Tag: Editorials

Those who claim that fighting has nothing to do with sports have, probably, never learned history. Indeed, if you will read at least some excerpts from the history of Ancient Greece, you would see that fighting has always been a part of their culture. People in the ancient world considered physical power to be no less important than the prowess of one’s mind. Weak children were thrown down the edge of an abyss in Sparta, and there is a big list to expand upon when talking about how violence and brutality have always been an integral part of human lives. Fortunately, as society has been crystallizing itself, it has gradually reached the point of being able to embody the drive for violence in the form of sports.

Boxing, karate, Muay-Thai, and other martial arts have become Olympic sports, which is the best manifestation of their recognition in the modern world. However, it should be acknowledged that MMA is the pinnacle of martial art as it combines all the features that a complete fighter has to have. In this article, we are going to talk about violence and the journey it has been through on its way towards crystallizing as MMA, the most complete of the forms of martial arts known today.

 The Civilization and Violence Started in Greece

It all started thousands of years ago, when Greeks held the hollow, vicious, and notorious chariot races that have been accompanied by a great selection of violent elements. The precise of the intronization of violence within the world of sports is 680BC when the first Olympic Games have been conducted in Greece. If a modern student had to write a youth violence essay about the way young people expressed their violence in Ancient Greece, they would have been amazed at how physically driven their coevals of that time were. Youth violence is a complicated topic, and it surely requires a lot of research and attention today. However, when it comes to talking about how violence has become a part of sports, it should be acknowledged that it all started approximately three thousand years ago. However, then it was not considered violence but an ordinary lifestyle of every man who wanted to survive.

Hail the Caesar

There is, probably, no person in this world who would not have seen that movie “Gladiator”. We have all sympathized with a centurion who was forced to become a gladiator and fight wild animals and other gladiators solely for the sake of Caesar’s fun. Meryl Streep was right to claim at the last Golden Globe awards that violence had nothing to do with art. Nonetheless, it is solely the history of ancient Romans that can be related to this case. There is surely nothing noble in throwing people into the arena filled with lions and tigers. The outcome of such a clash was known long before it has even started.

However, civilization has evolved since that time and stating that there is nothing artistic about being physically flawless was definitely wrong. Nowadays, the gladiator fights are considered to be the ancestors of MMA, as there are not that many differences between the two kinds of “sport”. There is a cage, there are two fighters, and only one wins. The only reason is that MMA is a humane sport, and the action continues until one fighter defeats another or the other fighter gives up. Nobody fights till the opponent is dead as they used to do it in Rome. 

Of course, there has been a lot of stigma about the fighters in ancient Rome, and if you were to write an essay about youth violence in ancient Rome, you would have surely mentioned that they all were criminals, slaves, or prisoners of war. Well, modern MMA fighters are nothing else by successful people. The likes of Conor McGregor and Habib Numargomedov are bright examples of the image of a modern fighter.

Not Violence but Surely a Form of Art

Is there actually a need to tell you how big the role that martial arts play and have always played in the culture of the Asian nations is? Every media violence essay nowadays surely contains a paragraph about how people offend each other online. Well, thankfully, media violence of today has nothing in common with the noble world of kung-fu, karate, taekwondo, and other styles of martial arts that require an immense input from an individual who wants to become a real master.

The New Era Looms

The 20^th century has entailed quite a new image for the violence in sports. Boxing has become one of the staple sports in the United States, and by the end of the 1970s, it was a full-grown industry with huge contracts and millions of fans from all around the world. If you were to read about the names of Muhammad Ali, Rocky Marciano, Mike Tyson and others in some youth violence essay examples, you would have, probably, read that they have been fighting for a cause. Some of them wanted to become the world champions; the others had to fight because their families had nothing to eat.

The example of the aforementioned Conor McGregor, one of the brightest stars in MMA, is being often used by the students in an essay about media violence. The notorious McGregor is quite active online and never misses a chance to speak out. However, not everybody knows that he had nothing to eat some ten years ago and was found on the edge of committing suicide. He had to fight his way up to the top, and, namely, MMA has helped him survive through self-discipline and hard work.

Conclusion

The main thing that differentiates a martial art from violence is discipline. Whenever watching to MMA, you can always see the fighters hugging and expressing their respect for each other after the fight. Even the media violence essay example rather talks about how ordinary people are more violent to each other than professional fighters. While MMA can be classified as the quintessence of martial arts development, there is a need to understand that it is not based on one’s desire to be violent. It is based on one’s desire to be perfect in every sense because discipline, practice, and perfection are what a fighter consists of. Violence is never a virtue of a real warrior.