Well, it's easy to paint all of hockey with the NHL brush. International hockey (where fighting is punished with an automatic game misconduct) has much more flow and is more skill based. Minor hockey and Junior hockey also is more exciting as well.
KHL and NHL are not indicative of how all of hockey is. Hockey can be very skill based as hundreds of leagues around the world demonstrate. It can also be spectacle based as NHL exhibits, where fights are the bulk of the action.