Watching Grown men Fight - Something my wife and I can agree on

I started watching MMA Fights about 2 years ago. I assumed that my wife wouldn't like it since it involves Boxing, Wrestling and JuJitsu. This is a woman who when she watches football with me and a team fumbles or gets intercepted says that they should give it back since the other team made a mistake and should be given another chance. Side note, this doesn't apply to my son's games. She is ruthless then, I pretend I don't know her and the other mothers, but that is a topic for an upcoming Blog post. She is the one who tells our kids, incorrectly, to walk away if someone hits them.

My stance has always been if someone puts their hands on you, protect yourself and fight dirty. I'll handle any trouble you get in at school. Her stance their is also a case of do as I say not as do since when she was in school she had a fight with a bully and got in trouble but the bully never bothered her again. I went off-topic again, but it did have to do with fighting so I'll leave it in.

Back to the topic. As you can see from the description above I was justified in believing that she wouldn't like MMA. I was wrong. She was watching over my shoulder on a fight night and started commentating on the fight. Soon she was sitting next to me watching intently.

I quickly started explaining the rules and other background material to her and now she is hooked. We often head over to to watch UFC events. It's become a date night for us. This got me thinking about other women I've know including my mom. As I thought about it, I remember my mom not caring for sports except for boxing events on TV. Then I thought about other women I've know through the years who were generally anti-violence and almost all of them liked watching boxing.

I'm wondering what it is about watching grown men fight that makes men and women put aside their general anti-violence nature and enjoy it. For my wife, it's definatly the violence and not the technique.

MMA includes Wrestling and sometimes you can have fights where the majority of it is one guy trying to take down the other guy and do what's called "lay and pray." That's where the guy on top is only trying to hold top position without doing much damage to his opponent. She doesn't like that at all; however, if the guy on top starts landing elbows or trying to submit the other guy she is back into it. I've noticed similar reactions at Wild Wings. This is puzzling to me. I'm sure there is some study out their that explains this but I haven't seen it. Let me know if you have similar experience and what you think explains our lust for violence.