Jetée

To keep this short, I will only describe how I, among likeminded others, discern the differences between what some consider to be "sport", and what others call "acquired skill (competitions)".

Sports, as I see it, is a "game" in which there is a contest among players that should provide both a winner and a loser. Also to be mentioned, the clash between contestants must be tangible in some form or another, thereby adding a verifiable element of defense/resistance to the feats of athletics. This way, there can be debate as to whether or not the one one prevailed won because of meirts, skill, tactics and/or luck, because "sports" combines all those factors in the determination of a true winner, not just one.

So, by my technical definition above, I'll elaborate simply and say that the mixed martial arts arena is indeed a sport. It matters not what why some may see the rules' allowance and tactics of the sport as "cowardly or cheap", or that it has no history (it actually, indeed, has a richer history before the UFC, but because of how it arose, most of the details are eschewed due to its "subdued nature" in comparison to the original no holds-barred test of the ultimate warrior). MMA was a ground-zero sport less than two decades ago, and it is a rapidly-rising "child" sport in the world media awareness. Some need to accept the facts: sports are sports no matter how much you disagree/despise the tactics employed to win within the scope of the game.

Also, I wanted to add that I don't consider these activites to be sports either, (although I do acknowledge the incredible degree of skill the participant/athlete needs to become a top professional in their field):

Golf is not a sport. It is a competition against nature and taxation to be the one person with the lowest score at the end of regulation. Yes, you do have competitor's in the mix, but they do not "actively" affect your game, nor do they pose any sort of hindrance to your shots/puts, so the "sport" of golf is more akin to a single gathering of competitors participating in an "acquired skills activity".

NASCAR/Indy/F1/Rally/Motor-racing is not a sport either. It is teetering on my definition above, but it is more to do with employed strategies of the machine in which you are occupying, and having to fend off of the possibility that you can collide disastrously with your fellow competitors. There is no "active" form of defense allowed in the racing, save for hogging the road to keep a rival from passing you, or just maintaining your lead long enough to pull off a good showing. Another "acquired skill" competition.

Card games are not sports. Billiards and bowling are not sports. Competitions with destroying balls, not so much your opponent. Swimming competitions are not sports. Neither is gymnastics. The last two are more "athletic showcasing", but there is "colliding competitiveness" to them, other than beating a certain score/time that you have knowledge to reach. Fishing is a great activity, but again, your only competition is nature.


Basketball, baseball, cricket, football, futbol (soccer), tennis, ping-pong, field hockey, real hockey, boxing, MMA, are all sports because they force competition between men, hand-to-hand, face-to-face, and whoever doesn't show up, loses. This is what I what I typify as being able to be called a true sport; the ability to face mutable adversary, adjust to it, and learn to overcome it over the course of the game. I guess it's more the presence of a "real human defense factor", but it sounds much better the way it is expressed above. Jai-Alai is a sport to a lesser extent, a "fringe" sport you can say, but there is a discernable level of defense one can mount to be a world-class ball-crusher in that field.

post-script: goldarnit, slippy sam. my post above is anything but "short". sorry for the superfluous info and examples guys.

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As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi