‘Human cockfighting’ is all the rage at the O2 arena

13 April 2012

Punch-up season is here. Between now and Christmas there are going to be some fantastic bouts for British fight fans.

There's the lopsided but compelling all-London clash between David Haye and Audley Harrison, at the MEN Arena on 13 November. Then on 11 December, Amir Khan will defend his world light-welterweight title against Marcos Maidana in Las Vegas.

But before all that, there's a whole other clutch of interesting British fights to come. Three of them are being held tomorrow, at the O2 Arena.

At the top of the bill is Michael Bisping v Yoshihiro Akiyama — a contest Bisping must win to sustain his hopes of winning a middleweight belt.

On the same bill Dan Hardy hopes to move further up the welterweight rankings with victory over Carlos Condit, while John Hathaway faces Mike Pyle in the same division.

But hang on. That Bisping v Akiyama bill, which has already sold out the O2 — a feat that only Haye, Khan and a freak-show comeback by Ricky Hatton would currently hope to equal — isn't a boxing match. It's UFC 120.

There are plenty of boxing fans who bridle at the idea of their ancient sport being mentioned in the same breath as the minestrone smash-and-grapple that is mixed martial arts (MMA). What boxing represents in terms of precedent, formality and historical lore, MMA seems conspicuously to lack.

Boxing is strictly handicapped violence. Stand-up punching only. No butting, biting, gnawing, strangling, gouging, elbowing, kicking or kneeling on your opponent. (Unless you're Mike Tyson.)

MMA, by contrast, is a freeform war. To the unschooled eye, it can look like a simple brawl.

Pretty much anything you could do to your opponent in a pub car park, you can do in the octagon, with the exceptions of gouging, kicking his cod in or cracking a bottle over his eyebrow. A pundit on American TV once memorably described it as human cockfighting'.

But to the thousands of punters who'll pack out the O2, UFC represents everything that boxing has got wrong.

Far from a glorified dogfight, they say, it is a fighting sport that demands mastery of a vast array of different disciplines. It requires, and showcases, huge skill in everything from boxing and kickboxing and muay thai to jiu-jitsu, submission wrestling and judo. "The fights are generally more intriguing [than in boxing]," says Bisping. "You've got two guys who can turn on so many different styles — it's interesting to see what kind of game plan you're going to use."

But will UFC's stylistic mash-up eventually overtake the familiarity of the boxing ring? It's a debate that grips angry young men on YouTube forums. And though on one level it's as specious an argument as that between fans of rugby union and league, there's still a sense that MMA have their house in far better order at present than boxing does.

Much of this is the result of the stranglehold that the UFC has over the young sport. Indeed, the brand and the sport are near synonymous. As Haye recently pointed out to me, UFC hasn't yet reached the stage where the biggest fighters have wrested control away from promoters.

Thus, with control over all the best names (you'll never see the hapless Alex Reid, aka Mr Katie Price on a UFC bill), UFC can put together shows with five compelling fights back to back on the same night. Whereas boxing is fragmented between rival sanctioning authorities and promoters, who obstruct the fights fans want to see — will Manny Pacquiao ever fight Floyd Mayweather? — UFC puts the best fighters in the world together, in one streamlined division, regularly.

Maybe the best thing is to see boxing and the UFC as complementary, rather than rival disciplines. Because, of course, with all fighting sports, no matter what their claims to civility, the reductive appeal is that of seeing some poor bugger get his face burst.

There'll certainly be no shortage of blood tomorrow. "Our gloves are smaller so the knockouts come a lot more frequently," says Bisping, who claims that even his mother-in-law ("a very nice, very respectable lady") loves UFC. "Everyone can appreciate a good knockout."

One yank ends and it's a rip off in the US

Next time you see a Premier League wimpo clutching his face, writhing around, giving the impression he has been shot, etc, think on this.

An American Football player in the college leagues played half a game last weekend after having half a finger on his left hand torn off.

Even better, he's surprised about all the fuss. "I guess it's a big deal if your pinkie got ripped off," he says. And we're worried about Nigel de Jong?

Chinese are coming . . . and it will hurt

If the future of world sport lies in the same hands as its economy, we're in for hot beat-downs on a regular basis. The pagga that broke out during a friendly' basketball game between Brazil and China featured flying windmill fists, rabbit punching and good old-fashioned facial kicking. Admittedly, it was instigated by China's American coach, representing Old Superpower aggro. But the BRIC nations will soon get the hang of things on their own.

Goals that lead to snakes and fakes

Goal celebrations are getting weirder. Internet virals show an Arabian Nights celebration by Finland's Hango IK: bellydancing, headdresses and the goalscorer charming a fake snake out of a basket. Just the other side of good taste was Santiago Silva, of Velez Sarsfield, who celebrated by faking a heart-attack. Not great in a sport which has seen the real thing (Marc-Vivien Foe). It all makes Gazza's dentist's chair look a bit tame.

You don't need drugs to walk, Rani

Disappointing to hear that even competitive walking — the most genteel, humorous event in track and field — is blighted by athletes jacking up. Rani Yadav, the Indian who finished sixth in the 20km walk, tested positive this week. There's something extra-dispiriting when even competing for the gold medal in goose-step means flooding your blood with horse soup. We'd better admit: the days of amateurism and noble conduct in sport are lost and gone.

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