Good competition on display here, no problems related to gender.
Weird coincidence but as I was reading this thread, I was watching Elementary and they had a scene about two female characters fighting in the ring and one of them getting a black eye.
I haven’t seen the fight in question, in fact I haven’t seen any MMA fights of either gender because it doesn’t interest me. However, I must admit that I feel a twinge of sexual attraction in watching two women fighting to the bloody end.
Am I alone in this thought?
Women seem to get more obviously hurt. Maybe its technique, but Rousey looked like a DV victim poster at the end of it, while the men rarely do.
Do women bruise more easily?
I’ve grown to dislike organized fighting more and more. The level of violence inflicted and the known long term health implications have taken away any appeal the “sport” ever had. Boxing was violent enough and MMA takes it to unacceptable levels. imho I quit watching mens boxing twenty years ago. I’ve never seen an entire MMA fight. Short snippets on the web were more than enough.
Its sickening to see women batter each other senseless. Goes against everything society has ever taught. We have laws against violence against women for a reason. That they now choose to go into a ring and batter each other bloody is disquieting. They have the right to make terrible life choices. But, its nothing I care to see or will celebrate.
If you cite laws that say it’s illegal to beat a women (are they’re such laws? I’m really not sure), I think you’ll find they have nothing to do with MMA where the women practice for years, then sign up for a match against a, more or less, equal opponent. It’s not that she was walking out of the bathroom and got smacked in the side of the head by her boyfriend.
Any (most?) such laws would probably also say that men’s MMA (as well as high school and even ‘professional wrestling’, Karate/judo etc) would also be illegal if done randomly to a someone walking down the street. Hell even backyard versions of these sports are, I believe illegal.
IOW, this has nothing to do with domestic violence. IOW, if you don’t like it, don’t watch it, but just because you don’t like it or you (or other posters) find similarities between it and domestic violence, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be allowed.
Furthermore, I think the reason people think it looks more like DV than men’s MMA isn’t due to any physiological reason, it’s because you don’t see men as victims as DV on TV or the news as often as women, so you don’t know what they look like.
This is a completely understandable position.
This is a really, really ridiculous argument. Do you understand what coercion and consent mean, and why an understanding of these words might make spousal abuse different from two trained women choosing to enter into a professional fight together?
Firstly, many places don’t actually have “laws against violence against women” at all. Here is California, for example, a quick search of the sections of the penal code dealing with physical and sexual assault reveals no laws specifically aimed at violence against women. There are laws against assault, and against battery, and against spousal abuse, and a bunch of other things involving the use of violence, but these laws are written to apply universally.
The only place i could find in all of these sections of the California Penal Code that made a specific reference to one sex was a sub-section on punishment, where people convicted of certain offenses can be compelled to make payments (in lieu of fines) to battered women’s shelters.
By your logic, the fact that we have laws against assault and battery means that there should also be no men’s boxing or MMA either. And the fact that we have laws against rape means that consensual sex is also wrong. And we have laws against robbery and theft, so it should be unacceptable for me to sell or give away some of my possessions too, i suppose?
Genius!
I enjoy boxing and am starting to get to the point where I appreciate MMA. I was excited to see women start to get more fights. I’m also a competitive fencer in the SCA and have excitedly compared bruises with other men & women. I had no problem looking at Ronda Rousey’s battered face after Holly Holm’s victory and feel no squeamishness about women fighting.
I’m a guy and it doesn’t bother me any more than the same thing on the male fighters. I’m a long-time fan of MMA.
I watched UFC 193 and Rousey’s injuries didn’t look that bad to me - looked like a bloody nose and a split lip. Latourneau appeared to have suffered far worse in her loss to Jedreczyk, that was the match immediately before Rousey-Holm (Latourneau had a nasty swollen cheek from all the shots she took).
From a demographic standpoint it was interesting to watch the crowd - we were at a sports bar and it was a pretty good cross-section of people, ranging from young kids (like under 10, with their parents) all the way up to obvious senior citizens. I’d guess a 50/50 crowd of men and women.
The table next to us had about 10 women, I think they were mostly couples. They were enjoying themselves watching the fights but when the two women’s matches came on they became absolutely engrossed - not just checking out the fight inbetween chatting and noshing, but focused completely on the screen.
This was a huge card for the UFC - over 55,000 people at the stadium and over a million PPVs for an event where the two headlining bouts were women’s title fights. There are obviously tons of people who like to watch the women compete.
Overall I don’t think that the women are at as high a level as the men (that’s in general, not in specific - there are some particular female fighters who are just amazing to watch and several of them were on that card) but they always seem to come out and give it 110%, they are exciting and energetic.
I’m a woman. I’m also a survivor of DV. I’ve watched a lot of Rousey’s fights. She’s strong and confident. I LIKE that she’s full of herself. Her arrogance is charming. I was pretty floored (pun intended) with how efficiently Holm took her down.
I think people should be less concerned about a woman choosing MMA as a career, and more concerned that statistically the rate of Domestic Violence in relationships of male MMA fighters is twice that of the normal population.
I think we should be more concerned about the hypersexualization of female MMA fighters, and that they’re judged more on their appearances than their prowess. Google “Female MMA” and the first title is ‘The 28 Hottest Women’s MMA Fighters’. It’s ridiculous. I’ve heard more comments about how attractive Rousey is than how strong and powerful she is.
MMA fighters like Rousey and Holm chose their career. They train all day, every day, for the opportunity to get into that cage. There is going to be blood. I have no problem seeing a female MMA fighter get bloody. Holm knelt beside her as she was doctored after the fight - in no part of the fight did I even THINK about it being similar to DV.
At least these fights are usually over quickly, instead of 12 rounds of merciless beating. I used to be a big boxing fan, but rarely watch it now unless it’s a rerun of a short fight. My eldest son does MMA training for fitness, not competition, and he still has sustained broken hand and wrist bones. I can’t imagine that those sorts of injuries are uncommon in MMA fighting, along with facial fractures, etc., since there is little padding in those gloves or shoes. I can see where perhaps there would be less head trauma, as a lot of the wins are by submission and not knockout.
Rarely watch that stuff, but this was a righteous ass whupping that Holm put on Rousey after all of the trash talk she did, and Holm stayed as classy in and out of the ring before and after.
I don’t see any difference between how women look in the ring and men. They all look bar-brawling hooligans to me.
When someone says “It doesn’t bother me when men do it, but it does bother me when women do it.”
Isn’t that, however well intended, misogynistic?
Not saying Astro or the others who are in the same boat with him are misogynists. But there does seem to be a bit of a blind spot there.
I find it about equal for both genders. I don’t like the idea of this happening for either gender. Bruising bothers me less than bleeding, though I’d still rather not see the bruising–nothing should be so bad that you bruise up right away.
But intentionally making someone bleed through violence just bothers me.
And it is why I don’t watch this sort of fighting, even though the pure physicality is actually interesting to me.
I am not a sports fan at all, but I remember when there was always a small voice against the violence of boxing. I found boxing the least interesting spectator sport (after the first two rounds the guys just hang onto each other) but not particularly violent or bloody.
From the first moment I saw MMA on TV I snubbed my nose at it. It’s as though you combined roller derby with pro-wrestling with hockey, three of the most beer-swilling, white trash sports there are. The regular male version is also ridiculously homo-erotic from a spectator POV, two buff guys in Speedos piggybacking each other most of the time. And the female version is kinda worse. Any sense of training or athleticism or sport vanishes when it’s all used just to gawk at two girls beating each other up.
I don’t think its morally or ethically wrong and I couldn’t care less that it exists. And sure, you are woman hear you roar and all, but I’m not going to pretend that watching females do that isn’t inherently unpleasant. It’s like trying to pretend that hardcore porn isn’t inherently unromantic.
Yeah, bullshit. I’m guessing you haven’t watched a hockey game in 20 years.
I find that to be a feature, not a bug. 
Amen, Jane.