Really depends on the grappling. If you are doing collegiate wrestling, the goal is to overpower your opponent and pin them. Not really much violence at all.
In MMA, submission fighters are often very violent. Repeated strikes to the limb or joint they want to weaken is part of it. Then, they often try to punch their opponent in the head to get them disoriented or to give them an opportunity to get a submission hold since they will be protecting their face and not protecting the joint.
I’d watch it.
I’d attend.
There’s a major amount of interest in death films of one sort or another online. Not to mention Hostel/Saw/ect, which can display stuff with almost the level of realism as a camera in the Colosseum. If anything, as soon as the tech exists, virtual gladiatorial matches which are indistinguishable from the violence of the real ones will be taking place, be it on computers or with large holographic setups in actual stadiums.
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