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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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.

FORBES: Editor's Note