Having boxed for a number of years, professional boxing was always my favorite spectator sport. I loved the sweet science.
But over the years, the influence of Don King and Bob Arum have turned professional boxing into a crooked three ring circus.
Over the years I’ve started watching more mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting — Ultimate fighting — and less boxing.
What I loved most about boxing is that it epitomized the most basic and primal of competition — one on one; mano y mano. Which is why I enjoy MMA fighting even more — it’s inherent barbarity and primal nature is an order of magnitude greater than boxing.
To me, fighting is the essence of competition.
And in the world of MMA, no other fighter has earned my admiration like Chuck Liddell.
Allison Glock at ESPN The Magazine has a great article on the Iceman where she asks, “This Guy Scares you?” (the answer is, yes. He does.)
Now Liddell has transcended the sport to become a cultural icon (witness his recent cameo on “Entourage”). He is The Guy for most guys, a real-life hero in a world of spoiled, whiny poseurs.
That’s exactly the appeal. He’s non-apologetic for doing what he does better than almost anybody else in the world.
On how he got started fighting:
Charlene Liddell [Chuck's mother] was vehemently antiviolence, even while her son was getting pummeled daily in school. “We lived in assisted housing in Santa Barbara,” Chuck recalls. “There were two white kids in my class, and I was one of them.”
Eventually, a teacher told Mrs. Liddell, a single parent, that her son was going to get hit every day unless he hit back. And so it was that little Chuck got a lesson in hand-to-hand combat from his maternal grandfather.
There’s a great lesson there for anti-war zealots/pacifists.
And this quote is my favorite aspect of fighting, and rings true for anybody who likes to fight:
If nothing else, fighting offers men a wellspring of knowledge. For better or worse, when you can take a punch, you know who you are.
Few things will tell you more about a man than how he handles himself in a fight — and few things will teach you more about yourself than how you handle yourself in a fight.
Funny list from the article:
A short list of people scarier than Chuck Liddell:
- Mike Tyson
- Michael Jackson
- Ryan Seacrest
- Ann Coulter
- Dick Cheney
- Oprah
Pacifists should know if you are beat up every day by a bully that you should invade Iraq.
About as sound as of a rationale for the war as I’ve heard.
Hah – I think the rest of the world, seeing the US invade a country on false reasons and making noises about invading another, is going to its maternal grandfather and learning how to fight back.
heh. You guys are funny. Robbie, you should spend a week posting on completely mundane things…say, hostess cupcakes, the olfactory benefits of Ben Gay on the sinuses and…oh…say…living room decor.
Your resident troll’s heads would explode trying to come up with inventive ways to relate the posts to Iraq or Bushitlerburton or the inherent evil of the American Way of Life. If nothing else, reading the comments would be interesting.
Getting to your post.
I’ve been in my fair share of altercations. I spent 21 years in the military and I feel like I handle myself pretty well. These ultimate fighters scare me. That’s why I DON’T like watching them. I don’t like knowing that, up against these guys, I’d fold like a house of cards.
Maybe some of it comes from a schizophrenic upbringing. My father was a good ol’ country boy raised in a poor farming family during the depression. My mom was a city girl, raised as a Quaker…ie pacifist.
From one side we were entreated to “stand up for yourself boy!”, from the other “violence is never the answer”. It’s a wonder that my siblings and I didn’t end up in rubber rooms. As it is two of us (oldest and youngest) ended up with decidedly pacifist mindsets and the two middle ended up in the military so I guess it was a wash. Even so, the pacifist influence of our Mother had to have had some effect even if it wasn’t as strong as the individualism and self-reliance that our father bequeathed to us.
Sailorcurt — I understand exactly what you mean. These guys scare the bejeezus out of me, too.
Here’s a tip for everybody who doesn’t already know this — if the guy at the bar/parking lot/park that you are having words with has cauliflower ears then you should immediately and sincerely apologize for anything you might have done, offer to buy him a drink, then leave as quickly, as quietly, and has humbly as you can.
Can you imagine Dennis Kucinich ringside?