Ultimate Fighting...

So there I was, sitting waiting for a building inspector to show up (who never did) and listening to two young convenient store clerks - both women - talk about how much they love ultimate fighting. One gal, the supervisor for the store, was so interested in it, that she wanted to join a local gym that trained women for this very type of combat.

I found myself just staring at the craziness of comments being uttered from these two. How one would wrestle/fight her boyfriend to the point that she was sore at work that morning.

Where, where, where o where did we go so, so, so wrong? That a young woman not only likes the violence of the fighting but in turn wants to participate?

I know scant little of ultimate fighting. From I do know - there are few rules and those mostly revolve around eye gouging, hair pulling and elbow use. Outside of that, pretty much anything goes. Two combatants step into a screened octagon fighting area and beat the living snot out of one another until one concedes by tapping out. Pretty much a pay-per-view bar fight without the booze.

There is a substantial following of ultimate fighting here in America. Some fighters have gone on to find commercial fame and fortune for their toughness in the ring. To me, it looks like someone took away the drama and the campiness of wrestling and let two guys beat each other for real.

I believe that most of the fans of ultimate fighting would fall into the lower income brackets of America. Where among people living in poverty or near poverty, fighting is a way of life and a defining piece to their social standing. And where entertainment is a high priority for those living in poverty, it kind of combines the both of them.

What I really don't understand are the middle class kids who follow this type of action and stage mock (and pseudo real) fights in their back yards. Sometimes causing incredible injury or death to the untrained person. As if their video games were somehow alive and they got to be the main actor.

But then, the women who follow this "sport" who then find themselves along with the guys fantasizing about being an ultimate fighter themselves and wailing away on someone else as the crowd roars on in delight.

Maybe it's just a picture of what made the gladiators of ancient Rome not all that far fetched where it was only one step away from beating one another senseless only to fall to the sword of your opponent and there were not rules for tapping out. You'd think after 2,000 years we would have changed at least a little bit.

Or maybe it's just an outlet of extreme agitation, aggression and suppressed rage that spurs these fans to live out their individual frustrations by watching and rooting for their favorite fighter to lay down the hurt. Seems like there is always an outlet for the voyeur who gets his/her kicks from watching something happen that they may or may not wish to participate in directly.

Or maybe it's a version of what modern views on the value of human life really amount to. That everything is OK as long as someone can tap out if it gets too rough and that the victor doesn't always go home without his fair share of cuts and bruises.

I would like to believe that things like this just don't have a place in our modern society. But then again, maybe we just aren't that modern after all?