Ultimate Fighting

It feels like everything people fight for is to win. To overcome, there is no split decision that people like to honor. Even in matters of life and death you frequently hear "Mother beats Cancer" there is no Middle age woman reaches compromise with cancer by relinquishing one of her breasts and in return decides to live a more organic lifestyle and stay away from any and all chemicals. There is no heroism is the world of even keel. It's up or down and chastise those in the middle for they are apathetic the hangers on. In the world sports there are few sports where a tie is a good thing, the worlds biggest sport of soccer hold a tie as less then a victory but still worthy of points. There are not many American sports where ties are accepted, Hockey used to be this way but due to consumer demand they have tried to add more excitement by creating a sudden death shootout into the regular season games which end into a tie.
Even Religion feels like a up or down sort of mentality, even the acceptance of Buddhist ideals is geared toward accomplishing Nirvana, there is no glory in endlessly cycling through the spiritual realms if you never reach the apex. I wonder where the glory is for the flat line, the mediocre, the steady silent majority of middle men who strive for nothing.
It is not here in the U.S. nor on the TV which dominates the living rooms like a fire used to before Edison. The TV which promotes the products we buy and informs us of the world events. It has shown me the rise of the U.F.C. and the Fall of boxing. For these are sports which show the quick interaction of rise and fall. They are the archetype of winning and losing, two enter to compete and each will leave up or down. But the past couple years have seen the torch move from Pugilist to Martial Artist. The Ultimate fighter tends to consider themselves skilled in MMA the short hand for mixed martial art. Really they are fighters, ranging from Mui Tai boxing to judo to wrestling. One of the most surprising forms of effective fighting is known as Jiu Jitsu, a martial art form that specializes in submission by manipulation of joints or choking out their opponent. Joe Rogan the former face of Fear Factor and well known actor in the show Newsradio has become the color commentator for the U.F.C. in an interview for the show Beyond The Glory he states that "In a boxing match you don't have any options to defend yourself, in the U.F.C. if you get hit by a punch you can control that guy with grappeling... you have options, you can move around, your not restricted in the techniques you can use, and that's whats dangerous to fighting... what's dangerous to fighting is the LACK of options, your forced to stand there and bang with each other you can't even hold on and protect yourself. Boxing is a far more dangerous sport."
I tend to agree with this assessment, boxing reportedly has more deaths per year then MMA has in it's history. Te reason being that a boxer cannot tap-out, cannot give up, and the fights tend to have less blows to the head (a major cause of death in regulated fights). Thats the draw of it as a sport I feel is that it combines defensive tactics. In basketball if you make a steal or block you can turn it into offense, or football with a interception. The transition game of moving from offense to defense is easily seen during many MMA matches. Thus the transition game is important SOmeone getting slammed in thier neck can quickly recover and win
This is not why ultimate fighting is a more complex sport then boxing and part of the reason why it has gained porminance, it is as they shamelessly promote the ULTIMATE fighting championships. No where else is the winning and losing between two entities so on display.