Last night’s UFC 141 was held to answer the following questions:
-Is it possible to have a main event in a combat sport designed entirely around the premise of mocking the glaring ineptitude/impotence of PED testing in the face of modern human/horse-hybrid science?
-Is kicking someone extraordinarily hard right in the goddamned liver a more badass fighting skill than clumsily attempting to tackle someone?
The answers are yes, and sweet merciful fuck yes, respectively.
Surprisingly, Brock Lesnar elected to retire after suffering another shitkicking at the hands (and knees, and shins… oh my) of someone who uses actual fighting skill to win a fight, as opposed to Brock’s main skill of being 40 to 70lbs larger than his opponents. He seemed to realize that if he couldn’t push people around, he just didn’t want to play anymore. He thought he was a hard man, but learned that he was really just a bully. That’s the beauty of fighting.
Fighting has its adherents and its detractors largely based on the veneer of violence most cannot see past in drawing their conclusions. But fighting, at its core, is not about violence, it is about truth, and violence is the mechanism by which that truth is disclosed. Randy Couture once said “there are no lies in the cage”, and he was right because every single moment you spend locked in there with another man whose job is to attempt to beat the shit out of you (along with one more man whose job is to save your life if the first man succeeds), is a moment of truth. Your words, your possessions, your tribe, your signifiers, all the bullshit that passes for an identity in a society fixated on image, none of that matters, it’s all about reality. Are you in shape? Can you fight? Will you engage in a contest of combative acumen or resort to a cowardly exploitation of the rules to ensure victory? Are you a sportsman or a fighter? Will you quit if adversity slaps you down, or struggle through it earning dignity even in defeat? The answers to such questions reveal who someone is, beneath bluster, beneath posturing, beneath tattoos, beneath all the signals we send in our attempts to distort our failings, our inadequacies, beneath the games we play to pretend we’re something we’re not as we blithely lie to others while reserving our greatest mendacity for ourselves. Fighting strips those witnessing it of their misapprehensions about us, and us of our delusions about ourselves, which for someone like me, makes it as close to holy as anything gets in this world.
The Ballad of Clint Thrust 