I like fighters. Period.

It takes a special mixture in the human heart and soul to think you’re amazing bad. You need guts, a tolerance for pain and a vision of glory dancing in your head to think you can rise to the top. Just to step up in the ring or the cage requires a certain confiance froide en sang, an icy belief in yourself.

Single combat puts you out on the line in a way no other sport can. You can lose a tennis match and walk down the street the next day without anyone knowing. You can drop a couple of shots coming in during the final round of a golf tournament, finish T53, and cash your check at the bank while getting a fetching smile from the teller.

You lose in MMA – hell, sometimes, even when you win – and you are effectively no longer a member in good standing of the citizenry at large. Old ladies look sideways at you and know instantly that you are a ruffian; perhaps even a brute, a delinquent, a hooligan and a troublemaker in the bargain.

That shiner? The gory, ugly, purple cut over your eyebrow? It’s the Mark of Cain, baby. It says to the world that you’ve stepped out of the line for tickets to the opera and passed straight through Kansas – no Get Out of Jail Free card required. According to the Book of Nice Folks Conduct, you’re a thug, and there’s no disputing it. Nice people don’t make their living pounding the snot out of each other.

If you’re a fighter, you do, and it sets you apart.

It’s why the idea that women would enter the cage intent on taking each other apart is so compelling. Make all the arguments you want about women shying away from violence or having a different vision of how the social compact is put together, but you’ll be wrong if you think your argument is airtight.

Some women like kicking the Maybelline off each other.

Some of those women are cute enough to make you marvel at the engine that must be inside them. We’re not talking about spending an afternoon standing slack-jawed as you review items in shop windows with these females. Behind that cute grin and “I’ll have a Cosmo, I just love those,” beats the heart of an assassin.

Your girlfriend has more in common with the Warrior Chick than you’ll ever know, but she buries it under a fine sheen of powder and wraps it all up in a cloud of Jean Patou’s Joy from that pretty little bottle on the bathroom sink.

Check out the last thirty seconds of Carano v. Kobold below and then tell me they don’t make for some excellent viewing. Carano has some serious moxie and Kobold is tougher than a three-dollar Porterhouse.


Gina Carano vs. Kelly Kobold: