Fight night

Barbarians.

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One has to be an idiot to call this a sport. Just look at the violence of that image. What's the point?

Competition couldn't be more simple than 2 individuals going as it to see who's best. I love this sport.

Well done Hirota. Haters gunna hate. What an athlete. The more you know how to fight the less prone you are to on the streets. Nothing barbaric at all. Two guys that both wanna be in there ,p, trained their whole life for one moment and the world is watching. Stick to cricket if that's your thing, don't preach. Takes a lot of courage to put it all on the line like that and these blokes get the accolades they deserve.

looks like rough non-consensual sex, or maybe its just kinki sado-maso?

Not the most elegant sport I've watched. Looks like a night out in my hometown's city centre. If there was a flying pint glass, the scene would be complete.

At least they are getting paid for it and they have a ref to stop it.

I can understand people’s aversion to violence. I hated the sport in its early days when there were no weight classes, and things like eye-gouging and kicks to the groin were legal. Now there are weight divisions, and the competitors at the highest level are highly trained martial arts black belts, Olympians (wrestling and judo) and boxers. Saying mixed marital arts is not a sport or saying it looks like rape, is just ignorant.

Would you have posted this story if Hirota had lost?

Well, it's that or working 50 hours of unpaid overtime a month - from that point of view, they've got it easy.

I can understand people’s aversion to violence. I hated the sport in its early days when there were no weight classes, and things like eye-gouging and kicks to the groin were legal. Now there are weight divisions, and the competitors at the highest level are highly trained martial arts black belts, Olympians (wrestling and judo) and boxers. Saying mixed marital arts is not a sport or saying it looks like rape, is just ignorant.

Yep. It's a well regulated sport these days - drug testing, weight classes, refs who know exactly when to stop the fight (when one fighter isn't intelligently defending).

There's a reason why it's the fastest growing sport in the world.

Tell me why they fight in a cage again?