Move Over Boxing...UFC is Here

I can't remember the last professional boxing match I really WANTED to see...it had to be years ago for certain. I don't know if it was Mike Tyson's making a mockery of things or if it was that every recent heavy weight that comes to mind spends more time clutching than punching and honestly I don't care. As boxing was making it's laborious decline (much like all of it's heavyweight fighters) there was a new form of fighting coming around far more exciting and far more appealing to those of us who used to love boxing. The Ultimate Fighter Championship couldn't have come along at a better time.
In the beginning, these cage / octagon matches were relegated to pay per view and the promotion and production was pretty bad. In it's early stages, the sport was dominated by "submission" style fighters, though many of them talented (Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie to name a couple), they were sometimes as boring to watch as the sport they were trying to overtake. In the mid 1990's the UFC as a whole almost faded completely. Pressure from many political figures regarding the brutality of the sport nearly saw the UFC banned in all 50 states. The UFC regrouped however and began working closely to get the sport state sanctioning by implementing weight classes, adding some rules with regard to the types of strikes that would and would not be allowed and making gloves a mandatory part of the sport.
It was at this time that new ownership of the UFC came into play. With the new rules and some savvy marketing in place the sport began to make a major comeback. As it stands today, The UFC broke the pay-per-view industry's all-time record for a single year of business, generating over $222,766,000 in revenue during 2006. This figure eclipsed the numbers put up by both boxing and WWE Wrestling.
The fighters are real, well versed in many styles of fighting and the matches seldom bore. There are enough good fighters who specialize in the different MMA styles to keep all fans interested and the pitting of a good wrestler against a good striker is almost ALWAYS a great fight to wacth. With a regular weekly show on Spike TV along with the pay per view and their Ultimate Fighter reality TV show, this sport is one that has a little something for everyone. For those of us who love to see a guy get clocked good every now and then...well it's got a LOT of that too.