Cage Fighting In; Boxing Out

Cage fighting simply represents our current culture: fast action. Boxing, once dubbed as the sweet science, is all about strategy. There's a patience involved in the sport of boxing as you study, approach and then slowly pick apart your opponent. Cage fighting has a bit of strategy involved, but the action is more fast-paced and a majority of the fights end in someone being knocked out or tapping out. It's a microwave version of boxing. You don't have to wait on two guys dancing around waiting on an open shot, now you just have two guys throwing punches until one of them connects. The result: cage fighting in; boxing out.

Before I get too far into this, let me state that I do enjoy cage fighting. Boxing will always be my first love (although it will die with my generation), but cage fighting is much more accessible and it is entertaining.

The point I'm trying to make is how society dictates our entertainment. Cage fighting has been around for decades, but now has a following that surpasses boxing because of a young generation of fans who crave action. Since we're on the subject of sports, let's discuss how the scoring has gone up in the NFL and MLB. Why? Because rule changes were made within the last decade and a half to allow for more scoring. Scoring gets the attention of our attention-deficit society.

Movies have more fight scenes and explosions than ever now. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol ran commercials 20 times a day. I've seen so many commercials for M:I that I feel as if I've seen the movie already. In these commercials, they were showing basically every explosion and fight scene in the movie. Explosion and fight scenes gets the attention of our attention-deficit society.

I even had a recent discussion with someone about today's cartoons. There is no more classical music playing in the background and non-speaking roles a la "Tom & Jerry" or "Pink Panther." Today, every cartoon features noisy characters and bright colors. Have you watched SpongeBob? Every character yells and the colors on the show could probably trigger a seizure. Noisy characters and bright colors gets the attention of our attention-deficit kids.

So, the sports, movie and cartoon world is just a microcosm of our society. We want constant stimulation to keep our attention. That's why we can't walk any where without ear buds in our ears and why we keep our faces buried in our smart phones.

Patience? What's that? Why should I wait to be entertained? I want it now.





Thoughts and prayers go out to all teachers who try daily to figure out how to keep the attention of today's children. You have a thankless job and you are severely underpaid.



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