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Great discussion! I was the person from Hawaii on the panel. I'd have to agree, that masculinity plays into MMA and other sports a great deal. By that, I mean notions of masculinity are taught or nurtured. Very little, if anything is innate or "God-given" about it. I feel far too many adolescent males and young men jump into MMA as a way to prove their masculine mettle in a violent way, and I see that as a major problem in MMA. I'm sorry I didn't get to express this while on air.

With that said, I am a supporter of the sport, and I feel MMA organizations need to INITIATE more active education in this area. They need to have the athletes and coaches say publicly that this is a sport in which the top level participants know how to defend themselves and are properly conditioned to do so over an extended match. And further, that MMA is not street violence, and should never be taken to the street, home, school, and so forth. Of course, there are MMA athletes who have engaged in street violence, and if they continue to do so, promoters should suspend them, as would likely be done in a sport like the NBA or NFL. The sport can definitely have a negative impact on youth (boys and girls) if this kind of responsibility is not initiated by the MMA community. It would mean integrating those values that are indigenous to the traditional martial arts and disseminating them more effectively beyond MMA students. I feel having MMA fighters tell youth not to fight in the street could be a very effective method of curbing youth violence (though I admit, that strategy has yet to be tested scientifically).

The other topic that wasn't discussed enough on the broadcast was safety. Personally, I feel MMA is safer than football, hockey, boxing, and rugby because those are collision sports with much more momentum and/or constant head punching. I'd say given the level of concussions and knee injuries in women's basketball and soccer, MMA is about as safe/dangerous as those sports. The real danger in MMA is when promoters pit an experience MMA athlete against inexperienced ones - and this does occur in smaller MMA shows far too often. Also, one of the conditions that makes MMA safer is having an experienced referee, who stops matches quickly. Had we been able to talk about this, we could have responded to the caller who was bringing up hitting a downed opponent (I know, he was focusing more on sportsmanship). Still, a qualified referee will insure someone who's sustained a flash knockout is protected immediately. Medical research has shown that flash knockouts do not cause long-term brain damage nearly to the degree that repeated head strikes do, as in boxing (citation: http://fightticker.com/story_0512080736_dr_benjamin_qa_part_two).

Well, a lively discussion here! That is positive. Feel free to email me at MMAcademics@yahoo.com or visit our website at http://MMAcademics.angelfire.com

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Wow, some great, great posts here! Well written and very insightful. I'm author of a political and research-based book on MMA called "Fighting for Acceptance: Mixed Martial Artists and Violence in American Society" (http://MMAcademics.angelfire.com), and I will be chiming in tomorrow on this broadcast. Hope to hear from some of you!

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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