From F4W/ Observer -
Read an interesting article by Chi Kong Lui about whether fighters should apologize for boring fights. His basic argument is that it's kind of strange for fans to expect entertainment from their fighting since fighting is, in reality, a competition, and therefore fighting to win or not lose should not necessarily be frowned upon.
"If you consider MMA to be an athletic competition," he wrote, "then you have to accept that coaches, trainers, and fighters do not strategize and plan on how to 'beat the crap out of someone' or 'take his head off.' They strategize on how to achieve victory and, unfortunately, those goals don't always include knocking someone out or even finishing the fight. This may be in direct contrast to what spectators want to see in terms of violence and excitement, but the reality is that victory can often be boring.
He noted that in Japan (PRIDE in particular), it was more important to put on a good show than to win or lose. "Hence the continued presence of freakish sumo-sized combatants and fighters with embarrassingly poor losing records in all the top promotions in Japan.
But isn't the importance and legitimacy of victory what separates a true sport from pro-wrestling? If the UFC prioritized entertainment over wins, doesn't that make it no different than the WWE?" Of course, the simplistic answer that some people will give is that no, they're totally different because one is real and one is fake.
But in Japan, the answer to that question was yes, there was no difference. Some people are appalled that Kazushi Sakuraba is in the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame due to what he achieved in PRIDE. These people are all Americans. In Japan, the reason he was voted into the Observer Hall of Fame as a wrestler was because in Japan PRIDE was just another form of pro-wrestling. Sakuraba and others may have fought for real, but they were still considered professional wrestlers, and their fights were covered the same way pro wrestling matches were covered.
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