The time is at hand. It's here. Right now. And when the rapture arrives in full and you're asked for a personal accounting, what will you say?
That you denied the UFC?
Or that you were a believer?
Because it's coming. Now. Get on board, or get left behind. Your call.
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| Will Fedor Emelianenko's international appeal translate into a mainstream following in the U.S.? (Getty Images) |
Kimbo Slice. Fedor Emelianenko. The UFC. Those are the three biggest names in mixed martial arts -- and hardcore MMA fans, forgive me. You know, and I know, that Kimbo Slice doesn't belong on the MMA marquee. Hell, none of us can be sure that he belongs in MMA at all. But he's officially trying out for the UFC, joining the cast of Spike TV's The Ultimate Fighter, being filmed now in Las Vegas.
And Slice is that big. Whether we like it or not, his name looks good in lights -- sort of like Barnum and Bailey once touted the four-legged woman and Jo-Jo, The Dog-Faced Boy. Were those creatures real? No clue. But did they draw? They damn sure did.
Kimbo draws, and maybe he's even real. We'll find out. TUF 10 will be unveiled in September, and millions of people who wouldn't have tuned in otherwise, well, they'll tune in to watch Slice. Because he's fascinating. Is he good at MMA? We'll find out. But he's definitely good at attracting an audience. His street fights on YouTube drew more than 250 million page views.
Slice's alliance with EliteXC put MMA on a network in prime time for the first time in the sport's history, but it was the wrong MMA outfit. EliteXC was a joke, bogged down by an idiot promoter who thought he could fool veteran fight fans, and attract the uninitiated, with circus fights and carnival fight entrances. And wherever there was a hole in its show, EliteXC tried to spackle it with T-and-A. Not even sure why it called itself EliteXC. Should have been EliteTnA.
A prime-time show on network TV was an honor that would have best served the sport had it been given to the UFC. There are fight fans who would disagree vehemently with this, but the UFC is MMA. To many people -- not to hard-core fans, but still, to many people -- they are interchangeable acronyms. There are non-fight fans who have heard of "MMA" and also have heard of "the UFC" ... and think they are one and the same. And so they are. Because perception is reality.
The UFC doesn't have all of the world's best fighters, but it has more than anyone else. The UFC is the NFL. Everyone else is an upstart wannabe, like the USFL, and that includes Strikeforce, which put on a UFC-caliber show this weekend -- you're damn right, I watched -- but wouldn't be able to follow it up with another great show any time soon. The UFC has enough world-class fighters to put on a great show every week, and maybe someday it will. Every week. Imagine that.
That's where we're headed, with the UFC about to move completely off the fringe and into the mainstream. Till now, the progression has been modest, if unmistakable. The UFC is approaching its 100th fight card, UFC 100 on July 11, and PPV sales remain robust and arenas still sell out. In the main demographic for sports fans, males between 18-49, the TUF reality show on Spike regularly outdraws every other sports show on cable, including the NBA on ESPN. Read that sentence again.
EliteXC went on CBS, and 6.5 million people watched Kimbo Slice's 14-second loss to Seth Petruzelli. In the last two years, Sports Illustrated has put a UFC fighter (Roger Huerta) on the cover, ESPN.com has created an online MMA show and ESPN The Magazine has devoted two covers to an MMA fighter. One was the UFC's Chuck Liddell. The other was Kimbo Slice.
Even without Fedor Emelianenko's help, the sport has been growing in this country. And here he comes. He's still something of a curiosity in the United States, having fought most of his career in Japan and coming to America under the lesser Affliction promotion, but word of Fedor's talents -- his unbelievable striking and clinical submission game -- is spreading beyond the hard-core. After destroying former UFC heavyweight champions Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia in a total of 3 minutes and 50 seconds, Fedor will make his third -- and reportedly final -- appearance for Affliction in August against Josh Barnett.
And then Fedor becomes a free agent.
And the UFC will gobble him up. It almost happened last week, if you believe the crux of this blog item from CBSSports.com's Denny Burkholder, which I do.
UFC president Dana White will make it happen with Fedor for the same reason he brought Kimbo Slice into the fold: It's a financial no-brainer. Dana White can smell money like an aardvark can smell ants.
The progression of the UFC/MMA has been unmistakable -- and modest -- until now, but when Kimbo hits cable television once a week and Fedor joins the UFC, modesty goes out the window. The sport's still-growing fan base could conceivably double, and when that happens, bigger media outlets will insist on getting a piece of this pie.
And when the UFC finally makes a deal with a major TV network -- please, let it be CBS -- everyone will see the magic of MMA for themselves. Even the non-believers. You stupid freaking Pharisees ...
