I think cage fighting is disgusting per se. Putting kids in a cage for a free style fight is the perversion of educatuion. "Living is fighting and all ways and means are right if they lead you to victory". I mean, who wants to work with sociopaths like that? They probably destroy each team. The pedagogical message of each competitive sports I 've learned is, you have to follow the rules - if you want to win. That means a minimum of cooperation between the competitors. This cage fights are without any rules, or at least with a very poor quantity of them. Normally there is a natural inhibition of violence in fights between kids. They make their own rules if their social surrounding doesn't influence them in a negative way. When I was in that age, we just kick with fists, but never booted somebody. Then this Kung Fu crap was in TV and some started to kick with their feet inside of the stomach. It think this cage fights can influence the kids in a similar negative way.

Cage fighting... children...

Um, no.

That's true. It's really creepy how the front row of spectators at some of these events are 40 year old men not associated with the families.
Years ago a friend of mine had a 15 year old daughter who was in a county-wide cheerleading competition. She was a single Mom, and asked me to go with them so her daughter would have someone besides her mom to cheer her on. The little bitty cheerleaders competed first. I was so horrified to see all these men in the front of the audience that I did not want to be in the tent at all unless her mom was right beside me. Later we moved up to the front of the stage before her daughter's team came on, and she went to get a soft drink or something. She was only gone for a few minutes but it seemed like forever, every second dragged by. Funny thing was, when the older girls came on, most of the men left. I was standing there wishing I could do a Sam Kinison and yell "what's wrong with this picture???"

That said, watching UFC a few times on TV I've seen more co-ordinated displays of martial prowess from two drunk guys outside the pub. The majority of it is pagentry and I've seen matches where I can spot an opening to end the fight that lasts the three or four seconds it takes for another opening to appear.

Yes it is! The pale is very very small though :p

Ah sure that never hurt anyone. Except for the people it hurts.... man that's a rough sport.

Like you hear of this a lot in the UK, not like cage fighting so much, but like parents encouraging brothers/cousins to fight each other. It's pretty disgusting, and I can only think of that really when I hear of really young (like 8?!) kids fighting each other in a cage while adults look on. To me it seems really barbaric.

For the number of years I spent judging and administrating at tournaments (which was, excluding teaching, 15), everyone who entered a sparring event had to wear full protective gear regardless of age. That being: foot and hand pads (full coverage, no exposed digits), padded helmet (face guard optional) mouth guard, groin cup and chest pad. Many of the karate and Tae Kwon Do events I attended had similar rules on pads.

In Chinese martial arts, we have 2 types of events: Light Contact sparring and San Shou (full contact, and on a raised platform). In the Light Contact division, any punch/kick that landed was not allowed to move an opponent or cause a bruise or other injury. Control was stressed as it was NOT a fighting event. No contact was allowed in the under teen divisions. There is simply no reason, we felt, to encourage injury in an activity that is meant to prolong health. Other martial arts see things differently, I guess.

Even in the full-contact division, where competitors (such as Cung Le, whom I watched fight a number of times) routinely knocked each other completely out and even into the hospital, there were still rules that always had the safety of the athlete in mind. We had these divisions so that a competitor would know what was coming; in light contact, one doesn't expect to loose a tooth, though accidents did occur. In full contact, you know what's coming and the dynamic is different.

Among the more difficult events to officiate were the children's sparring events. Before we instituted a "No spectators on the competition floor" rule, some parents gathered as people would at a dog fight, urging a kid to fight. Others were more reasonable, and there's far too much for me to write in a forum. In later tournaments the organization I was part of dropped sparring altogether as it was too much liability and took too much time and manpower to run correctly.

My conclusion, after I-can't-even-tell-you how many people, rings, events, injuries both light and permanent, is that fighting/sparring is an event for adults of legal age only. And since no two people have the same idea of what "light" contact is, it's better off full-contact with experienced referees. There is no reason a child or juvenile should suffer a long-term injury from any sport. ( <-period.) Some argue that even adults/ young adults don't know what they're getting into. The same is true of marriage, but two people can divorce. A fighter can't restore broken neurological function. Ever.

It is. Not only do children get the idea that fighting each other is acceptable, but they are also at a high risk for injury, possibly life-threatening injuries. And unlike Lachrymose's example, the fighting children most likely aren't in protective gear.

The whole concept itself is disgusting and barbaric. As a race, one would think that we've stepped above such revolting entertainment.

Thank-you for reading that, Zeph.

I might also add that in the small-child divisions the injuries were mainly (I'd say) slightly emotional (overwhelming) and not physical, and may have been the type that faded in a fairly short time. In the juvenile/youth divisions where the kids are wilder and bigger, an emotional incident (such as being overwhelmed by a faster, stronger opponent) can't really fade as long as there is a lasting physical injury such as a missing secondary tooth or a disfiguring blow to the face. Again, professional fighters know what comes with the territory, and children (and I include many sets of parents in this) just don't.

Ugh that sickens me how people wont give a rats ass about anyone. why cant they make the kids battle in another way that is less violent... like chess

I hate violence and I think its just a way that unintelligent people solve their problems, but of course these children arent stupid I mean theyre being forced but I mean in general


tisk tisk... what has the world come to? why cant people be lovers not fighters?

I hate to say it, but I think all this 'UFC' is only a *stone's* throw away from the ye olde gladiator games of Rome. Just add some weapons and maybe the odd house beast and you've got it.

Having children to fight in these competitions is like reinforcing that it's apparently A.O.K. to fight.... when there's money involved and there's people to spectate. It reinforces more of Man's violent, primal natures when children should be taught that combat is always the last resort, no matter what.

To me, fighting is something you don't make 'sport' out of. The only purpose I see to a fight is to stay alive, i.e. something that I'd only ever enter the throes of if I absolutely had to.

Killing someone with a weapon is far more civilised than beating someonen unconscious with just your own body.

See: animals (excluding some primates).

Am I the only one who has the ending of "The Karate Kid" (the new one with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith) playing in his head while reading this?

It's funny, because those Chinese people didn't seem particularly disturbed, and even Dre's mom and Mr. Han (who pretty much acted as a surrogate father to Dre) were OK with it. And those fight were BRUTAL, with bone crunching and everything.

Maybe it's some Values Dissonance between China and the U.S.A./the U.K. that I'm not aware of, or maybe it's the cage...

Maybe it's that The Karate Kid is a movie. I watch movies for entertainment, but I don't take my values from movies. I also don't mistake movies for reality.

And since we've had three months of this topic and the news item which inspired it is now old news, topic closed.

-- Nephele