Ultimate Fighting battles for a mainstream role

By David Brown

AS fans of the Ultimate Fighting Championship enter Toyota Center on Saturday night, they will hunger and thirst for action, athleticism and, truth be told, a chance to see some good, healthy bloodletting.

In exchange for the admission fee, which tops out at $450 per ticket, they also will absorb a considerable dose of irony, contradiction and, if they pay attention, genuine humanity.

It's the former that enables UFC, which will show its Shootout fight card from Houston to a worldwide pay-per-view audience, to attract young men who lust for something beyond the scripted pyrotechnics of professional wrestling.

It's the latter that elevates it from cult status to a well-targeted marketing machine with the potential to become a mainstream athletics/entertainment product for the new millennium.

"They have struck the optimal balance regarding what is acceptable," said David Carter, executive director of USC's Sports Business Institute. "They are straddling that line between athleticism, raw emotion and violence with acceptability at the highest level, and that is no easy thing to have done."

The Houston card represents one of the first major steps by the privately held Ultimate Fighting Championship series outside its Las Vegas stronghold. Recent events in Sacramento, Anaheim, Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, drew from 13,000 to 19,000 fans, with gate revenue topping $2.5 million per event. Industry sources have estimated pay-per-view buys for recent events at 600,000 to 775,000.

Though this will be UFC's first event in Houston, local television ratings for mixed martial arts, which combines a half-dozen fighting disciplines, have exceeded the national average by as much as 25 percent.

Houston was the lone top-10 Nielsen market among the top eight markets for last year's UFC The Ultimate Fighter 4 series on Spike TV. KTXH (Channel 20) ranked first in the nation among MyNetworkTV network affiliates for last week's show featuring the International Fight League, which also airs on FSN Houston.

Looks can be deceiving
Clearly, local fans, particularly those among the coveted men's 18-34 demographic, enjoy the hit-and-hit-back basics of UFC and its brethren.

Others are intrigued by its contradictions. It is permissible, for example, for UFC fighters to kick or punch a fallen opponent. But fighters can be penalized for cursing within the octagon — the caged, eight-sided field of play.

Though they assume the mantle of the ancient gladiator, 85 percent of UFC's fighters, according to company president and former amateur boxer Dana White, are college graduates, including perhaps UFC's highest-profile fighter, Chuck Liddell.

"(Liddell) looks like an ax murderer," White said. "He's got the Mohawk and Chinese writing on the side of his head, but he graduated from Cal Poly with an accounting degree.

"Boxing is the same old story: 'I came from the mean streets, and if it weren't for boxing, I'd be dead.' Chuck's story is, 'I'm the baddest man on the planet, and if not for this sport, I'd be an accountant.' "

Jay Glazer, an analyst for Fox Sports' NFL coverage and, until two years ago, a frequent participant in mixed martial arts bouts, said UFC fighters pummel each other, then go out for drinks and dinner.

"It sounds crazy, but it's something of a gentlemen's game," Glazer said. "This is not crazy guys getting off barstools and beating each other up.

"It's one big contradiction. The fighters are so classy. And then they do things with their bodies that bodies are not made to do."

'Safer than boxing'
While UFC retains some of the dangerous allure of its old "car wreck" image, White acknowledges that the illusion of maximum violence is greater than the reality, thanks to new rules that have won sanctioning approval from 19 states, plus the District of Columbia and two licensed casinos in Connecticut.

"It's a combat sport, so anything can happen," he said, "but it's a lot safer than the perception. It's a lot safer than boxing."

It's still hard, physical combat. And while some fighters may not punch or kick as hard as specialists in a given art, Glazer said the sum of their skills creates an open-ended sport that can stand as a distinct discipline.

"Martial arts are generally very structured," Glazer said. "This sport is evolving. You have to put it together. You have to be good with your hands. You have to be good on the ground. Boxing is about finding your rhythm. There's no rhythm to this. It's a sprint."

For those who blanch at the sight of a UFC fighter punching a fallen opponent, Glazer said: "It's less damaging than boxing. If you're on the ground, you can't rotate your hips or legs (for leverage). It looks bad, but it's not.

"I'm not going to tell you that it isn't brutal. But so is football."

White said the average UFC fan is an 18- to 34-year-old male earning about $72,000 per year. Through its 40 or so live or televised cards and its eight shows on Spike TV, led by The Ultimate Fighter reality series, UFC is seen by White as a home for World Wrestling Entertainment fans when they grow up.

Big dose of reality
"When you're a kid, there's nothing cooler than the WWE," White said. "When you turn 16, 17, you want to see real fighting.

"The WWE has been able to create characters that people love or hate. In the UFC, these people you love or hate are real. Their stories are real, not fabricated. Then, when it comes down to the fighting, we have all the entertainment value you could want."

HBO Sports, one of the few channels that still features boxing, also is in talks with UFC for a regular series. Enthusiasm for UFC, however, is not universal within that network.

Jim Lampley, HBO's lead boxing announcer, said that if mixed martial arts fights are perceived to be more violent and, thus, more attractive than boxing matches, "it's because these fighters don't have anywhere near the defensive craft and artistry that boxers have."

Carter, however, said UFC fighters "may not be the best (in an individual discipline), but when you think about the idea of the best athlete available, it's undeniable that they're among the best. Their conditioning is great, and their skill set is off the charts."

Las Vegas partners
Just as NASCAR outgrew its outsider origins, White thinks UFC will transcend its current 18-to-34 footprint.

"There's a lot we can do to become more mainstream," White said. "People say we're mainstream now. We're not even close. We haven't scratched the surface."

White, for example, thinks mixed martial arts can become an Olympic event.

White's partners, Las Vegas casino owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, paid $2 million for UFC six years ago and subsequently invested $44 million. The company began turning a profit off operations eight months ago and this month paid what The Associated Press reported to be $70 million to acquire its main rival, the Japan-based Pride circuit.

White hopes within a year to organize a "World Series or Super Bowl" for fighters from the two leagues. He would like to see mixed martial arts become an Olympic sport. He hopes to win sanctioning approval from more states, and he plans to continue the course that has worked so far.

"Something new can be scary," White said, but as you educate yourself, you realize that we're dealing with gifted, talented athletes — normal guys with families."