Baseball may be America’s pastime and football is unquestionably the University’s raison d’etre, but Ultimate Fighting is what people around the country are actually talking about. And, judging by this weekend’s Pay-Per-View, it’s not going anywhere for a while. That’s right, dear readers, your intrepid and sassy opinion columnist took a walk on the wild side Saturday night, sampling the best of the blood sport in Baton Rouge’s premier sports bar. Disclaimer: I’m a tried and true fan – since UFC’s first PPV in 1993 when my dad decided to try something different than boxing on a Friday night. I’m going to watch no matter what. But my new game is spreading the good news and bringing friends along for the ride. This Saturday night was no exception – the show was fun and everyone had a good time. My friends are hooked, and you should be too. If you haven’t given the UFC a shot before, you’ve probably heard the critiques: “It’s human cockfighting!” “They’re in a cage!” “They wear tiny, tiny pants!” Shenanigans, I say. It’s not human cockfighting, and the fights are in an octagon. Some of them do wear tiny, tiny pants, though. Attire aside, the Ultimate Fighting Championships – the world’s biggest Mixed Martial Arts promotion and generally what you’re talking about when discussing MMA in America – combines the rivalries and personalities of professional wrestling with a complete avoidance of wrestling’s biggest downside to sports fans – it’s real. The fights aren’t fixed, and watching it doesn’t make your average straight guy feel kind of gay. Granted, there’s a certain amount of homoeroticism inherent in watching two oiled-up men attempt to impose their wills upon each other, but they’re also throwing roundhouses like Chuck Norris in a nunnery. Saying the fights aren’t fixed isn’t the same as saying they aren’t predetermined; the UFC, much like boxing, books mismatches. The Vegas oddsmakers can, generally speaking, predict the winners with a fair amount of accuracy. So can an MMA promoter, and the UFC does this to great effect – even when things don’t go according to plan and the underdogs win. Everyone pulls for the little guy. Unlike boxing in recent history, the UFC can create a star in a matter of minutes. If you don’t believe me, just watch Spike TV’s “The Ultimate Fighter” on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. Ostensibly a reality show, “The Ultimate Fighter” is the smartest marketing tool the fight game has to offer. It’s directly responsible for the UFC’s current spate of popularity – without this show and the star making fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar at the season one finale, Champps would have been empty this past Saturday night. Fight fans would have had nothing to do. And that would have made me a sad panda. Star making isn’t a science, but when it works, the UFC can make fighters marketable – building both a fan base and an audience. Ideally, this leads to fighters having exciting fights or, alternatively, fights people are excited about – and everyone who saw this past year’s rematch between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock knows there is a difference. This is simply smart event promotion. If an audience cares about a fighter, they’ll care about the fights. Judging from the PPV buyrates, the UFC’s succeeding in spades. All of this speaks to why now is the time to give our modern gladiators the time of day – 2007 has been the year of the upset. More importantly, with the Writers Guild of America strike, CBS is reportedly looking to bring the UFC to prime-time network television this coming Super Bowl weekend. CBS knows where the money is, especially with the strike having no end in sight. Barring the production of new scripted television, networks have to turn elsewhere to fill the airwaves. The UFC is a good alternative, giving fans the “Holy Crap!” moment of either a knockout or submission. It’s a human chess match. Body movements replace chess pieces. An arm movement of half an inch can result in a submission hold or knockout – a checkmate that can break bones or scramble someone’s brains, admittedly – but no one’s ever said Bobby Fischer couldn’t be hardcore too. The game theory is subtle and immediately identifiable by anyone who makes the effort to think about what’s going on. And while all this pseudo-intellectual wankery is great, what’s most important is this – Ultimate Fighting is fun to watch. There’s strategy for the football and baseball fans, and knockouts for the boxing marks. And for the ladies who think the above is just more macho posturing about tired sports, I offer a caveat: if the clientele at Champps on Saturday is any indication, the UFC is surprisingly popular with the hot girls. It must be the tiny, tiny pants.
—Contact Neal Hebert at [email protected]
Ultimate Fighting chokes out prime-time television
By Neal Hebert
November 20, 2007