Kids In A Cage: Is It Sporting?

Brutal beat downs and bloody finishes.

"One mistake and you lose by an armbar, a choke or a knockout," said Dale Cook, who has owned Apollo's Karate for nearly 30 years.

"The taste of reality that's in it; that makes it appeal to our generation that's already in love with reality television," Cook said. "This is reality television."

Cook has seen mixed martial arts go from being banned, to battering boxing in pay-per-view revenues. Now, Cook is questioning the direction MMA is taking.

"This is a legitimate sport," Cook said. "It's just unfortunate that there are some crazies out there that want to do this with kids and put kids in the cage."

"This is the craziest thing I've ever heard of. This is a great sport, but it's a sport for adults," said Cook.

The youth version of mixed martial arts is turning mixed reviews.

"We've had over 100 fights and we've had zero injuries," said Nathan Orand, a pioneer of youth MMA and owner of Miletich Fighting Systems of Oklahoma.

Orand started the kids cage fighting phenomenon last summer.

"People are pretty critical with anything kids do," Orand said. "The adults got a lot of criticism for mixed martial arts in the beginning, now it's leaked onto the youth. I think anything new that has a little bit of shock value, people are going to attack."

"We're just out there to say, ‘hey, come tell my why it's bad and I can prove to you why it's good.' I can prove you wrong," Orand said.

Cutting down the cages and putting extra padding on kids wasn't enough. Especially after a fight that took place last October at The Otherside Club in South Tulsa. The bout was called Halloween Havoc. And for some, the name says it all.

"It was havoc for me and the commission from the time it started, until it was over," said Joe Miller, administrator of the Oklahoma Professional Boxing Commission.

He has dealt with the fresh frontier of mixed martial arts since joining the commission in 2004. After attending last October's fight, Miller had seen enough of kids in the cage.

"It was a horrible situation," Miller said. "Not only did you have kids under 18 out there fighting, but I would assume you had parents and fans drinking beer, using foul language, things of that nature. It was just an ugly situation."

So ugly, the commission put youth MMA in a submission hold. It wasn't banned, but kids cage fighting stopped in an effort to better regulate the sport.

"It's exploitation of children," Miller said. "How else can you look at it? When you put 8, 10, 12-year-old kids in the ring charging money to watch them fight."

The solution: Miller hopes to pass a law that would have the commission take control of amateur MMA. However, people 18 and older would only be eligible to fight, leaving out Orand's crop of kids.

"If not here, we're speaking with several different states. It's going to get picked up," Orand said.

"As long as I'm here, I don't believe that's going to happen," Miller said. "Nathan's not a bad guy, Nathan's a good guy. I like Nathan, but I think he's just a little misguided. I really do."

By Kyle Dierking, Video Journalist.