Coming up small

With the NBA Playoffs lacking sizzle (or steak) and dozens interested in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the lead story on Sportscenter Friday and Saturday was the UFC-71 showdown between Chuck Liddell and Quinton Jackson. Former Fear Factor host and current UFC commentator Joe Rogan debated a boxing expert about the future outlooks of their respective sports before the first commercial break. Chuck Liddell was on the cover of the current issues of ESPN The (awkwardly large) Magazine and Sports Illustrated. He was a guest star on a recent episode of Entourage. The message was the UFC has arrived, and that MMA, or mixed martial arts, had passed boxing (and of course hockey), especially in the eyes of teens and twenty-somethings.

But, as is so often the case in boxing, the fight failed to come close to delivering. Jackson knocked out Liddell under two minutes in, forcing the ref to stop the fight. I've been trying all weekend to come up with a major sports parallel scenario and the best I could come up with is if Michigan State/Indiana State would have been a boring rout with Magic and Bird coming up small, but at least the game still would have been 40 minutes long. And then you could change the channel, because you wouldn't have spent $50 for the right to see it. But that's the problem with having MMA and boxing on pay per view: if you have a dud of a match thousands of people are turned off of paying to see a potential stinker again.