Fighting As Real As It Gets

Staack, Michael

doi:10.1007/978-3-476-04991-9

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Unsurprisingly, such a blatant and transgressive sport has been met with interest from sociologists employing the body as a conduit for knowing by entering MMA gyms, and cages, to develop deeper understandings around the meanings attached to MMA participation. Such research has returned important commentary on the role of the sport in the (re)imagining of cultural ideas around masculinity, morality and vulnerability (Abramson and Modzelewski, 2011; Channon and Jennings, 2013; Green, 2011, 2016; Spencer, 2012, 2013) along with entrenched gender roles (Alsarve and Tjønndal, 2020), anti-violence (Channon and Matthews, 2018; Staack, 2019) and the complex negotiation of medical safety and commercial reward (Channon et al, 2020a, 2020b). These findings may invoke surprise especially given the aforementioned way in which the sport is presented to paying audiences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fight the biopower! Mixed martial arts as resistance

Sugden

2021

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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Globally, mixed martial arts has seen a staggering level of growth in participation and fandom over the past 20 years. This paper presents the results from an immersive participant ethnography of an urban mixed martial arts gym in England’s North West and the experience of some of its members. Emergent is that the practices of mixed martial arts can be viewed as acts of resistance against neoliberal norms and expectations that permeate the diverse yet everyday lives of participants outside the gym’s walls. This paper applies the sociological imagination of and through the body and draws from the Foucauldian notion of biopower to discuss how, in the search for athletic solidarity, an authentic community is built and maintained around this transgressive pursuit. It is evident that a diverse range of individuals are making and remaking a space in which neoliberal norms, labels and expectations are rejected in favour of a renewed connection with the body and each other.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fight the biopower! Mixed martial arts as resistance

Sugden

2021

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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“…Doing conflict and doing violence require shared bodily know-how of action sequences. This pertains not only to actual fighting techniques but also to provocative finger pointing, choreographies of evasion and pretending to be able to throw a punch (see also Schindler, 2011 ; Staack, 2019 for bodily knowledge related to fighting). Moreover, interpersonal violence is bodily action.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Start a Fight: A Qualitative Video Analysis of the Trajectories Toward Violence Based on Phone-Camera Recorded Fights

2022

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We aim to contribute to recent situational approaches to the study of interpersonal violence by elaborating the concept of trajectories. Trajectories are communicative processes in which antagonists act upon each other’s bodily and verbal actions to project a direction for the interaction to take, which is then (con) tested in the exchanges that follow. We use the notion of trajectories to gain insight in how participants turn an antagonistic situation into a violent encounter, which we contrast to interactionist and micro-sociological understandings. Using ethnomethodological and conversation analytical tools, we detail the trajectories of three violent encounters, captured on phone camera recordings to answer the question how verbal and bodily exchanges project physical violence. Methodologically, our contribution shows how bodily actions can be studied in visual data. Our cases show how antagonists move the interaction toward violence by creating a metaconflict revolving around the conditions under which the interaction will become a physical confrontation; what we call the contested projection of violence. We conclude that the concept of trajectories offers a useful analytical tool to detail the shifts and turns of the interactive process—notably it’s bodily dimensions— that characterize antagonism and violence. Substantially, our analysis raises questions about conceptualizations of the emotional dynamics (notably the role of dominance) of violence, as proposed by earlier micro-sociological and interactionist work. We therefore suggest that future studies engage with these issues in more detail and in larger datasets.

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“…New strategies and techniques have developed based upon the rules and environment, that are unique. An example of this is the use of the cage in either helping in defence or offence in given situations; since the cage is unique to MMA, the tactics and techniques incorporating its use are also unique (Staack, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The puncher’s chance in professional mixed martial arts competition

Wild¹

2020

jhse

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Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and particularly the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), has rapidly evolved and grown significantly over the past 20 years. Sports performance research into MMA is limited, and as such, there are potential gains to be made by practitioners supported by scientific research. The outcomes of UFC bouts from 1997 to 2020 that ended with a knockout (n = 1815) were analysed as a function of each fighters significant strike percentage to quantify the "puncher's chance". Logistic regression was utilised to model the association between the outcome (win or loss), and the strike percentage. The limit of this model then provides the absolute minimum odds associated with the puncher's chance (as the percentage approaches zero). Results gave a value of approximately 1:2000 for a fighter that is being completely outclassed. Features in the data highlighted what are dubbed "practical" values of the puncher's chance. For a mildly outclassed fighter, landing 35% to 45% of total strikes, the odds were 1:40.

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Fighting As Real As It Gets

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Fight the biopower! Mixed martial arts as resistance

Fight the biopower! Mixed martial arts as resistance

How to Start a Fight: A Qualitative Video Analysis of the Trajectories Toward Violence Based on Phone-Camera Recorded Fights

The puncher’s chance in professional mixed martial arts competition

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