Yes, mixed martial arts is a sport where people kick each other in the face to provide others with a vicarious thrill. Here's what I think about the brutality of the sport. First, an anecdote. In the travel series Pole to Pole, Michael Palin and his crew spend the night at a fur trapper's hut in the high arctic. Michael asks the trapper how he responds to the many people who think that his occupation is barbaric and cruel. I recall the answer as "Yes, this is ok if they are a kind of vegetarian. But if they buy the meat in the store, I think it comes from animals."

Arguing that our choices are vegetarianism or fur trapping is a false dichotomy, but there's a kernel of truth in there that many meat eaters would do well to face: No matter how humanely we do it, we slaughter animals and eat of their flesh.

I have been a week-end athlete my entire adult life. Cutting hard to get the disc in Ultimate Frisbee or racing a bicycle in colourful lycra clothing may seem like completely different worlds from choking someone into submission, but the uncomfortable truth is that most head-to-head sports involve an element of inflicting pain and suffering on your opponent until they crack. In a bicycle time trial, you race against the clock. In a road race, you race against your opponents. You attack, forcing them to respond. You feel pain. Your lungs are on fire. Your legs fill with lactic acid. Your opponent feels the same pain, the same suffering, the same overwhelming urge to stop pedaling. It may appear to the observer that this is a test of fitness. But in part, it is a test of will. One of you will surrender to the pain, give up, and retreat to the safety of the peloton, the other will triumph.

Ultimate frisbee, Soccer, even Tennis, have these moments, moments when one player inflicts pain on their opponent. Perhaps you cannot execute a flying knee playing frisbee. But you can run and cut and run again, and cut again, and be relentless and drive your opponent to surrender and to let you get that small bit of separation that allows you to catch the disc.

Like trapping vs. vegetarianism, it's not entirely fair to establish a false dichotomy, to say that sports involve blood and injuries, and possibly death while everything else is a genteel game without pain or suffering. But to me, it's important to recognize that inherent in most physical contests is the notion of suffering and triumph over suffering. That is why we celebrate our hockey heroes and our marathon runners.

I think most people know this, and I further think that what's really in play here are class distinctions. Triumph over pain and suffering at Wimbledon while the spectators eat strawberries and cream is a very different social thing than triumph over suffering in the Octagon while the spectators drink beer. I can't comment on that, if you don't want to be associated with the kind of people who enjoy mixed martial arts, that's entirely your personal affair.

But for me, I will be watching this Saturday night, and I expect to enjoy myself, go to sleep with an untroubled conscience, and then get up early on Sunday morning to race my mountain bike.