KO = No Gold Medal

Vaxx Zombie Chuck

KO = No gold medal

God forbid you actually have a fighting skill, you get penalized.  What the hell are they judging then?

…

I viewed this tragedy of a fight, in which the KO loses for the inflictor of it, the victor helpless. I have viewed, and even judged one of these bouts. The Gi uniform and the “hands” that the players use make some of the contact more realistic than boxing. But all of modern popular sports is, so far as possible, an expression of a profound desire to deny reality. In addition, Japanese combat sports are always purposefully artificial in an extreme way, in order to render them into concentrated artistic expression.

I saw a bout like this in 1994 with Sensei Steve that had a similar outcome. The taboo on hurting of an opponent goes, not to Japanese culture, but to the non-contact ethos of Asian-based combat arts as marketed to Americans. This is called kumite [fighting] in Japanese, but in American sports venues where karate bloomed into world popularity, the wink-nod-lie was that it was “sparring” [practice] in order to keep the boxing commission and athletic commission out of the process, which cuts into profits.

It is about not having to pay the sanctioning money up front, and then the marketing to students. The type of person who is willing to pay $150 a month for karate lessons cannot be exposed to the KO of a high level or low level karate practitioner, for this pierces the sacred lie of skill-based invulnerability with the rude arrow of reality.

This is not just a karate thing. Boxing has been destroyed by the limited contact rich-boy ethos of the Modern Sham Olympics. In Olympic style boxing power punches and knockdowns are not awarded points, only the number of front glove contact to approved targets, as if damaging the opponent is not the goal. Of course it is not the goal. The ethos of the modern Olympics was that it would make competition safe for the rich. In a masculine sense, the purpose of the modern Olympics is the opposite of the ancient agons, to limit person-to-person contact as much as possible to make of everything a game of skill.

Note that the fighters are called “players” and that the Olympics are called “games.” The ancient Olympics were not called games, but agons, or “sufferings” between prize-seekers. The ancients did not permit killing an opponent, but incapacitation was the goal of all combats.

The ancient and modern Olympics were both exclusively for the elites and their treasured athletic pets. But the ancient elites were expected to fight in wars and take heroic physical risks, while their modern counterparts hold up risk management and thought over action as core social values.

On the bright side, the Saudi Bantu has a possibly bright future as an executioner!