Sound and Fury Alert: Olympic Sarcasm Edition

"How about a brawl poolside, instead of that wimpy protest by the Serbian? As for the gals, there's nothing that says I want to win like spitting out part of the other gal's earlobe. Do you think those possibly underage Chinese gymnasts (calling them 'women' suspends credulity) could handle a nice cross-body block by Shawn Johnson? Or a good, swift kick from Liukin? What's with all this congratulations to the opponents as they leave the mat? Why not a well-placed elbow in the gut? A little Gym-NASTY! That's the key to really big numbers! Thank goodness sanity has been partly restored to the sports scene by the surge of interest in Ultimate Fighting. Now, there is fine SPORT! What could be better than two guys knocking the snot out of each other in a cage while people scream for something approaching death? It warms the heart. I can't wait for the gals to come around and realize just how BIG that sport is going to be. They'll want their cut (and I do mean 'cut'). It's only a matter of time until NBC suspends programming for two full weeks to feature the International (or maybe inter-planetary) Championships of the Ultimate Blood Sport Association of America and the Free World! Then all those swimmers and tumblers and rowers will be sorry! Sure, they'll still be able to walk after 50 and they'll still be able to assemble sentences in whatever language they choose, but will they be remembered for a face drenched in red corpuscles? Will people remember how many punches to the head were thrown after the guy was down and helpless on the canvas? How do those arms-length Olympians expect to face their children without shame?"

-- Allen Costantini writing in his Karemudgeon blog for KARE 11 NBC in Twin Cities, MN. Costantini believes this cute oratorical rhetoric somehow makes an ignorant argument magically more informed. He unknowingly suffers from the misconception that modern MMA as we understand it today was created by clever marketers or television executives with the express purpose of inserting extreme violence into something akin to sport for ratings. In other words, because boxing or wrestling weren't violent enough, some marketing team with machinations decided to throw caution to the wind by "inventing" out of whole cloth something new in the form of what we see today. It's a poor understanding of the sport's appeal and history. Certainly there is an allure that the violence of MMA provides, but to think that violence for television glory was the presumptive impetus behind the sport's creation is little more than this gentleman's own fantasy.