Quality, wholesome entertainment

Dear readers (all 6 of ya), forgive me. I have a confession to make.

Now I watch a lot of TV. I'll watch rotten made-for Sci-Fi Channel movies, slasher films and other mindless blood and gore fests. I'll occasionally venture into cartoons and silly stuff (SiTV has a great show called Circumsized Cinema - no, it's NOT what you think).

But I also watch educational stuff. I love the History Channels, the Travel Channel, TLC and Discovery. I've gotten hooked on Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, and Bizarre Foods.

I don't watch sitcoms nor do I watch chic flicks. I don't watch sports, either. Never been a sports fan. But, gods help me, that's changed.

I'm now addicted to boxing and UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). And it's all the spouse's fault.

I never had one iota of interest in watching two men beat each other up, no matter what shape the ring. But a few years ago the spouse and I caught a UFC show by accident and we were hooked. We couldn't leave the television. We had to sit there and watch dozens of guys get bloody, broken and sometimes unconscious. And we loved it.

Then there was boxing. Been married 5 years to this man and just discovered in the past year that he likes boxing. I tried not to watch, really. I'd sit there on the couch with him, book in hand, trying desperately to concentrate on what I was reading and not look at the tv screen.

Nope. Not happening. Big case of fail.

So now on Friday nights it's Boxing on ESPN for us. Then on the occasional Saturday night there's Boxing After Dark on HBO.

I don't really keep up with the boxers themselves (altho I found the whole Oscar de la Hoya in drag pretty damn funny). The Spouse has to remind me who's who and whether we've seen them fight before.

But back to the UFC. This is almost as redneck as professional wrestling and NASCAR. Now, granted, this isn't a bunch of huge, overweight guys in wacky costumes with crazy personas who shout cliche' catchphrases that'll end up airbrushed on millions of t-shirts, then spend several minutes bouncing around on a trampoline with the occasional toss of a chair. Nor is this a bunch of men from 4 or 5 families, driving around and around in a circle a few hundred times at 120 miles an hour with the occasional crash and car fire.

Instead you have 3 rounds of 5 minutes each of two very ripped men beating the living shit out of each other. It's a combination of wrestling (the Olympic kind, not the funny tights and costume kind) and mixed Martials Arts (Ju Jitsu, Judo, Karate, kickboxing, etc.). It's brutal. It's violent. It's disturbing.

And we love it.

We were watching UFC Fight Night last night and saw one match end in 8 seconds. No shit. Guy A landed one good punch to Guy B and that's all she wrote. But other matches went the full time with both guys looking like a side of freshly slaughtered beef at the end.

You see deep facial lacerations and swollen eyes. There's blood speckling the mat and the guys' shorts. Once in a while you might see a broken limb. One time a guy got hit so hard he went into an immediate seizure.

I told you, this shit is brutal.

And I'm watching it. Willingly. What the hell is wrong with me?

I think seeing Fight Club probably didn't help. The first time I watched the movie I didn't like it. It was too much of a 'guy film.' Needless to say, the Spouse loves it.

But on my second viewing I developed an appreciation for the movie. It's not just a film about a guy who starts a club where men fight each other. This guy is totally batshit crazy. And I love the dialogue. So I bought the book (haven't read it yet, but it's on my 'to read' list).

But does reading the book Fight Club justify my enthusiastic watching of boxing and UFC? Please say it does. That way I don't feel like such a redneck piece of whitetrash.