My people once were gladiators.

Seriously.

I’m not talking about two thousand years back. I’m talking about 1990. I’m talking about professional wrestlers. They were my friends, they were my comrades, and they were my heroes.

“Gladiator” is a technical term. In mixed martial arts they like to throw the word “warrior” around a lot. Warriors fight wars. Gladiators fight to entertain the masses. Period. Gladiatorial sports were never about competition. They were competitive; life-or-death competitive; arms-raised-in-victory or meat-hooks-thru-your-dead-ass-dragging-you-out competitive; but their popularity, their purpose, were never based on wins or losses. They were based on the juice. It’s all about the juice, baby. The juice is the emotional investment in the battle. In other competitive sports wins and losses are almost literally life and death. The gladiatorial arts have always been about the show, about the blood, about a high and beautiful adrenaline wave.

Over time we became more evolved, or at least developed a precept of evolution. We decided no one would die for the entertainment of the plebs or the ruling class. The desire to watch the Games, however, did not dissipate. We still sought it out. There was still a market for it. Boxing failed us, or rather the business of boxing failed us. Professional wrestlers, at least for a time, were the last gladiators. No more. What you watch on WWE programs, I do not consider that professional wrestling, let alone a gladiatorial sport. The entire product, from inception to presentation, has completely changed. The WWE now manufactures reality television, no different from American Idol or Survivor.

I started to look to mixed martial arts (to clarify, mixed martial arts is the sport. “Ultimate Fighting” or The Ultimate Fighting Championship is the name of a company that promotes mixed martial arts bouts). I found a new fix there, originally. In that struggle to transition from an underground bruiser fest to a legitimate, nationally accepted pastime I found the new gladiatorial arena. There’s purity in that struggle, at least for the fighters themselves. Because when there’s no money, when there are no million-dollar endorsement deals or worldwide fame to be had, you fight for other reasons, reasons that, at least for a certain cross-section, inspire and captivate when put center stage in a cage.

That purity is now thoroughly slathered in shit.

I put forth that 2009 was the worst year for mixed martial arts since it hit the mainstream. It was the year “The Iceman” Chuck Liddell danced with the stars. It was the year the DREAM promotion, lame duck successor to Japan’s PRIDE (the once great company that the UFC bought/bankrupt and then strip-mined, basically ass-raping every pure MMA fan in the world), put on a tournament featuring every fight game freakshow in the books, including Jose Canseco (yes, *that* Jose Canseco). It was the year that gave us the tenth season of The Ultimate Fighter—the show that can legitimately lay claim to once launching the UFC and MMA into the mainstream with a true gladiatorial battle between first season combatants Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar on live television. As a heavyweight I was fucking ashamed and embarrassed by every second of every episode of season ten. It was like a season full of latter-day Tim Sylvias. Speaking of which, this was the year a washed-up, middle-aged Ray Mercer knocked out former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in a boxer vs. mixed martial artist smack down, validating every bad thing I ever said about Sylvia carrying that division.

But most importantly, at least for me, it was a full year with Brock Lesnar as UFC heavyweight champion.

Brock Lesnar is the science experiment Josef Mengele used to whack his shriveled Nazi carrot to thoughts of. He was everything I hated about pro-wrestling, and he is now everything I hate about MMA. Lesnar is a horrible human being; not a great villain, just a horrible human being. He is an insecure, over-inflated, socially retarded albino ape. Asking him to display the basest sportsmanship is like asking an autistic child to write an essay explaining the emotional subtext of Love Story. He’s an attraction. He always has been. Nobody booked him because he knew anything about pro-wrestling, let alone mixed martial arts. Nobody booked him because he understood the subtle or even the obvious psychology of gladiatorial combat. They booked him because he’s a living comic book caricature.

And now he’s the cemented figurehead of the largest mixed martial arts promotion in the world. He is their chosen direction. And the business model of the UFC *is* the mainstream MMA business model. Their Vince McMahon-esque campaign of monopolization has seen to that. The only other company running significant game in America in 2009 was Affliction—an MMA promotion run by a clothing company for douchebags (seriously, studies conducted by me have shown that if you walk around in an Affliction t-shirt there’s an 89.4% chance you’re a douchebag). Affliction had the talent roster and exposure, but between show cancellations and erratic booking they’re looking like a mini-Titanic. Easy prey.

Someone will come along and knock Brock Lesnar down. That’s the game. But I fear the damage has been done. The precedent has been set. I liken it to the transition between the Bret Hart era to the “Stone Cold” Steve Austin era in professional wrestling. It was a year, not just without a hero, but a year where the hero became obsolete. No more Randy Couture as a symbol of all that is good and right about MMA, no more Frank Mir on the comeback trail. Just a genetic freak talking trash and giving us the finger.

When there are no more heroes, there are no more gladiators.

Why does it matter? Gladiators are, and have always been, an important measure of a society. They’re the ultimate expression of our collective base desires, our darker angels. Do we choose to elevate men and women of steel who cling to arcane concepts like honor and nobility, or do we just want to get smashed out of our fat fucking consumerist skulls and give market shares to an unskilled Aryan gorilla and his corporate puppet masters?

It may be a new year, but it looks like one more historical rewind to me. Maybe I’m alone, but I still want my heroes.

Hey, can we teach Obama jiu-jitsu?