2008 Woodie Awards
Ultimate Fighting Rapidly Climbing The Ranks
Jake Goldberg
Issue date: 9/12/07 Section: Sports
Mid-afternoon Saturday I made the decision I would not be heading out into the UConn night, but instead I would have some friends over and watch the Ultimate Fighting Championships. It turned out to be a brilliant call because the UFC, looking to ride the wave of its recent mass popularity, placed a tremendous line up of fights, all for free.
With its fresh acquisition of Pride Fighting Championships - its biggest rival company - the UFC has, for all intensive purposes, monopolized the mixed martial arts world. From here on out with so many good fighters and limited organizations to ruin the sport. All they have to do is not follow what boxing has done from the early 80s to now. They have clearly set themselves up for future success.
Now that the UFC has two sets of champions, it is in the process of unifying the belts and putting Pride's best fighters against its own. For a fight junky, this fix will last for a long time.
The UFC does one thing extremely well, and that is to fill a primal urge to watch a real fight. Inside of a cage, two men square off to either knock the other one out or make them submit. It is something you have to see in order to understand the raw energy that comes soaring through the television. There are five rounds and as each progressive minute passes you move closer to the edge of your seat.
Located in London, the fight brought out some of the most rabid fans that I have ever seen. As the night went on they almost impossibly got louder, like a wave building size and momentum. The crowd could have gone without seats because from what I saw they didn't use them. This was the biggest crowd to see any sort of fight since the mid 1990's. They clearly wanted blood.
Wasting no time what-so-ever with the first fight Houston Alexander had announcer Mike Goldberg screaming, "That dude is violent" due to his first round knockout. Alexander is quite literally a wrecking ball of a man that continues to crash into you until there's nothing left. The fight left most of my friends gasping for air after screaming at the TV for three to four minutes.
With its fresh acquisition of Pride Fighting Championships - its biggest rival company - the UFC has, for all intensive purposes, monopolized the mixed martial arts world. From here on out with so many good fighters and limited organizations to ruin the sport. All they have to do is not follow what boxing has done from the early 80s to now. They have clearly set themselves up for future success.
Now that the UFC has two sets of champions, it is in the process of unifying the belts and putting Pride's best fighters against its own. For a fight junky, this fix will last for a long time.
The UFC does one thing extremely well, and that is to fill a primal urge to watch a real fight. Inside of a cage, two men square off to either knock the other one out or make them submit. It is something you have to see in order to understand the raw energy that comes soaring through the television. There are five rounds and as each progressive minute passes you move closer to the edge of your seat.
Located in London, the fight brought out some of the most rabid fans that I have ever seen. As the night went on they almost impossibly got louder, like a wave building size and momentum. The crowd could have gone without seats because from what I saw they didn't use them. This was the biggest crowd to see any sort of fight since the mid 1990's. They clearly wanted blood.
Wasting no time what-so-ever with the first fight Houston Alexander had announcer Mike Goldberg screaming, "That dude is violent" due to his first round knockout. Alexander is quite literally a wrecking ball of a man that continues to crash into you until there's nothing left. The fight left most of my friends gasping for air after screaming at the TV for three to four minutes.
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