Over the past 13 years, I'm certain I've been desensitized by the controlled mayhem of mixed martial arts. That's to say mangled noses, shredded joints, sauteed cauliflower ears, excavated eye sockets and whatever else you can conjure simply don't faze me. I can't tell you how many fights I've seen. Or which portion of those featured concussions, contusions and who knows what else. Truthfully, by the time a portion of Alex Karalexis' tongue landed on my thigh in 2006 I'd experienced more than enough carnage not to get shaken by anything two people might do to each other in a cage.
Wanderlei Silva deserves some credit (or blame) here because of his stubborn refusal to pursue anything but the most violent finishes. The head stomp was made for him. "The Axe Murderer" is as well-conceived a nom de guerre as any in MMA, and on Saturday we again witnessed why when Silva returned to Japan and laid waste to yet another human being. I suppose it could be difficult not to revel in this sort of thing, so I'm trying not to do so here.
The violence aroused by MMA is unavoidable, some say a necessary evil.
Perhaps it's just plain necessary. No one has done more to live up to his end of the bargain than Silva, but boy have they tried. Saturday's event in Saitama, Japan, wasn't particularly violent until the final two fights. Yet that's how the card will be remembered because that's how entertainment is measured in MMA.
