article_snippet.sent: (CNN)This weekend, millions of people are expected to tune in to watch two men beat each other up.
article_snippet.sent: But why do we like to watch fights in the first place?
article_snippet.sent: Over the past 20 years, I've watched boxing and MMA in a spirit of nervous fascination.
article_snippet.sent: Watching fighters kick, punch and strangle each other, I'd be thinking, I'm a civilized person.
article_snippet.sent: Who among us hasn't felt the giddy, guilty thrill of a fistfight breaking out -- whether in a schoolyard, a hockey rink or a prize ring?
article_snippet.sent: How else are We all to explain We all yen for carnage in rough sports, films, gory video games and literature?
article_snippet.sent: Are We all drawn to a big fight like Mayweather-Pacquiao simply by bloodlust and barbarism?
article_snippet.sent: If we just wanted blood and pain, we wouldn't bother with the tame violence of pay-per-view fisticuffs.
article_snippet.sent: But many people who feel no temptation to watch Internet snuff feel sorely tempted to watch a big fight.
article_snippet.sent: A fight was drama sweated down to the bones -- a metaphor for the whole human condition, with everything noble and ugly on display.
article_snippet.sent: While it may seem like a stretch, I think we are drawn to prizefights less to revel in what's dark and nasty in human nature than to honor what's good and noble.
article_snippet.sent: Prizefights set up conditions of dramatic adversity that evoke what we admire most in human beings: extremes of courage, grace, fortitude and even heroism.
article_snippet.sent: So should we feel virtuous as we watch Mayweather and Pacquiao's epic brain damage contest?
article_snippet.sent: Most of we feel ambivalent toward prizefighting because we should.  
article_snippet.sent: A fight puts the darkest stuff in human nature on display: the bared fangs, the blood, the frenetic drive to do harm.
article_snippet.sent: But all that dark stuff draws out the best stuff, and turns a great fight into a showcase for the indomitability of human will.
article_snippet.sent: When Mayweather and Pacquiao clash at center ring on Saturday night, the good angels of human nature will yearn to turn away -- and to lean in.
highlights_snippet.sent: So why will so many watch?He says a fight is metaphor for the whole human condition, with everything noble and ugly on display .