The other night, in an irish pub, the large-screen tvs were displaying some Ultimate Fighting.
(for some reason, i sometimes confuse the words with ‘Mortal Combat’, which, as oldtimers know, was an extremely violent game from the end of the eighties. When you’d punched your opponent into submission, the famous words appeared: ‘Finish him’. By doing ctrl-alt-shift-3-B or similar you could do your secret technique to either rip the spine out of him, freeze him and break him into bits, or other bloody endings)
Anyway. So you’ve got an round pitch which is delimited by an iron mesh fence. The fighters arrive with a maximum of show and a whole retinue of minions, a bit in wrestling style. They’ve each got teeth protection and (i think) a shell.
The arbitrator calls the start of the fight. For as far as i could see, there are no rules at all. Pure savagery. Mix of judo, wrestling, kickboxing, plain boxing, whatever comes to mind.
Get as many punches in as you can, wherever you can. Pound his face, and barring that, his ribs into mush. Rip his neck, his arm, back as far as they will go. I’ve not seen any biting or scratching, but that’s about it. The iron mesh can come in handy as a tool of destruction.
We stare transfixed at the screen. Anyone with a shred of empathy would wince at any number of points. They slough on, standing up, then one on top or the other, beating, wrenching.
One of the fighters gets the upper hand, and the match is called. They both stand up. The loser is swaying slightly. He has a face like a red pin cushion, and his eyes are black holes lost in the pink tissue. They shake hands.
Then the program segues to a studio, where two guys in suits and ties and an immaculately dressed woman are about to discuss the game fight.
Whatever they’re paying those twenty-somethings, it can’t nearly be enough.
photo from the NYTimes