I discovered something that disturbs me in ESPN the Magazine this week. MMA (Mixed Martial Arts for those of you like me who need it defined) has established youth leagues/tournaments. Children as young as 6 are participating in these events and while they are structured to eliminate some of the more severe aspects of the sport it is still seemingly brutal to me. There are participants who are homeschooled in order to have more training time (reminds me of another sport I know...) and weekends are spent traveling and competing (sound familiar fellow skate moms?)
The homeschooling and training isn't what bothered me. I think it is the battle to the death mentality of this sport, like a modern gladiator fight without the actual death, that really bothers me. The few things I have seen indicate that MMA is just all out street fighting. Someone is of course going to call me on that, and to be fair I don't know anything about MMA. It just seems like in an era when we know more than ever the dangers of head injuries and the long term prognosis for people with repeated head injuries that this is recklessly abusive to those children.
This is of course just my opinion. As I write this I feel like I should be more understanding, you know one insane sports mom to another...
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