MMA
As such in life, what is popular is always changing. These days, the thing that every one and their mother seems to be into is MMA, mixed martial arts. MMA has taken over the void left by professional boxing, which all but ceases to exist these days (at least from a heavyweight standpoint).
From what I gather, there are several MMA federations if you will, such as UFC, Ultimate Fighter, Pride FC and EliteXC to name a few. The only difference I'm aware of between them is the fighters that make up these leagues. I assume that the rules are all similar if not identical for each group.
At our weekly poker game the MMA conversation inevitably comes up, and I get to listen to 2 or 3 people babble on about who's got upcoming fights and what guy's going to win and who's better than who. I gotta be honest; I could give two rat fucks about MMA. I've seen some of the matches. It usually boils down to this: 2 guys start out standing up, they throw a few jabs, maybe some leg kicks, then one guy goes in for the take down and the rest of the fight is them rolling around on the ground trying to submit the other guy. Its like a boxing match where all one guy does is grab the other guy for the clench to avoid getting his ass beat any more. Its boring. Sure there are occasionally some sweet fights with big knock-outs, but you can say the same thing about boxing.
I think I actually like boxing better than MMA because its straight up fisticuffs, no wrestling. MMA is mixed martial arts though, which includes grappling and striking (though leaves out weaponry). Grappling does nothing for me. It slows down fights and a slow fight is a boring fight. However, I understand why people prefer it to boxing. Its more violent and while still in its infancy as a mainstream sport, it is some what pure and untainted from scandal and Don King has nothing to do with it.
Its probably my karate upbringing that makes me favor the striking and weaponry aspects of martial arts vs the grappling aspect. I suppose kick-boxing is more my bag since you can still kick but there's no wrestling. Besides, kickboxing gave us this...
