I saw this a while ago and from my perspective it's a couple guys who wanted to film their cat batting at some cat-toy whizzing around and around...but they didn't realize the cat's claw might get stuck and send the cat on a journey.  You can even hear them say "turn it off...turn it off!"  (I didn't watch this one with sound on, maybe this version doesn't have sound.)  I just don't think this was some evil endeavor to torture a cat but rather just an unfortunate accident.  Also, I like to think cats are hearty and he was maybe a little tender in the ribs but otherwise fine.  And I'm a big-time animal lover and grew up with several cats and dogs.