Is it wrong to enjoy watching someone in pain? After careful consideration of this thought-provoking question, I would have to answer with an emphatic no.
After all, I spend hour after hour (usually on weekends) taking delight in looking at others suffering. And before you think I’m some sicko and call the cops, consider this: lots of people I know do the same thing. Chances are that you do, too, or have at some point in your life. I’m talking of course about spectator sports, such as hockey and boxing and football and (occasionally) curling.
As a society, we spend way too much time whining about violence around us. "Blah, blah, blah, Power Rangers, blah, blah, blah, OJ, blah, blah, blah, six o’clock news, blah, blah, blah.." is a phrase I hear in the community these days with alarming frequency. Yet we are the same people who see nothing wrong settling down in front of the TV to watch some guy get his brains (or what’s left of them) beaten out during a Leafs game.
I am especially guilty of this. I love the hockey fights and epic boxing contests more than the thrill of competition and the sportsmanship. If blood hasn’t been spilled, I reason, then the athletes just haven’t been at the top of their game.
Then there are what I like to call the fringe sports, in which the only connections they have to bonafide sports is that they sell tickets to them and someone usually attempts to do "the wave" at one point. The best example of a fringe sport is Aussie rules football.
Surely you’ve seen commercials for this "sport" on TV. Here’s a typical example, complete with announcer’s voice and visuals (in brackets): "This Sunday! (guy headbutts another guy) At Exhibition Place! (guy kicks another guy in groin) Aussie rules football! (guy does a header into goalpost)Three hours of exciting action! (guy cuts up another guy with chainsaw)Get your tickets now! (fan hits some guy with lead pipe)."
Other examples of fringe sports would include but are not limited to: Demolition Derbies, Monster Truck Rallies, Riots at European soccer games and those barbaric fighting events they always show on pay-per-view television with names like The Ultimate Fighting Championship, ShootWrestling and KillFest ’95. For the unitiated, the latter pits two brainless muscleheads against each other, fighting like rabid pitbulls until one of them is permanently disfigured.
This brings me to my final - and certainly my favourite - fringe sport: professional wrestling. Fans of this column will know that I am a card-carrying Hulkamaniac who lives only to see my idol King Kong Bundy squash some 197-pounder to his untimely end.
Wrestling is fake? Says you. My final thesis in university (provided I ever go to university) will prove that pro wrestling is, in fact, real.
"Sure, they land on a piece of soft blue canvas," my thesis would state. "But the catcalls they hear from the fans, the inner torment associated with the sport, the emotional scars - that’s the pain pro wrestlers truly feel."
Now that we know what fringe sports are, we can effectively deal with the age-old question "Is there too much violence in sports, or is it that there’s not enough sport in violence?".
Think about it. What seperates everyday random acts of violence from the stuff we watch in the arenas and on television? Is there any reason not to sign a game between the Dallas Cowboys, for instance, and a group of disgruntled postal workers? Or better yet, why not make Serial Killing a demonstration sport at the next Summer Olympics? I can see it now:
Commentator One:....and Manson has walked away with the gold once again! We really thought that ’96 would be Dahmer’s year, but I guess wasn’t meant to be. Bob?
Commentator Two: Thanks, Mike. Well, you can see here in the replay Manson was way ahead with his strangles-to-deaths ratio, but he’s certainly losing a step. The guy just isn’t in peak conditioning anymore.
Commentator One: If you think that guy isn’t in peak conditioning, Bob, just think about his victim! (laughs)
Commentator Two: You’re absoloutely right! Ouch, that had to hurt!(laughs) Well, we’ll be back after this commercial break, when we’ll show you the Stalk and Field, the Carcass Throw, and my personal favourite, the 200-metre Bash!
