There certainly are sports that ban head strikes. Certain forms of karate, for instance. Fight fans _like_ seeing heads get punched, and they like seeing knock outs. There's not currently a very big market that wants to see fighting without head strikes.
I think that's a huge symptom of my point. You can strip out tackles from football and make MMA way safer, but the large MMA competitions are popular because they're closer to two people doing whatever they can to win a fight than something more restrictive, like karate or wrestling. As you mention, the fans will be pissed at safening the sport, and I'd almost bet money that the vast majority of the fighters would be pissed as well -- just like I've seen plenty of coworkers and workers in other industries get angry at OSHA regulations, even the ones that are as ridiculously straightforward as labeling the bottle of formaldehyde so someone doesn't spritz it around a clinic.
The most common preference is somewhere between a Captain America movie and a John Wick movie, I think.
Folks who can't stand to see real violence wish it just didn't happen, the way I wish street fights didn't happen. But you're not gonna get anywhere offering what an MMA fan understand as an inferior product. And the MMA fans know there's karate and wrestling and BJJ to watch, they just aren't as interested in it.
I don't try to rationalize it much. I know most people, especially in the circles I'm in, can't stand to look at it. I don't mind that.
The idea that society has moved past the need for violent spectacle or something just doesn't work for me, because I enjoy the sport. And plenty of other people do, too
Fighters for the most part are going to do what will make them the most money. If the fans are there for knockouts, they're gonna go for knockouts. If BJJ tournaments offered the same money making opportunities that MMA does, a bunch of fighters would very happily switch
Ironically the growth of UFC and Boxing tells me we're trending back to the Roman days. Sure we won't have full on gladiators but everything old is new again feels like...
To hold up Roman as some sort of maxima doesnt really hold up. Its just that they were rich so they invested more in spectical, just as we do now.
Hah, not so much - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=biffs+bumps+bra... - big hits are a big thing, to the point TV specials and such are made on it.
Full contact but restricted martial arts also exist and mitigate risks by limiting the range of allowed techniques. Some of them do it in different ways than others. Judo is full-contact but disallows strikes, which makes it massively different than something with strikes. Semi-contact karate avoids the full-contact part, which makes it different in a different way.
Full contact practically always comes with risks, and full contact with fewer restrictions comes at much greater ones. Spectator expectations or other parts of culture may encourage the athletes to take risks and go to greater lengths than they otherwise would. But it's difficult for me to agree that modern society should have no place for sports that mentally healthy people actually want to participate in just because it comes with a risk of physical injury or intentional roughness. If they wanted to participate in a different sport, they'd have options.
In the end it's of course a matter of where to draw the line. Rather few people would nowadays want to allow fights to the death even if the participants wanted that. (Although, in reality, I don't think such a sport would get that many willing and actually voluntary participants either.)
I think if someone seriously injured themself doing parkour or base jumping (or bare knuckle boxing) there's an implicit assumption that people partook in that activity knowing the risks whereas with a professionally recognised high stakes sport (where the athletes may also have contractual obligations to perform) then there need to be higher standards and awareness.
For instance why is head trauma more of a problem in NFL than rugby when rugby players don't even wear helmets
I'm also wondering if that's partially connected to exactly the fact that they don't wear protective equipment. In many cases it's of course definitely helpful to have protection, but since it can also make the risks less obvious, using heavy padding might also encourage heavier contact. If, on the other hand, none of the participants are under any illusion of safety, that could discourage recklessness and perhaps even encourage a sense of mutual respect.
Helmets generally don't offer that much protection from concussions. They do reduce the risks of other serious head injuries such as fractures, as well as more superficial injuries, but if helmets make people think they can take heavy contact with abandon, that might increase the number and severity of concussions.