MMA on cover of Sports Illustrated this week.

**Akuma Kanji** · 05-23-2007, 01:59 PM

Mainstream status is no longer in any dispute, is it?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/magazine/cover/

Saturday night was all right for fighting. But the pageantry for the 69th card in the Ultimate Fighting Championship's tough-and-rumble existence began much earlier that week. Long before the fighters unhinged the latch of the steel Octagon on April 7 and fought on a card titled UFC 69: Shootout, thousands of fans had converged on Houston, tribalists on a pilgrimage. The prefight weigh-ins drew massive crowds. The line for the fighters' autograph show wreathed the girth of the Toyota Center, the venue for UFC 69. The downtown bars and restaurants were overrun by fight fans.

Some were your typical badasses, lacking a full complement of teeth, wearing shirts adorned with messages the likes of fight me, i'm irish. But most were like Romeo Nava, 26, an aircraft mechanic from Edinburg, Texas. Nava and two buddies had gotten up at an ungodly hour the morning of the fights and made the five-hour drive through dust-choked towns to get to Houston early. They'd each paid $250 for the seats and considered neither the early wake-up nor the ticket price a sacrifice. In another era three amigos from the guts of Texas would have made such a road trip for an Aerosmith concert or an NFL game. But now ... "pretty much everyone I know is into UFC," says Nava. "You get an adrenaline rush even watching it."

The sport of mixed martial arts (MMA), of which Ultimate Fighting Championship is the most popular enterprise, has penetrated the defense of the mainstream and applied a choke hold to that golden 18-to-34 male demographic. The UFC's weekly reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, on Spike TV, often eclipses the television ratings of the NBA and baseball playoffs in that target audience. The names of UFC fighters are some of the most popular entries in Internet search engines come fight time. UFC events do bigger pay-per-view numbers than any pro wrestling event or boxing card this side of Mayweather-De La Hoya. (UFC's 2006 PPV revenues were almost $223 million, compared with $177 million for boxing on HBO and $200 million for WWE.)....

more at: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200.../ultimate0528/

crocoppertones · 05-23-2007, 02:18 PM

good stuff.
The medias still stuck on the "too brutal" bs
and I'd expect more from SI, but its progress nontheless

Bored · 05-23-2007, 02:18 PM

Good read. Thanks.

mantecabros · 05-23-2007, 02:23 PM

nice find

**Akuma Kanji** · 05-23-2007, 02:28 PM

At the end there is a poignant comment:

"...stayed up all night arguing about fights, speculating on match ups and making arrangements to meet up at future cards. This went beyond voyeurism and bloodlust. In fact, there is a term for this breed of zealots. Sports fans, we call them."

Thanks, I guess. We're normal now?

cCmadskills · 05-23-2007, 02:28 PM

Normal like a fox!

shidokanartist · 05-23-2007, 02:36 PM

Thanks for posting that. I'm absolutely amazed at how this has caught on. I fully expected this level of fandom, but i figured it would take 5-8 years to get where it's gotten in the last TWO!

GetYaShinebox · 05-23-2007, 02:38 PM

First the Chuck on ESPN the mag, now this. Good stuff.

**Akuma Kanji** · 05-23-2007, 02:42 PM

totally, shido. I mean now that these folks are waking up (in the entrenched boxing nuthugging world of SI) the sport is only going to get more and more respect. Sure they'll be dumb kids who don't know shit running around and such. But among corporations and sponsors - there will be huge support. And thay means $ for fighters (eventually).

This article hit all the right notes:
1. world class athletes
2. sport not spectacle
3. fastest growing
4. atheletes are educated family men
5. fans are regular people.

In the end...good for the sport.

shidokanartist · 05-23-2007, 02:43 PM

.....whereas you and I......bad for the sport.