`Fighting is the Most Real and Honest Thing'

ISSN： 1464-3529

Source： British Journal of Criminology, Vol.53, Iss.3, 2013-05, pp. : 357-377

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Abstract

Over the past two decades, the activity of `cage-fighting' has attracted massive audiences and significant attention from media and political outlets. Underlying the spectacle of these mass-consumed events is a growing world of underground sport fighting. By offering more brutal and less regulated forms of violence, this hidden variant of fighting lies at the blurry and shifting intersection between licit and illicit forms of recreation. This paper offers a theoretical and ethnographic exploration of the motivations and emotive frameworks of these unsanctioned fighters. We find that buried within the long-term process towards greater civility rest the seeds for social unrest, individual rebellion and ontological upheaval. By revealing the dialectical relationship between contemporary mechanisms of control and these uncivil performances, we argue these transgressions are a visceral reaction to today's highly rationalized modes of state and social governance. More broadly, we attempt to understand the interrelationship between contemporary controls and sport fighting as a microcosm of the long-running struggle between civility and barbarism.