Bernard Fernandez | UFC: Here's making the Ultimate Fighting ConcessionI GUESS I'M what you might call a traditionalist.
A very long time ago, when I worked at another newspaper, I received an irate phone call from a fan of professional wrestling who demanded to know why my editors did not devote space in the daily section to his entertainers of choice.
"Because pro rasslin' is not a sport,'' I said.
As the guy sputtered indignantly, I
informed him I had read a purloined script for the main event of one card that had been held in my town. I attended that show for research purposes and the match unfolded exactly as written, up to and including the climactic moment when the
eventual winner snuck up from behind and bashed his supposedly unsuspecting victim with a metal folding chair. Some blind referee pretended not to notice, and allowed the chair wielder to win on the ensuing pin.
You still won't spot me at any Wrestlemanias, but it seems that I finally am becoming more tolerant of non-boxing combat sports.
Put it this way: If there was a pay-per-view event in which Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme went chop-socky on one another for real, wouldn't you be tempted to check it out? Thought so.
Something known as the
Ultimate Fighting Championship has made inroads into boxing's domination of the genre, so much so that I no longer can look the other way. The recent UFC 61 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas played to a sellout crowd of 12,400, with ringside seats going for $750, and generated a live gate of $3.3 million.
Those numbers eclipse Saturday night's HBO PPV rematch of marquee junior middleweights Shane Mosley (43-4, 37 KOs) and Fernando Vargas (26-4, 22 KOs) at Las Vegas' MGM Grand, which Mosley won by sixth-round technical knockout. That bout had a paid attendance of 9,722, with tickets scaled to a high of $800.
To understand how far UFC has come, you have to understand how humbly and controversially it began.
UFC was launched in 1993 with naked brutality as participants gleefully head-butted,
eye-gouged, rabbit-punched and kneed each other in the groin with impunity. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has
authored several bills to reform pro boxing, dismissed UFC as "human cock-fighting'' and
openly called for its abolishment.
But what had been widely viewed as a disreputable activity began to change in 2001, when the Nevada State Athletic Commission took note of safety changes enacted by UFC and voted to sanction matches.
Lorenzo Fertitta - a former member of the Nevada commission - sank a chunk of his personal fortune into rescuing the foundering enterprise, as did his brother, Frank, and Boston entrepreneur Dana White, who now serves as UFC president. The money men spiffied up UFC's image by restricting some of the more violent and marginally legal blows, while maintaining its intriguing composite of martial arts, boxing and wrestling.
But UFC - which has sponsored functions at the last two Boxing Writers Association of America awards dinners in Las Vegas - went even more mainstream with the recent hiring of Marc Ratner, the much-respected former executive director of the NSAC, and John Mulkey, a former managing director at Wachovia Securities.
UFC already is sanctioned in more than 20 states (Pennsylvania is not yet among them), and it gets steady television exposure via its relationship with cable network Spike. Some UFC fighters have seven-figure annual incomes, and they're as recognizable as rock stars to fans who consider the sport a quicker-paced alternative to boxing.
"Ten years ago, [no state
athletic commission] wanted to approve UFC because of its
no-holds-barred, anything-goes message,'' Ratner said. "That's no longer the case. We have weight classes now. We have rounds. We have judges.
"UFC is still an acquired taste, but more and more people are acquiring that taste. I believe the future is all blue skies.''
UFC 62, by the way, is scheduled for Aug. 26 at the Mandalay Bay. UFC lightweight champion Chuck Liddell and challenger Renaldo Sobral top the bill.
A very long time ago, when I worked at another newspaper, I received an irate phone call from a fan of professional wrestling who demanded to know why my editors did not devote space in the daily section to his entertainers of choice.
"Because pro rasslin' is not a sport,'' I said.
As the guy sputtered indignantly, I
informed him I had read a purloined script for the main event of one card that had been held in my town. I attended that show for research purposes and the match unfolded exactly as written, up to and including the climactic moment when the
eventual winner snuck up from behind and bashed his supposedly unsuspecting victim with a metal folding chair. Some blind referee pretended not to notice, and allowed the chair wielder to win on the ensuing pin.
You still won't spot me at any Wrestlemanias, but it seems that I finally am becoming more tolerant of non-boxing combat sports.
Put it this way: If there was a pay-per-view event in which Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme went chop-socky on one another for real, wouldn't you be tempted to check it out? Thought so.
Something known as the
Ultimate Fighting Championship has made inroads into boxing's domination of the genre, so much so that I no longer can look the other way. The recent UFC 61 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas played to a sellout crowd of 12,400, with ringside seats going for $750, and generated a live gate of $3.3 million.
Those numbers eclipse Saturday night's HBO PPV rematch of marquee junior middleweights Shane Mosley (43-4, 37 KOs) and Fernando Vargas (26-4, 22 KOs) at Las Vegas' MGM Grand, which Mosley won by sixth-round technical knockout. That bout had a paid attendance of 9,722, with tickets scaled to a high of $800.
To understand how far UFC has come, you have to understand how humbly and controversially it began.
UFC was launched in 1993 with naked brutality as participants gleefully head-butted,
eye-gouged, rabbit-punched and kneed each other in the groin with impunity. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has
authored several bills to reform pro boxing, dismissed UFC as "human cock-fighting'' and
openly called for its abolishment.
But what had been widely viewed as a disreputable activity began to change in 2001, when the Nevada State Athletic Commission took note of safety changes enacted by UFC and voted to sanction matches.
Lorenzo Fertitta - a former member of the Nevada commission - sank a chunk of his personal fortune into rescuing the foundering enterprise, as did his brother, Frank, and Boston entrepreneur Dana White, who now serves as UFC president. The money men spiffied up UFC's image by restricting some of the more violent and marginally legal blows, while maintaining its intriguing composite of martial arts, boxing and wrestling.
But UFC - which has sponsored functions at the last two Boxing Writers Association of America awards dinners in Las Vegas - went even more mainstream with the recent hiring of Marc Ratner, the much-respected former executive director of the NSAC, and John Mulkey, a former managing director at Wachovia Securities.
UFC already is sanctioned in more than 20 states (Pennsylvania is not yet among them), and it gets steady television exposure via its relationship with cable network Spike. Some UFC fighters have seven-figure annual incomes, and they're as recognizable as rock stars to fans who consider the sport a quicker-paced alternative to boxing.
"Ten years ago, [no state
athletic commission] wanted to approve UFC because of its
no-holds-barred, anything-goes message,'' Ratner said. "That's no longer the case. We have weight classes now. We have rounds. We have judges.
"UFC is still an acquired taste, but more and more people are acquiring that taste. I believe the future is all blue skies.''
UFC 62, by the way, is scheduled for Aug. 26 at the Mandalay Bay. UFC lightweight champion Chuck Liddell and challenger Renaldo Sobral top the bill.
That's chump change compared what it's given back to them. 
