Issue #09/64, May 6 - 20, 1999  

by Matt Taibbi

As is not uncommon in the fighting sports, the best part of last week's Fights Without Rules came during the press conference. I was there, ignoring the panel-speakers up front and standing instead in a crowd near the door, in between what apparently are two very big deals in the ultimate fighting world--the tan-and-Armani-sporting Asian-American "film star" Don "The Dragon" Wilson, and his lesser-known but much scarier-looking American counterpart, ultimate heavyweight contender Patrick Smith. Smith had originally called me over to ask for some advice on where in Moscow to take the U.S. fighting contingent to eat, but in the two seconds it took for me to wedge my way in front of "the Dragon" to answer, he'd forgotten about me. So I was left standing there like a freshman waiting for his books to be dumped while the two martial artists talked shop. Smith, a seriously menacing-looking inner-city black dude with gigantic knuckles and an impatient physical attitude ("I love this kind of fighting," he told me, eyes darting around the room for his opponent), was explaining to the "Dragon" how he managed to come from behind and score a split decision in his last fight-- a bloody scrap with a 290-pound fighter who'd spent the first eight minutes of the fight, he said, sitting on Smith's head.

"But then I got out and just beat the shit out of him," Smith said, nodding behind his wraparound shades. Then he quickly balled his fist tight and started to draw it back... "I just wound up like this, and..."

"Aaah!" someone suddenly cried, interrupting Smith's story. "Oy, blyad! Blyadddd!"

I looked back. It was an ugly sight. Apparently, when Smith reared back to demonstrate his death-blow, he'd knocked some old sovok sportswriter halfway to the floor. Smith wheeled around and apologized in English quickly before turning back to the "Dragon". The sovok picked himself up, gave Smith a sad look, and then filed out of the room with his chin buried in his chest. I hadn't actually come to Moscow's latest Fights Without Rules competition to see Smith or any of the other big contenders. The fighters who interested me were new--and small. You see, the fights last week included a first in international ultimate fighting history: a kids' competition. That's right: Fights Without Rules, for Kids.

When you live in Moscow long enough, you learn to feel a rush of pride each and every time the city reaches a new low. Some of my proudest immigrant moments, in fact, have come by way of news that some new societal depth has been succesfully plumbed. There was the MiG scandal a few years ago, for instance, when something like $700 million dollars disappeared from the Central Bank and arrived in a private New York account by way of a paper trail leading through a rusty telephone transformer box on the outskirts of town. There was that serial killer here earlier this year, who didn't make the papers until he'd killed ten people in the center of town--that was an impressive feat of press indifference, I thought. The convincing Duma election victory of pyramid schemer Sergei Mavrodi by voters who themselves had been defruaded into bankruptcy is another choice memory... In short, it takes a pretty serious departure from the expected norms of human conduct to make a Moscow news event stand out as truly grotesque. When it happens, it's hard not to notice, and even, from a spectator's point of view, appreciate it.

Ultimate fighting for kids seemed like a threat to push the edge of that envelope. Live children's bloodsport, after all, would be a hard entertainment concept to improve upon. It's difficult to imagine where anyone could really go from there... Three-legged pedophile races? Live pay-per-view euthanasia? Embezzlement on ice? Unless you want to go all the way to outright gladiatorial fights to the death, the options are pretty slim.

Last week's affair didn't totally disappoint. On the less grotesque side, the kids wore protective headgear, and the fights were limited to two 180-second rounds, unlike the bloody thirty-minute marathons the adults fight. They also all wore gloves and foot-guards, unlike the men. But those were pretty much the only restrictions. Otherwise, the kids' program was exactly as advertised: nine-to-thirteeen year-old boys beating the living shit out of each other. The ground rules were the same ones that are considered too violent even for adults in a dozen or so U.S. states.

The kids were trying the classic ultimate-fighting arm-breaking moves (although no bones were broken), kneeing each other in the head, head-butting, choking, you name it... In two of the early fights, both in the 33-kilogram (70-pound) weight class, the coaches had to revive their fighters with smelling salts in between rounds. Severity-wise, it was a good six or seven levels beyond a junior high wrestling meet, and spiritually was probably much closer to outright child abuse than pee-wee American football, which is the roughest kids' sport in the States.

At one point in the tournament, which was held in the morning before the adult competition and attended by less than a hundred people, I got down from my seat and walked up next to the ring to hang with the other reporters. Up close, you could hear the kids whining in pain throughout the fights. One 12 year-old from St. Petersburg, who'd shaved his head in imitation of his flathead Ju-Jitsu master coach, actually cried toward the end of the second round when his Azeri opponent flipped him over and squatted knees-first on his head for what I counted to be at least twenty seconds. Another kid, a Lithuanian, was so rubbery-legged after his bout that he had to be supported by the referee while he waited for the decision--and he turned out to be the winner of that fight.

I left the kids' program early, and bailed after about a half-hour of the adult show later that night. There was some blood and some heavy-duty pounding in some of the mens' fights, but on the whole, there was no doubt which of the two shows was more violent. It wasn't just that the kids grappled far less and punched and kicked a lot more... It was just a lot more disturbing. After all, when ultimate fighting first came into being a few years ago, the whole of its appeal was the thrill of being witness to society having taken the next evolutionary step downwards, moving away from sports like boxing and toward pure, unregulated violence as entertainment. Ultimate fighting for kids is clearly the next step in that evolutionary story, and you get the feeling, watching these early fights, that it's only a matter of time before we hit the next step. That will probably mean taking the kids' headgear off, maybe taking the gloves away, lengthening the time limits, etc.

And do you know what? If it happens anywhere, it'll happen here. As a patriot-in-exile, I'd be disappointed if it didn't. Being the second or third-most perverse doesn't count for much. But being the absolute scourge of the world, that's a whole 'nuther story... I mean, shit, they're not my kids. So go Moscow! We're number one! We're number one!