; the hunters would just be hurrying the whole process up. Even if the prisoners did get killed, they probably did something to deserve it anyways. The audience will be comfortable with pretty sick thinking.

Even though it seems far-fetched, we are really not that far away from such extreme sports. We already enjoy athletes fighting to the point of unconciousness. Taking it one step further, the next form of entertainment would be athletes fighting to .... Can you imagine it?

(c) Chris Davidson 1999
All rights remain with the author.