History WebVideo / FightingInTheAgeOfLoneliness

* LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: PRIDE got a real reputation for being a yakuza front just because plenty of people who were known to be yakuza showed up to events, the president lived in a building ran by the yakuza and several other in-hindsight fairly obvious connecting points.

* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Discussed and Downplayed. The documentary credits ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Fighter The Ultimate Fighter]]'' reality show for dispelling the myth of MMA fighters being savage killing machine akin to a ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}''. MMA fighters may not exactly be ''nice'' people and are often deeply flawed in their own right, but are nonetheless relatable human beings pushing their bodies to the limit for the sake of their sport.

''Fighting in the Age of Loneliness'' is a 2018 Web-Documentary about the history of MMA, written and narrated by [[Podcast/ChapoTrapHouse Felix Biederman]] and directed/produced by [[Creator/JonBois Jon Bois]]. It is divided into 5 chapters that trace the sport's entire history, both proud and not-so-proud, throughout the ages; It's origins across a number of martial arts, the early stars and villains, and explains why it became and has remained a part of the cultural touchstone regardless of or because of the parties who make the sport happen, and the forces outside it that give it shape. How a sport about weirdos and creeps can managed to find an audience and find magic, even in a world that feels like it's falling apart at the seams.

* BittersweetEnding: ''Very'' bitter. [[spoiler:MMA grows from weird and scattered underground movements to a worldwide mainstream sport, at the cost of becoming another sanitized corporate product. The final monologue is unsparing in its contempt for the ever-increasing corporate influence of daily life; Even the most extreme forms of entertainment and sport ''will'' be exploited to wring all the capital out of you, including a bloodsport that was nearly banned by the US Congress. Things suck, and it doesn't look like things are gonna get better... but finishing the fight is what you absolutely can do. Put on your gloves and go out there.]]

* BrokenAce: Points out that all of the great aces of fighting tended to not just fade, but usually get clobbered before their retirement. [[spoiler: which made Anderson Silva's match against Chael Sonnen so amazing. He got beaten down and looked a fool, but won regardless.]]

* PoliticalCorrectnessIsEvil: Invoked deliberately to make a point about why the alienation of the 90's helped MMA: it's not Political Correctness at all; but rather ''HR'' Culture made by gigantic corporations (defined as standards that were created that protected the vulnerable, but with stringent rulesets that only benefited the company that didn't care either way) that created the alienation that many felt because now, if those rulesets were broken, the person in question could be out of a job for a good long while.

* DrugsAreGood: Felix calls steroids outright "awesome", but he's mostly talking about their effectiveness. The human body just can't sustain training and fighting like MMA fighters do for any reasonable length of time without either breaking down or getting a ''little'' chemical help. Steroids are basically perfect for helping a worn down body recover and gain further mass, allowing fighters to fight more regularly and have longer careers. There isn't really a moral judgement made and side effects are brought up, but mostly it seems to be intended as an explanation as to why ex-MMA fighters stated 70%-90% of fighters juiced up as part of their training regiment, as well as highlighting the flaw in trying to totally remove PEDs from MMA.

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: Invoked deliberately to make a point about why the alienation of the 90's helped MMA: it's not Political Correctness at all; but rather ''HR'' Culture made by gigantic corporations (defined as standards that were created that protected the vulnerable, but with stringent rulesets that only benefited the company that didn't care either way) that created the alienation that many felt because now, if those rulesets were broken, the person in question could be out of a job for a good long while.

* DrugsAreGood: Felix calls steroids outright "awesome", but he's mostly talking about regarding their effectiveness and not making any sort of other judgement. The human body just can't sustain fighting like MMA fighters do for any reasonable length of time without at least a ''little'' chemical help. Steroids are basically perfect for helping a worn down, muscled body heal and gain further mass, allowing fighters to fight more regularly and have longer careers. There isn't really a moral judgement made, but rather just highlighting the fact that the reason ex-MMA fighters stated almost 70%-90% of fighters juiced up as part of their training regiments is because they're essentially required.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: Characterizes the UFC and their president Dana White as trying to be like a normal sport, to the detriment of the product they were once putting out.

* DrugsAreGood: Felix calls steroids outright "awesome", but there's a practical purpose to it; the human body just isn't meant to be fighting like MMA fighters do without breaking down, and needs at least a ''little'' chemical help to continue doing so. And Steroids; something that helps a worn down, muscled body heal and gain further mass, is what keeps it going. Whether or not the morality of it is good is up to the viewer, but ex-MMA fighters stated almost 70%-90% of fighters juiced up as part of their training regiments.

* ItIsPronouncedTropay: Used as a gag about the pronunciation of the fighting style of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capoeira Capoeira]].

* BittersweetEnding: ''Very'' bitter. The final monologue is unsparing in its contempt for the ever-increasing corporate influence of daily life. [[spoiler: Even the most extreme forms of entertainment and sport can and ''will'' get monetized to become another successfully bland product to wring all the capital out of you. Even a bloodsport that was once weird and vulgar and nearly banned by the US Congress. Things suck, and it doesn't look like things are gonna get better... but finishing the fight is what you absolutely can do. Put on your gloves and go out there.]]

* IJustWantToBeNormal: Characterizes the UFC and their president Dana White as trying to be like a normal sport like basketball in the 2000's to today, to the detriment of the product they were once putting out.

* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Discussed and Downplayed. The documentary credits ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Fighter The Ultimate Fighter]]'' reality show for dispelling the myth of MMA fighters being savage killing machine akin to a ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}''. MMA fighters may not exactly be ''nice'' people, and are often deeply flawed individuals, but are nonetheless relatable human beings pushing their bodies to the limit for the sake of their sport.

* SimilarlyNamedWorks: Luta Livre and the pro-wrestling style Lucha Libre are pronounced ''quite'' similarly, however both styles of combat couldn't be more different. Interesting enough, both have origins in UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling.

* TrainingFromHell: The way a fighter in the Ultimate Fighter managed to drop 20 pounds in under a day, where he essentially locked himself inside of a sauna to ride an exercise bike for ''hours'' to the point that he couldn't move his legs getting out of it. And then did it ''again'' when he was just a few pounds over. Naturally, the guy won his next fight handily.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: Invoked. A driving thesis of the documentary - especially in later chapters - is that MMA, both in fighting techniques and as bloodsport, has been fundamentally shaped by world events and social attitudes across the world. The last two chapters drive this home, drawing a close link between the events of UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror and the rise of MMA into the mainstream.

* BadassNormal: Maurício Rua was described as "looking like a podcaster who goes to the gym", but he went ahead and won the PRIDE 2005 Middleweight Tournament just by being able to out-aggression and outfight ''everybody''.
* BittersweetEnding: Another way to look at the end of the film. [[spoiler: Things suck, and it doesn't look like things are gonna get better, but finishing the fight is what you absolutely can do. Put on your gloves and go out there.]]

* DownerEnding: One way to look at the final monologue of the film. [[spoiler: Everything you know or love will get monetized and become bland so that people with more money than you can ring all the capital they can out of you. Even in a bloodsport that was once too weird and barely regulated to be liked by the US Congress.]]

* IJustWantToBeNormal: Characterizes the UFC and their president Dana White as trying to be like a normal sport like basketball in the 2000's to today, to the detriment of the product they were putting out.

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: Invoked deliberately to make a point about why the alienation of the 90's helped MMA: it's not Political Correctness at all; but rather ''HR'' Culture made by gigantic corporations (defined as standards that were created that protected the vulnerable, but with stringent rulesets that only benefitted the company that didn't care either way) that created the alienation that many felt because now, if those rulesets were broken, the person in question could be out of a job for a good long while.

** Luta Livre can also mean the Olympic ''Freestyle Wrestling'' (Although sometimes refered as ''Luta Livre Olímpica'') and ''also'' an alternative name for Pro Wrestling.

* TrainingFromHell: The way a fighter in the Ultimate Fighter managed to drop 20 pounds in under a day, where he essentially locked himself inside of a sauna to ride an exercise bike for ''hours'' to the point that he couldn't move his legs getting out of it. And then did it ''again'' when he was just a few pounds over. Naturally, the guy won his next fight handily.

** Oddly, ''FAL'' claims the choke known as gogoplata was "literally invented as a joke". It is always difficult to talk about the "invention" of fighting techniques in the long history of mankind, but the gogoplata in particular was present in judo books as soon as 1954 and was surely not labelled as a joke move.

* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: The documentary claims ancient jujutsu heavily required size and athleticism before Jigoro Kano reformed it into judo, which is actually an overstatement, based on a popular misconception about how much the style really changed through this process. While Kano certainly did a favor to smaller men by emphasizing deeply the concept of unbalancing or ''kuzushi'' (which the documentary mentions, though not by name), the instrumental principle of "soft technique" behind the techniques themselves remained virtually the same, which is the reason why both arts' names share the ''ju'' part (it means "gentle", "soft" or "yelding"); there was no necessarily more usage of force in one after another, and the penchant to muscle into throws that the documentary attributes to old jujutsu is hardly unknown in judo competition.

!!Fighting in the Age of Loneliness contains examples of these tropes.
* BadassFamily: The Gracies. They may have been MMA's old money, but Gracie Jiu-Jitsu did it's job, and it seems like every other family member picked up a new style or way to cause punishment.

* TrainingFromHell: The way a fighter in the Ultimate Fighter managed to drop 20 pounds in under a day, where he essentially locked himself inside of a sauna for ''hours'' to the point that he couldn't move his legs getting out of it. And then did it ''again'' when he was just a few pounds over. Naturally, the guy won his next fight handily.

''Fighting in the Age of Loneliness'' is a 2018 Web-Documentary about the history of MMA, written and narrated by [[Podcast/ChapoTrapHouse Felix Biederman]] and directed/produced by [[Creator/JonBois Jon Bois]]. It is divided into 5 chapters that trace the sport's entire history, both proud and not-so-proud, throughout the ages and explains why it became, and has remained a part of the cultural touchstone regardless of or because of the parties who make the sport happen, and the forces outside it that give it shape. How a sport about weirdos and creeps can managed to find an audience and find magic, even in a world that feels like it's falling apart at the seams.

* BrokenAce: Points out that all of the great aces of fighting tended to not just fade, but usually get clobbered before their retirement. [[spoiler: which made Anderson Silva's match against Chael Sonnen so amazing. He won regardless.]]

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: Invoked deliberately to make a point about why the alienation of the 90's helped MMA: it's not Political Correctness at all; but rather ''HR'' Culture made by gigantic corporations (defined as standards that were created that protected the vulnerable, but with stringent rulesets) that created the alienation that many felt because now, if they were broken, the person in question could be out of a job for a good long while.

* SlidingScaleOfCynicismVersusIdealism: '''Firmly''' on the side of Cynicism. However, that same cynicism is elaborated on as a reason why people grew to love MMA like they did and do; in a world that was no longer set up to care or support people, it became a release from all the trying problems of the world and the alienation of it all.

* BrokenAce: Points out that all of the great aces of fighting tended to not just fade, but usually get clobbered before their retirement. [[spoiler: which made Anderson Silva's match against X so amazing. He won regardless.]]

* BloodKnight: Carlos Gracie would take on all fighters he could find. His father gave him to Judo Master Mitsuyo Maeda to train him up, but his desire to fight never went away.
* BoringButPractical: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in comparison to the balls-out style of Vale Tudo

* LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: PRIDE got a real reputation for being a Yakuza front just because plenty of people who were known to be Yakuza showed up to events, the president lived in a building ran by the yakuza and several other in-hindsight fairly obvious connecting points.

* SecretArt: Martial Arts of all kinds were considered this for some time, but as time went on, eventually people began inventing their own and proliferating it all to the public.

* StartMyOwn: Basically the story of Judo; Kano Jigoro was too small and inexperienced for Jiu-Jitsu, so he basically created an art based around throws and grapples so he could win bouts against large competition, [[ButterflyEffect which unintentionally set the stage for one of his pupils to go on an exhibition across the world, which led to Gastao Gracie asking him to train his son, which eventually led to the creation of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.]]

* Determinator: Helio Gracie, whose matches would sometimes last ''hours''.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Gracie Jiu Jitsu was relatively still like the martial art that came before it, but paved the way for MMA.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Characterizes the UFC as trying to be like a normal sport like basketball in the 2000's to today, to the detriment of the product they were putting out.

* SimilarlyNamedWorks: Luta Livre and the pro-wrestling style Lucha Libre are pronounced ''quite'' similarly, however both styles of combat couldn't be more different.