A couple weeks ago, we ran a big fat blog post about a bunch of people sparring in Union Square. They were practicing mixed martial arts (MMA), and letting pretty much anyone get in the ring who wanted to fight.

In writing the post, I tried to focus on the vibe in the air, how cool it was to witness the thing happening — as well as describe some of the utterly ridiculous videos David shot. The post got a ton of traffic (for us), and a corresponding ton of utterly retarded comments that totally missed the point.

David’s videos were pretty choice — and we intentionally focused on the ridiculous side of the thing to attract more attention. The blogosphere’s principal exports are bullshit and outrage, and its chief currency is attention. I’m not a journalist, I’m a storyteller, and I don’t mind altering the telling of an event to make it work better as a story. The thing about stories is, when you tell one story, you’re not telling another one.

All that aside, here’s some really spectacular photos of the Union Square Spartans by Anya Roz that really capture the dignified ballet of the thing, all the grace, training and prowess — and of course, tons and tons of rock-hard man-candy:

More photos and some video after the jump …

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I saw this sign in Union Square last night:

I love bacon, don’t get me wrong — but I wonder sometimes if it’s like zombies and robots and monkeys online — awesome, sure, but also just this stuff the Internet fetishizes just to be fetishizing something. I mean, as cool as I think robots are in the abstract, I’m not actually that thrilled about having a world crawling with them. I just like looking at them and writing about them. Is bacon the internet’s meat robots?

According to Eliza, hell no:

Bacon is the number one meat that vegetarians miss, and the one that eventually breaks most of them.

She’s right. I never could be a vegetarian in the first place — couldn’t give up bacon.

Hey there, visitors — there’s more (and much better) photos of this here — check ‘em out.

I got another cryptic text from a friend last Friday afternoon: “Fight Club in Union Square. GET HERE.”

For those who don’t live in New York, Union Square has historically been a giant meeting place for political protesters, social activists, and merchants of all sizes. In the days following September 11th, it was a meeting place for rescuers and mourners alike. Now it’s home to a multiplex, Ann Taylor Loft, a Whole Foods, and a Diesel store.

So really, it makes perfect sense that in the inner chamber of Manhattan’s consumer culture, right there in Union Square, there would be a massive, public fight club.

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So I told him that I had cheated on him while he was out of town. And you know what? He turned around and tried to use it against me!

Maybe it’s just ’cause I’m new here, but I’m amazed at what New Yorkers will steal: anything that’s not cemented into the earth. In broad daylight, too.

This is the life-size 3-D promotional display for the Simpsons movie in the Loews’ on Union Square. Hundreds of people shuffle past this thing at a time, all day long. Which means that sometime in the not-too-distant past someone with balls the size of Bart’s eyeballs up and stole Homer Simpson’s arm off.

What do you even DO with that thing? It could look pretty cool sticking up out of a grave at Mount Zion …