They have also largely taken place outside the cockfighting arena of congressional or judicial politics.

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Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont wants to popularize a kinder, gentler type of cockfighting.

FORBES: The Top Ten

John McCain (R-AZ) called mixed martial arts "human cockfighting, " and called for it to be regulated by an athletic commission.

NPR: Mixed Martial Arts: Sport or Spectacle?

His death, which is under investigation by the South Carolina athletic commission, brought attention to the controversial sport once likened to human cockfighting.

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"I won the heavyweight title then came back to win the light-heavyweight title, " said Jones, a cockfighting and fishing enthusiast from the small town of Pensacola, Florida.

BBC: Jones out to prove his greatness

Calling it a sport is likely to earn you funny looks from people who see it as a shady pastime that falls, on the respectability scale, somewhere south of bar darts and north of cockfighting.

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Dogfighting is illegal in every state and a felony in most. (Cockfighting, however, is still legal in Louisiana.) In May George Bush signed a law making it a felony to transport animals between states for fighting purposes.

ECONOMIST: America is outraged over recent allegations

Kittle the younger's article ( "Manila Rules") is this issue's Memoir, an essay about an after-graduation year off that commenced with loafing around home in Greenwich and wound up, somehow, with him being introduced in the center ring at the world cockfighting championships in Manila.

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With his older brother, Frank Fertitta III, 46, and UFC President Dana White, 39, Lorenzo Fertitta has transformed UFC from a business once labeled by Senator John McCain as "human cockfighting" into a lucrative sports empire that competitors like Mark Cuban are now hoping to horn in on.

FORBES: Magazine Article