Blood sport

Ablood sportorbloodsportis a category ofsportorentertainmentthat involvesbloodshed.^[1]Common examples of the former include combat sports such ascockfightinganddog fighting,and some forms ofhuntingandfishing.Activities characterized as blood sports, but involving only human participants, include theancient Roman gladiatorialgames.

Etymology

According to Tanner Carson, the earliest use of the term is in reference to mounted hunting, where the quarry would be actively chased, as infox huntingorhare coursing.Beforefirearms,a hunter usingarrowsor aspearmight also wound an animal, which would then be chased and perhaps killed at close range, as inmedieval boarhunting. The term was popularised by authorHenry Stephens Salt.

Later, the term seems to have been applied to various kinds ofbaitingand forced combat:bull-baiting,bear-baiting,cockfighting,and later developments such asdog fightingandrat-baiting.The animals were specially bred for fighting. In theVictorian era,social reformersbegan a vocal opposition to such activities, claiming grounds ofethics,morality,andanimal welfare.

Current issues

Online videos

Many online video-sharing websites such asYouTubedo not allow videos of animal bloodsports to be shown on the site, except for educational purposes, such as inpublic service announcements.^[2]^[3]

Animal fighting

Cockfight

Limitations on blood sports have been enacted in much of the world. Certain blood sports remain legal under varying degrees of control in certain locations (e.g.,bullfightingandcockfighting) but have declined in popularity elsewhere.^[4]^[5]Proponents of blood sports are widely cited to believe that they are traditional within the culture.^[6]Bullfighting aficionados, for example, do not regard bullfighting as a sport but as a cultural activity.^[7]It is sometimes called a tragicspectacle,because in many forms of the event, the bull is invariably killed and the bullfighter is always at risk of death.

Hunting and recreational fishing

Trophy huntingandfox huntingin particular have been disparaged as blood sports by those concerned aboutanimal welfare,animal ethicsand conservation.^[8]

Recreational fishingwas once described as a blood sport by those within the recreation.^[9]

In fiction

Blood sports have been a common theme in fiction. Whilehistorical fictiondepicts real-life sports such asgladiatorial gamesandjousting,speculative fiction,especiallydystopic science fiction,suggests variants of blood sports in a contemporary or future society. Some popular works themed on blood sports areBattle Royale,The Hunger Games,The Running Man,The Long Walk,Fight Club,Death Race 2000,Amores Perros,Squid Game,Bloodsport,andThe Most Dangerous Game.

Blood sports are also a common setting for video games, going as far back as the early years of the medium itself. Games about blood sports attracted controversy from newspapers and civic organisations due to theirgraphic content,in particular the 1976 vehicular combat gameDeath Racewhose game mechanic of scoring points by running over humanoid figures (marketed byExidyas "gremlins" in their official literature) generated amoral panic.^[10]^[11]^[12]Contemporary examples such asStreet Fighter,Mortal KombatandTekkenmake up much of thefighting gamegenre, andfirst-person arena shooterssuch asThe Finals,Quake III ArenaandUnreal Tournament,as well asvehicular combat gameslikeTwisted Metallikewise depict some form of armed combat with firearms in a gladiatorial setting. Such games typically offer a laconic if not nominal plot orbackstoryto flesh out the characters and settings, which often take place in a large tournament attracting combatants from various locales.^[13]WhileUnreal TournamentandQuake III Arenado portray the game's violent combat as a "real world" blood sport within the games' fictional settings, some, such asThe Finals,attempt to downplay the games' violent themes by presenting the game as avirtual realitysimulation within afictional game showinstead, devoid of any in-story human casualties.^[14]^[15]The filmBattle Royalealso notably inspired thebattle royalegenre, where players compete against each other for survival in a shrinking area, popularised by games such asPUBG: Battlegrounds(2017),Fortnite Battle Royale(2017),^[16]Apex Legends(2019)andCall of Duty: Warzone(2020).^[17]

List of blood sports

Human – human

Human – animal

Animal – animal

References

^"Blood sport".Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary(11 ed.). Merriam-Webster, Inc. 2003. p.134.ISBN 978-0-87779-807-1.Retrieved20 May2017.
^Brooke, Simon (19 August 2007)."Animal cruelty films on YouTube".The Sunday Times.Archived fromthe originalon 19 May 2011.Retrieved20 May2017.
^Clarke, Matt (17 May 2007)."Uproar at fish cruelty on YouTube".Practical Fishkeeping.Archived fromthe originalon 17 September 2008.Retrieved20 May2017.
^Lewine, Edward(July 2005).Death and the Sun: A Matador's Season in the Heart of Spain.Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 231.ISBN 978-0-618-26325-7.Archivedfrom the original on 2 May 2019.Retrieved20 May2017.
^Mitchell, Timothy (July 1991).Blood Sport: a social history of Spanish bullfighting.University of Pennsylvania Press. p.244.ISBN 978-0-8122-3129-8.
^Stratton, Jim (18 January 2005)."Cockfighting Persists as Underground Sport".Puerto Rico Herald.Archived fromthe originalon 6 October 2008.Retrieved20 May2017.
^"Bullfighting in Spain".October 31, 2018.Archivedfrom the original on August 11, 2019.RetrievedAugust 11,2019.
^Greenwood, George(2015) [1915]."The Cruelty of Sport".InSalt, Henry S.(ed.).Killing for Sport.George Bell & Sons.pp. 1–33.Archivedfrom the original on 13 October 2015.Retrieved20 May2017.
^Wyatt, Bob (2013).What Trout Want: The Educated Trout and Other Myths.Stackpole Books. p. 3.ISBN 978-0-8117-1179-1.Archivedfrom the original on 2 May 2019.Retrieved20 May2017.
^New York Times News Service (December 28, 1976)."'Death Race': Cartoon or Morbid? ".The Post-Crescent.p. A-1.Retrieved2017-08-30– via Newspapers.com.
^Young, Larry (December 29, 1976)."Local Safety Authorities Denounce Game".The Spokesman-Review.Spokane. p. 10.
^"Weekend: That's Nice, Don't Fight (Death Race) Archival Footage".NBCUniversal.RetrievedApril 7,2014.
^Wilde, Tyler (2009-03-10)."Gaming's greatest blood sports".GamesRadar.Retrieved2024-11-06.
^Franzese, Tomas (6 March 2023)."The Finalsis the shake-up the competitive first-person shooter scene needs ".Digital Trends.Archivedfrom the original on 2023-03-24.Retrieved2023-03-08.
^Takahashi, Dean (2023-03-06)."The Finalshas frenetic gameplay full of destruction: hands-on preview ".VentureBeat.Archivedfrom the original on 2023-03-13.Retrieved2023-03-09.
^Wolf, Mark J. P. (2021-05-24).Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming [3 volumes].Bloomsbury Publishing USA.ISBN 979-8-216-16182-0.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: date and year (link)
^"The Evolution of the Battle Royale Genre".SUPERJUMP.2023-08-29.Retrieved2024-11-06.