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Article Excerpt
LAST DECEMBER AT Ultimate Fighting Championship 66, in the first round of a many-holds-barred, mixed martial arts grudge match between the evenly weighted gladiators Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, the former floored the latter with a gloved right hook that had been fully sanctioned by the Nevada Athletic Commission. Bleeding from a gash over his eye, his back pressed into the ring's padded canvas, Ortiz bit down hard on his physician-approved mouthpiece and used his legs to ward off further blows from Liddell, who carefully refrained from striking his opponent's throat, attacking his groin, or intentionally inserting a finger into any of his orifices.
The Las Vegas crowd went nuts over the scrupulously regulated assault. At home, more than I million viewers spent $39.95 apiece to watch the match on pay-per-view TV.
A decade ago, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other legislative strongmen had choked the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) into near-submission. Nearly 40 states banned mixed martial arts events. The cable industry, over which McCain exercised considerable influence as the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, took note too. In 1997 TCI and Time Warner stopped carrying UFC pay-per-view events on their systems. Semaphore Entertainment Group, the company that...
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