tonight on "nightline," ticket to ride. travel deals worth snapping up but probably not where you've been looking. how good old fashioned travel agents are back with bargains to fly for. bible thumpers. evangelical christians acting out their faith with brutal mixed marshal arts fighting. it's love thy neighbor -- with fists.s. and forget about it.

what if fear could be erased from your memory? it sounds like science fiction, but tonight, our correspondent tripes it. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," september 2nd, 2011. >> good evening, i'm terry moran. and d mmer's almost over. but there are still some great travel deals out there and most people think that means going online to hunt for them. even president obama recently used travel agents as an example of a dieiying profession. but the fact is, there are still 14,000 travel agencieie active n the united states and 94% of them expect to make a profit this year. how is it possible in this age of point and click? well, here's abc's john donvan. >> reporter: against all predictions, the bricks and mortar travel agencies, the kind you can walk into and talk to real people at, is alive and

well. >> may i help you? >> reporter: at least this one is. hopping midweek in manhattan. because with summer coming to an end, people can't wait to get away again. >> have a great trip. >> reporter: people like john. >> i'm on my way to -- >> reporter: monica. >> southern caribbean. >> reporter: michelle. >> we're doing a family cruise. >> reporter: pat. >> somewhere i haven't been before. >> reporter: this place, it's called liberty travel. they're doing well, according to its ceo. >> more people are coming through the door than, say, five years ago? >> the number of customers has grown every year. >> reporter: wait a minute. bricks and mortar? that's what boarders were in the book business and the internet killed that off. wasn't the same thing supposed to happen to travel agents, the kind that advertised like this on tv? >> ask your liberty travel agent. >> reporter: wasn't everybody supposed to go join line to find rock bottom travel packages? wasn't that the point they made

on "30 rock" not long ago? >> who are you? >> better to ask whoho we used be. people whose professions are no longer a thing. once, i was called travel agent. we live under the subways, with the ceo of friend ster. >> there is a migration back. >> reporter: at least to those who survived. the internet did change the game, the game who lasted a very long time. >> before the internet, you had travel agents almost like high priests. if you wanted to travel, you had to go to that church. but there were 30,000 travel agencies in the 1980s. even into the 1990s. >> reporter: and shockingly, more than hatch of those are gone. but that also means that nearly half are still here. an amazing 14,000 retail travel agencies are still in business. and liberty is one of them. what is the secret sauce? >> it's our people. >> reporter: in short, dealing with a travel agent is still a human experience.

>> you have a preference on the time? >eporter: in a way that doing business on the internet maybe is not. humans you can talk to when you're booking travel. an airline website -- no. as traveler pat puts it -- >> wouldn't you go to a professional to get the best service? >> reporter: and what does that service include? well, first of all, it's real backup. when something goes wrong, you you have someone to call. >> you can call me tomorrow. >> reporter: like all those people stuck in the path of hurricane ine last week. but if they were liberty customers, they could call in and more than 300 did. liberty was able to change their plans with minimum fuss to get them where they want todz go. no holding for hours on the phone. all the work done for them. you were doing that kind of service -- >> absolutely. we actually acquire a lot of customers around events like that. >> reporter: second in the list of service? it's real knowledge about the world out there. knowing languages. having personal little been to a lot of the places they're sending people.

knowing the right questionsns t ask. >> how long a time do you have to go? >> reporter: and third in the service cat fwoir, believe it or not, the price. at liberty, they can almost get you a standard package deal at or near the same price that you would pay online. >> yeah. it was more expensive if i booked on there. >> reporter: i tried it, too, working with travel agent jodee. >> nice to meet you. >> reporter: or travel expert, as they like to be called now. i showed her the prices for a package deal i found online. a trip to rome from newark with dates i gave her. >> $1,621 per person. >> reporter: that's what she needed to match or beat. two rooms, four adults. so, she went into her system and put in some numbers and out came the liberty travel price. >> i can do the same thing. >> reporter: on top of that, she said she could knock $10 off the price per person to make it cheaper which was a nice surprise. and then she found something i had not. a non-stop flight to rome.

>> you can go on continental nonstop out of newark it might be $40 higher -- >> that's the kind of conversation i'm not going to have with a website. >> absolutely not. >> reporter: backup, knowledge and price. oh, and the human touch. that's what's keeping these guys in business. and on this day, it's what put john here on a plane to greece. bonn voyage. i'm john donvan for "nightline" in new york. >> travel agents. ththks to john donvan for they. and just ahead, we're going to turn to kick boxes fing for christ. how a group of evangelicals run a prayer circle with serious punch. ♪ all righty. oh, oh. you are a little biscuit. i'm carol. uh, we should skedaddle 'cause it's girls' night. so...okay. oh, wow. you got a skinny-dipping scene after the duel, right? well, i -- shh, shh, shh. show. don't tell.

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with terry moran. in the gospel of matthew, jesus is quoted as saying, "if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, then turn to him the other also." there is no mention anywhere in the gospels of a pile driver or a kidney punch. but we're about to meet a group of christians who are not only full of faith, they also love to fight. here's abc's ryan owens with an encore presentation for our series, "faith matters."

♪ >> reporter: late friday night at the pure country bar in paducah, kentucky, a fight breaks out. but this isn't your grandfather's bar fight. >> hurt like hell, but -- >> as soon as i tape you, let's pray. >> reporter: and some of these fighters give bible beaters -- >> father, we just thank you for the opportunity to go out tonight and to train and compete and -- >> reporter: -- a whole new meaning. >> as a brand new christian i was fighting all the way through bible college. i trained in the army on how to fight. this is just part of who i am. it's my dna. >> jab. one two. >> reporter: the leader of this unorthodox group of warriors is john renkin, an evangelical pastor and founder of extreme

ministries. his church/gym is squeezed between the goodwill store and the beauty school in a clarksville, tennessee strip mall. at this church let's just say they don't quite believe in turning the other cheek. if jesus christ walked into a bar and saw you in a cage, bloody, with another guy also bloody, what in the world do you think jesus christ would think? >> he'd probably think, you know, wow. that's cool. >> reporter: you think jesus christ would think this is cool? >> you think about it. look at what jesus endured for our sake. he faced his own cage in life. and when he came out, he was a much bigger, bloodier mess than i have ever been. >> reporter: but make no mistake, the sport known as mixed martial arts can leave you a bloody mess. >> when i go into the ring, i'm going in there to fight, but i'm also going in there for the reasons that we've been talking about, which is that i want to reach people with the gospel. >> reporter: john no longer competes. he now preaches and teaches.

>> in jesus' name we pray -- >> amen. >> all right. >> reporter: and tonight, he prays for his students, including mike thompson. >> my biggest fear going into o this fight is to not let m m teammates down, not to let john down. >> reporter: mike comes into tonight's fight with an impressive record. 19 wins, 17 by knockout. so you think it's entirely possible to be a very good christian and beat the crap out of someone? >> beat the hell out of them. absolutely. >> reporter: do you think ere's any other church on the face of this earth that you would have been open to going to? >> not at all. not at all. >> reporter: when mike showed up at extreme ministries a decade ago, finding god was the last thing on his mind. >> i first came in and i said, hey, i -- i'm a bad dude. i said, i'm tough, i said i'll fight anybody, i don't care, any weight, anytime, anywhere. >> reporter: to say mike's background is rough is an understatement.

his parents separated when he was 5. his mother became involved with marvin wayne eddy, a man now serving time for murder. >> he decided that it would be a good idea to go to one of his buddy's trailers and rob it. >> reporter: mike was 8. his brother, just 5. there was snow on the ground as they headed out in the middle of the night. 5-year-old jesse would not stop crying. marvin wayne eddy decided to shut him up. >> so he started hitting him and, of course, that made him cry more, and he kept beating him and eventually he picked him up by his legs and swung him up against the tree until he quit crying. >> reporter: jesse never woke up from the coma and died three days later. >> i renounced god. i could not wrap my mind around how he could let that happen to my brother. >> reporter: after training with john for years but refusing to set foot in sunday service, somebody changed. john's other message finally got through. >> and he said god loves you.

and he said, and i'm going to show you. and he asked me to come to church and at least hear him out. >> reporter: now mike has been going to church for years. he's married with a baby girl. is this a way to channel their aggression? >> yes. >> reporter: in a positive way? >> absolutely. they're not going down to the bar on the weekend and getting in brawls. they're not abusing their wives. >> reporter: back at pure country bar, where people have paid 20 bucks a head to watch the brawls -- >> please welcome mike thompson! >> reporter: -- mike is hoping to give the crowd their money's worth. he starts out on the attack, hoping for his trademark knockout. >> spin him off the cage! spin him off the cage! >> reporter: but he's quickly slammed to the ground. by second round, his opponent

brings him to his knees. mike loses. >> i feel that i failed my family. i failed god. i failed everybody. >> reporter: how do you think you failed god? >> just he's given me gifts and 's g gen me tools and i didn't use them to my ability. ♪ >> reporter: but mike's faith is not toppled. by sunday morning, he's back in church, battle wounds and all, and still reliving the fight. >> i was just too excited. i wanted to end it quick. >> reporter: a warrior for christ who believes you can both love thy neighbor and put them in a headlock. >> yeah, yeah, yeah, come on. >> reporter: i'm ryan owens for "nightline" in paducah, kentucky. my mom knows food magic.

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memory is central to who we are. without our memories, we'd lose our identities. but what if we could keep all our memories but get rid of the pain and even the fear attached to the worst of them? well, the scientists we're about to meet are trying to engineer just that. here's abc's nick watt with tonight's "sign of the times." >> reporter: as humans go through life, we pick up phobias. the fear, perhaps of dogs. maybe we were bitten once. or spiders. perhaps we watched "arack that phobia" as a kid and it never left us. me? i'm scared of cows. i was chased by a herd of them as a child.

on a more serious note, people exposed to traumatic events, explosions, car wrecks, plane crashes, might develop post-traumatic stress disorder. after my time reporting in iraq, i was one of those people. >> body produces a large amount of adrenaline. any memory of that traumatic experience could cause you to pull out large amounts of adrenaline. >> reporter: now, here in this laboratory in amsterdam, they are working on a perhaps unsettling theory that we can chemically alter our memories and erase our fears. >> what we want to do is to erase the fear from the memory. >> reporter: okay, so, this brings hollywood to mind. >> i don't know if i like this. >> reporter: and, of course, "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind," in which the memories of entire relationships gone sour are medically deleted. so, this is not "eternal

sunshine of the spotless mind." >> no, it's okay. >> reporter: okay, so, here's what she's done. day one. and 60 volunteers are wireded u for electric shocks. oh, yeah, i felt that. here, i'm the dummy. how unpleasant should it be? headphones on, photos flash past on the screen. and every time this image pops up, there's a shock and a loud noise. this creates in me a fear of this spider. day two, 20 of the same people are given an adrenaline is up pleasant. the images and the shocks once more. >> the idea is, we react to the fear memory. >> reporter: the fear is reopened and for the 20 people on the drug -- >> it's interference with the reconsolidation of the memories. >> reporter: so, the memory is laid down again in the brain, but the pill has is suppressed adrenaline. so, the memory is laid down without any fear attached.

okay. so, here are some potential issues. could this be used for, well, the wrong reasons? one man did e-mail the doctor to say his wife had just discovered he was having an affair. >> he asked me if he could get the pill from me to erase the memory of his wife. >> reporter: you said no? >> no, of course. >> reporter: if you can erase fear from a memory, could you erase other emotions? happiness, joy, couldhey be expunged in the same way? >> possibly. sometimes i can imagine people wanting to get rid of their whole memory. but this is not possible yet. >> reporter: are you working on that? >> no, we are not. >> reporter: not yet. not yet. and listen, i now have a problem. i was only there for day one. i had the spider fear