Sports Violence

Violence is a natural part of sports, much like breathing is a natural part of the human body. When people take steps to reduce violence, it actually detracts from the sport and makes it less appealing. Let’s face it, watching a man get tackled at full speed or body checked into a Plexiglas wall, is far more entertaining to watch from a fans perspective then watching two people hitting a ball back and forth with a racquet. Human beings crave violence in all things, not just sports. The need to dominate and oppose one’s will is as old as time. We see the same tendencies in all forms of life and it’s what makes us all human beings. The Greeks and Romans were among the first civilizations to have, what we would consider today as “organized sports”. The main purpose of these sports was to promote violence and death as entertainment to the people. With no moral quandaries, the people embraced there newly founded “blood sports” with open arms. The early Mayan’s had ritual games, which often resulted in death. During medieval times, soldiers would use violent games to train for war and often had warlike consequences. Fans would observe these games from a stadium, while eating, drinking and cheering, much similar to today’s sporting events.
Violence is just a general term but, there are many forms of violence. Violence is the use of excessive physical force, which causes or has obvious potential to cause harm or destruction. Aggression is the verbal or physical actions grounded in an intent to dominate, control, or do harm to another person. Intimidation are the words, gestures and actions that threaten violence or aggression. Today’s modern sports such as; football, hockey, rugby, boxing, and MMA all use these forms of violence. Michael Strahan said “IT’S THE MOST PERFECT feeling in the world to know you’ve hit a guy just right, that you’ve maximized the physical pain he can feel. . . . You feel the life just go out of him. You’ve taken all this man’s energy and just dominated him.” This is coming from a hall of fame linebacker, whose sole purpose was to inflict pain on the opposing team. If the NFL keeps enforcing all these new rules to keep players safe, it doesn’t allow the great defensive players to play the game the way it should be played. Some of the more violent sports such as Boxing, and MMA don’t have a lot of the restrictions that the NFL or NHL have. Violence. UFC is a form of MMA, and has attracted huge fan bases in a short amount of time. Its popularity has increased so rapidly because it is one of the most violent things you can watch on television. Broken arms, broken legs, concussions, bloodied faces and bodies are just a few of the outcomes of some of these fights. Its brutal nature attracts people, like moth to a flame.
The media portrays sports in a violent appealing manner.