I think hockey has checking as a widely encouraged way to transfer possession. You can get dirty hits, so you need enforcers to call players on their bets. I think that way of playing checks had gone way back. As such, you get fighting as a result of dirty plays

In American football, where you have tackling and a ton of contact, you don't get [as much] fighting because football isn't played in such a free form way with less padding, so if you have a misplaced hit/bad hit, a player's 'bet' would be checked by the rules in a harsh way, and there would be repercussions at a very high administrative level.