"I think the Ultimate Fighting Championship pretty much has done death to the mystique of martial arts. When you have a virtually no holds barred tournament and (in its original version) no weight divisions either, you can clearly see how one style measures up to another. "
There arer PLENTY of rules in the UFC (now and in the original) which is why the participants rarely ever get seriously injured. For example, you don't see fingers in the eyes (intentionally, or else they quickly stop the "fight"...), groin shots, attacks/strikes (not submission holds) to the joints nor certain elbow strikes. It's very easy to hurt someone as I'm learning from my TWO YEAR OLD who has now head butted my face twice and scratched my cornea once.
Do not confuse contests between martial artists who do not intend to do serious (let alone life threatening) damage to each other with an actual self defense situation.
Stephen
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P.S. I've been taking various martial arts for twenty years and am a UFC fan...