Residents of Washington, DC witnessed the construction of a massive, jarring, four-legged arch on the South Lawn of the White House earlier this month. Known as “The Claw,” the structure provided lighting for an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event (“UFC Freedom 250”) hosted by the White House on June 14 as part of the celebrations commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States. The UFC is the world’s largest promoter of mixed martial arts (MMA), a combat sport in which fighters draw on a variety of martial arts techniques to defeat their opponents. Seven UFC fights in all were held on the White House grounds in the “Octagon” (the eight-sided chain-link fence used in UFC bouts) constructed underneath The Claw.
A plurality of Americans disapproved of this spectacle, viewing it as inappropriate for the occasion of the nation’s anniversary. In a June 11 Reuters/Ipsos poll, 46 percent of Americans expressed disapproval of the event, while only 16 percent approved. Some might have objected to the garish structure constructed on the hallowed grounds of the White House, but I suspect most opposed the event because they viewed the violent spectacle as shockingly out of place at a celebration of our nation and its republican values.
How might Catholics think about this spectacle? A good place to start is to examine the morality of combat sports, and violent sports more generally. In a recent episode of the Quodlibet podcast sponsored by the Sacra Doctrina Project (I interviewed Taylor Patrick O’Neill about the Sacra Doctrina Project, among other things, here), the hosts engaged in an excellent discussion of violence in sports from a Thomistic perspective, including not just combat sports like MMA and boxing, but also other sports where violence plays a part like American football and hockey. I’ll summarize their points first, then offer some arguments of my own.
In general, Christians have an obligation to avoid inflicting physical harm or injury, although there may be situations in which harm can be inflicted for the sake of some other good—for example, when a physician performs a surgery—or when it is incidental to some other good. Physical harm and injury are a risk in many sports, especially combat sports and contact sports like football, hockey, and lacrosse. Therefore, Christians ought to seriously consider the moral question of physical harm and violence in sports.
The central argument made by the Quodlibet hosts is that one needs to identify the purpose or goal of a sport and determine whether the infliction of harm is the goal of the sport or if it is incidental to that goal. In general, the goods of sport include things like the demonstration of physical prowess and strategic acuity, self-discipline, fortitude, and a sense of fair play. Team sports add the goods of teamwork, humility, and solidarity. The rules of each individual sport define the goals for that sport that define how players embody these goods. The key question, then, is whether violence is the goal of a particular sport, therefore corrupting the goods embodied in that sport, or whether violence is incidental to the true goals of the sport.
In American football, for example, defensive players attempt to tackle the offensive player in possession of the ball, while offensive players use their bodies to try and block the defensive players. Both sides use violent force, but the goal is not to cause harm to the opposing players, but rather to advance the ball down the field or to prevent that advance. Indeed, the rules of football prohibit certain types of hits that are more likely to cause an injury, like helmet-to-helmet hits or tackling a player not in possession of the ball. The helmets, padding, and other gear worn by football players are also designed to prevent injuries. To be sure, these rules and precautions do not preclude the possibility that an individual player might deliberately set out to injure players on the opposing team, but such poor sportsmanship is not intrinsic to the sport. Illustrating the seriousness of this norm, in 2012, the NFL team the New Orleans Saints were severely penalized for the unsaintly behavior of paying players to intentionally injure their opponents (although the sanction was as much about the under the books payments to players as it was about the intentional injuries).
A similar argument could be made that causing harm is incidental to hockey. In hockey, however, and unlike football, it is relatively common for players to interrupt the action and engage in fights with one another. This is certainly poor sportsmanship, but as the Quodlibet hosts point out, there is a certain etiquette to these fights intended to minimize injury (such as removing equipment that might cause injury), and players who violate that etiquette are penalized more heavily.
Combat sports like boxing and MMA are quite different from football and hockey. In boxing, the fighters punch one another in the head and torso, and in MMA, the fighters punch, kick, throw, and choke one another. Even here, though, a fine distinction can be made. Boxers score points based on the number of clean hits they make on their opponent, regardless of the impact on or harm caused to the opponent. Boxers are also scored based on “ring generalship,” or tactically controlling the momentum in the ring. Boxers are also limited by the rules of the sport (the "Marquess of Queensbury rules”) that prohibit punches to the groin, the back of the head, the neck, or the spine. One could at least make the case that the goal of boxing is to land punches with finesse and dexterity rather than to intentionally harm one’s opponent.
In UFC fighting, on the other hand, fighters are scored based on the impact of their punches and kicks, making it clear that inflicting harm on the opponent is the goal of the sport. There are also fewer restrictions on UFC fighters: they can choke each other, for example, and one fighter can continue punching and kicking after the other has fallen to the ground (whereas a fallen boxer has to the count of ten to get up unmolested before being disqualified). The use of chain-link fence instead of ropes to mark off the arena for fighting likewise highlights the centrality of physical harm to the purpose of UFC fighting.
Americans’ opposition to the UFC event at the White House, then, might have been partly based on the intuition that MMA crosses a moral boundary.
