ABSTRACT
The sport of mixed martial arts has become more and more popular in the last few decades, and is controversial because of physical violence sometimes resulting in serious injury to fighters. It may be hard for many observers, especially those who lack knowledge of martial arts, to appreciate the sport’s beauty, for they are unable to properly judge the sport skills used. Part of the motivation of MMA is to compare the effectiveness of different fighting techniques. Here I argue that successful execution of a skill in MMA can be conceived, according to some aesthetic theories in philosophy, as the manifestation of a form of beauty in terms of utility as an aesthetic category.
