I was interviewed by The Times over this. (THE TIMES!!!), and I’ve had several people ask my opinion, probably because I wrote CLASH. But you don’t need to be an author to have an opinion on this. For what it’s worth, here’s my piece.

image copyright: The Sun
Is competitive sport good for kids? Well, yes, for some it is. It is the competitive element, to go up against other kids of the same age, at the same level, that drives many to be the best they can be.
Mixed Martial Arts – or cage fighting – is a sport. And like other contact sports, such as judo or boxing, it requires discipline to learn and pays off with many benefits: it builds confidence and self esteem; it develops spatial awareness, balance and strategy.
It’s the arena in which MMA competitions take place that gives me grounds for concern.
In CLASH, I put Alex Crow in a situation that exploited his cage fighting skills for adult entertainment. It was based on something I’d already witnessed in amateur boxing, something that left me cold and having to question whether adult venues are a suitable choice for children’s competitive sport.
The scenes in CLASH were fictional, and set at a time when cage fighting was relatively unknown, taking place in a warehouse with the cage built from bits of mesh fencing. Everything about the place was meant to be scary and intimidating to justify the actions of Alex in his school life. So although the cage fighting we saw on the news had experts and medics present to ensure the competitors were safe, the atmosphere outside the cage was just as terrifying as the fictional version. And that’s worrying.
If junior level cage fighting is to get the respect it deserves it needs to follow the guidelines of other sports, giving the same attention to making the environment outside the cage is as controlled as it is within. Judo matches, for example, take place in a gymnasium, with an audience of club members – not drunken, screaming adults.
There is definitely a place for junior MMA in the sporting world, but that position is open to abuse if it’s main shifts from developing sporting skills to adult entertainment.