VIDEO: Shouldn’t a Mentally Disabled Man Be Allowed to Practice Martial Arts?

A brief, touching movie produced by The Guardian shows Garrett Holeve’s struggle to overcome a state injunction and fight in a mixed martial arts competition despite having Down syndrome.

At the center of Holeve’s story is the question of the rights of the disabled. Florida authorities deemed Holeve’s planned fight in 2013 against a man with cerebral palsy a health risk. But with the support of his father, mother and friends, he eventually realized his dream of fighting publicly and winning a match.

“I think fighting injustice makes me stronger, more powerful,” Holeve (aka “G Money”) says in the film.

Critics see mixed martial arts, with its metal cages and aggressive posturing, as gratuitously violent. But mature practitioners understand it as a demanding challenge to outperform an opponent in which punching, for example, is not an end in itself but a tactical means to subduing the opponent and winning a round.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.