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Columnist Dean Juipe: Fans, if not critics, like martial arts

There they are, in the same arena, one night apart, available for all to see.

One will attract a bloodthirsty crowd that won't try to disguise its lust. It will want to see men paired in physical struggles that call to mind "death matches" and bitter fights to the end.

The other will draw a crowd that at least outwardly will be more civil, while its members quietly hope to see a little blood spilled in the course of the action.

Tonight at the MGM Grand Garden it's another round of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, while Saturday in the same building it's a boxing card of some repute that features Kostya Tszyu vs. Zab Judah for the unified world championship at 140 pounds.

Guess which event will outdraw the other.

While neither is going to be a sellout, the mixed martial arts card figures to pull in around 7,000 customers. Ideally, from the MGM's perspective, many, if not most, of those in attendance are said to be coming from Southern California and will also be renting rooms and dining and gambling within the mammoth facility.

The boxing card one night later is hoping for 6,000 in ticket sales that will largely be purchased by locals. But something closer to 4,500 might be more accurate based on current projections.

Yes, the boxing card will also be up against Game 6 of the World Series, yet that's a minor factor. (It will also be up against something called the World Fighting Alliance, another mixed martial arts offshoot, that will be in the Hard Rock that same night.)

The dilemma from a traditional sportsman's perspective is apparent: Boxing is something of an ancient sport and has at least a recognizable structure and merits a certain level of coverage, while the proliferation of mixed martial arts events is befuddling at best and downright confusing given their diversity and splintered proponents. Yet what does it say if mixed martial arts is going to outdraw boxing?

Of course pro wrestling has been outdrawing boxing for years and we in the newspaper business still manage to ignore it. That's a fact that the publicists handling mixed martial arts are very much aware, and they've been politely insistent that their sport is legitimate and deserves attention.

They're making inroads, and feature stories like one that appeared in this newspaper on Thursday are becoming more commonplace.

Yet it's hard to welcome a "new" sport that traditionalists have a tendency to despise. In the case of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, its card last month at Mandalay Bay drew such poor reviews and crowd reactions that the organization has tweaked its rules in response.

Henceforth, when combatants are locked in a hold that doesn't lead to a submission and are showing little in the way of advancing the action, the referee will intervene and force them into a clean start.

UFC is a well-financed, big-money operation that spends a fortune on advertising and probably has the best of intentions. It may not be deterred and it won't just go away.

But it still has some convincing to do, and, thus far, the mainstream media would rather lump it in with pro wrestling and ignore it in spite of its widening appeal.

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