Humans have enjoyed conflict long before recorded history. Pecking order was established and survival of the fittest was the order of the day. Accounts of Mayan contests are known to have ended in the death of the losers, and movies romanticized defeat in gladiator contests of The Roman Empire.

New discoveries have led to a change in history with the facts that, like modern cage fighters, gladiators were sponsored, trained and most often lived to fight again. They even had groupies that followed them and there may have been endorsements just like those of modern athletes with gigs outside the...