Recently, CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone criticized his network’s decision to show Elite XC bouts on the public airwaves. The internet exploded with fire and brimstone. How dare someone suggest that grown men pummeling each other for $3000 is “socially irresponsible?” What could possibly be wrong with rewarding a man for killing another’s priceless and irreplaceable brain cells?

Luke Thomas had plenty to say on the subject.

Let me just say that I hope someone takes the time to save these comments in a safe place so that in 5 years we can present them back to these folks in an attempt to fully embarrass them for their shortsightedness and apocalyptic ravings.

Certainly. But I’m not sure in five years Sumner Redstone will still be alive, let alone ready to reflect on his short- sighted dislike of cage fighting. In five years he will still be swimming in money and buying silk bow ties. Luke Thomas will still be Luke Thomas. Somehow I don’t think the tables will turn so dramatically that Sumner Redstone will be taken to task by the unwashed blogosphere.

Television executives fancy themselves as people possessive of omnicompetence: they know what’s good, bad, funny, smart, sellable, interesting, original, etc.

This is, um, not a very artful sentence. You know what Sumner Redstone is “possessive” of? A billion dollars! I guess he must have been able to sell someone something?

Yet these are the same folks who will trot out shows about the hidden talent of washed up actors in the same breath that they’ll proclaim their greatness. Color me underwhelmed.

O.K.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t think there was a little something to their apprehensiveness. The way in which MMA is marketed and packaged by the UFC and EliteXC is still based in the visceral quality of MMA fighting.

How would you market it? The appeal of MMA is guys fighting in a steel cage. Its visceral quality is its only quality. Any attempt to sell it as human chess is, well, selling something. It’s mentally incompetents punching each other in the face for our amusement. You can’t really spin it any other way. It’s a mere hop and a skip from a snuff film. It appeals to our basest and most repulsive impulses. You’re either cool with that, or you’re not.

Obviously that is a component that appeals to virtually every MMA fan, but the extent to which the UFC and EliteXC go turns me off as well.

It’s cage fighting. You know that going in. The advertising is at least honest. These are roided up and angry young men trying to make each other unconscious by any mean necessary.

If I’m a fan and I’m bombarded with over the top emphasis on savagery, I can only imagine how the aforementioned beta males must have their hearts palpitate at the sight of Kimbo Slice.

Sumner Redstone, captain of industry and man who has made billions of dollars is a “beta” male. Guy on internet watching other grown men fight is an “alpha” male. Got it.

I suppose that on some level, I sympathize with their hesitation and revulsion. I feel it a little, too.

Here’s the thing. If you are an MMA fan and never feel a little sickened with yourself, you are probably a sociopath. Neighbors bring the dogs in from the backyard when you come home from work. MMA is a revolting spectacle. We are paying other people to inflict and receive potentially permanent bodily harm. We do this so we can be amused for an hour or three. It’s, frankly, somewhat horrifying.

I can live with it. Others cannot. I don’t think their’s is an invalid opinion. It is perfectly reasonable for someone to be an opponent of MMA fighting. In fact, most people find it a little sickening in more than very small doses. There is little redeeming social value. We, as MMA fans, are the outliers. We are the ones that turn off part of our souls and watch other men beat each other to a pulp. It might be something to consider when you criticize an MMA opponent. They have the moral high ground. We do not.

Now you’ll have to excuse me. Some tiny Japanese guys are probably fighting on HDNet right now.