explain! explain!! EXXPLAAIN !!
Everybody loved Rocky because he overcame his circumstances & became a hero. Now we put people in cages & have them beat the crap out of each other (MMA).
I think that's just the natural progression of things though...people want to push the envelope in everything. The Olympics & X-games are a prime example of that...not just running sub-4 minute miles (which nobody believed could be done until the record was broken), but in everything from snowboarding to gymnastics. Check out this 50-year difference:
It's no different than anything else...now we carry mainframes in our pockets, self-driving cars are available for purchase, TV's are so thin you can hang them on your wall, you can fly across the world to any destination in under a day, etc. We progress!