Of course we still thrill to boxing and martial arts matches which, if less deadly, remain dangerous and dramatic.
Bull fighting, dog fighting and cock fighting also remain popular. I believe cock fighting is still legal in Louisiana (it was 20 years ago -- perhaps that has chnaged). Bull fighting, with its pageantry and drama and its faint resonance of mythic origin was beloved by Hemmingway and Michner. Dog fighting attracts violent anarchists, but also dog lovers, who admire the strength, courage and "gameness" of the combatants. Cock fighting is popular world wide. George Washington once invited Thomas Jefferson to cock fights at Mt. Vernon. Abraham Lincoln may have been less approving, and is reported to have said, "As long as the Almighty permits intelligent men created in His image to fight in public and kill each other while the world looks on approvingly, it is not for me to deprive chickens of the same privilege." Anthropologist Clifford Geertz described Balinese fighting cocks as "detachable, self-operating penises."
It's easy to deplore this taste for violence and death, but perhaps we should also try to understand it. Maybe it belongs to a time when physical courage was more important to us humans; when it was dulce et decorum to die for your country. It is facile to decry the blood lust of the afficianados, but if you listen to them, or read about them, they admire the gameness and courage of the combatants as a moral virtue, tested and displayed by violence and death.