Vojtěch Lavička: "Clash of the Stars" pushes the envelope on what is normal, nobody wants our children to become like these "celebrities"

The undefeated heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, the K1 world champion Vašek Sivák, and the Czech UFC fighter Jiří Procházka are all fighters I have followed. Their fights offer everything one could want from a martial arts bout – athletic performances that are top-drawer thanks to the drudgery of everyday practice, the battle between the different offensive and defensive strategies, unanticipated reversals that get the adrenaline flowing, and after the competition, usually an acknowledgment of their opponent’s qualities (with some exceptions).

The “Clash of the Stars” MMA tournament, the third edition of which took place on Saturday in the Královka venue (which sold out) offers nothing of the sort in the vast majority of cases. I do have to acknowledge, objectively, that the organization of the same name has never promised high-level sports.

This tournament creates room for Czech influencers, YouTubers, female creators of adult content, and bodybuilders who are controversial figures bordering on Nazis (such as Grznár) to mutually “hand out punishment” in the cage. The series runs “two on one” matches among fighters of different weight classes, or embarrassing performances by would-be referees that you will not see anywhere else.

That is the whole point, of course. The main – and the only – priority is entertainment, most of the time at a debased level.

Why not, if people find it amusing, right? However, when porn star Hana Džurbanová, aka Rika Fane, appears in the hall and those present start chanting “Show us your c…t,” this entertainment no longer seems so harmless to me.

That is especially the case if children were there. As a Romani man, of course, I have mainly been captivated by the unprecedented interest in this kind of bizarre and quite frequently embarrassing entertainment among other Romani people.

There’s nobody among the Roma who hasn’t expressed their opinions of these matches, especially the recent fight between Karel Benda and the Romani fighter Jaroslav Kotlár, which Kotlár lost. Be that as it may, I do have to acknowledge Kotlár’s performance was one of the better ones in the cage that evening.

Personally I would be enthusiastic if this same kind of passionate discussion on Facebook would happen about the election results, for example. I comprehend that a certain segment of society is interested in this kind of show, but I cannot escape the impression that among the Roma it is a disproportionately large group.

This commentary of mine does not aim to moralize, I do not feel called to do so. Rather, I would like everybody to reflect on what paying attention to this kind of debased entertainment does to us.

Slowly but surely, it shifts the borders of normality – what seems “ok” to us and what is no longer “ok”. Thirty years ago such a tournament would have seemed like “deviancy” of the grossest caliber, but today it’s a kind of “folk” event where most of those watching are entertained at somebody else’s expense.

I just hope the “stars” of these tournaments don’t become “heroes” over time to teenagers who identify with them and take them as role models. None of us wants our children to become the new Bejrs, Džurbanovás and Grznárs.