And not just because you have dumb (Giants) and dumber (Redskins) as your draw or a squeaky-voiced, cliche-hurling dilletante doing play by play.
Ya see, NFL, while you've been squabbling over nickels and dimes, 1.6 million US households have been quietly plunking down $39.95 to watch a single event that's gonna be on tonight.
No, not a Jenna Jameson career retrospective. (Though you're gettin' warm...)
It's the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight title match between champion Chuck Liddell and challenger Tito Ortiz.
This grudge rematch has taken two years to put together and is likely to put the UFC squarely in the mainstream with the biggest fight (boxing, wrestling or UFC) seen in the last seven years.
For sports purists, ultimate fighting is the lowbrow marriage of boxing and wrestling.
But for its growing legion of fans, this mixed martial arts sport - combining combat disciplines like boxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, taekwondo and judo - is a bloody ballet, a breathtaking confluence of brutality and beauty, outrage and honor.
Its growth in popularity is simply staggering. Over the last year, each WFC Pay Per View event has literally doubled in viewership. Just this October, according to Nielsen ratings, 1,598,000 males 18-34 watched the Ortiz-Shamrock III match. On that same night in that same age bracket, only 1,223,000 watched Game 1 of the World Series.
The times they are a-changin'.
Dave Melzer of the the Los Angeles Times traces the brief and turbulent history of WFC, while Dave Doyle of FoxSports.com explains why this new sport has exploded in popularity and why you might wanna pony up and watch tonight.
Has he convinced us to push "Buy and Record"?
Hmmmm..... Eli Manning versus Jason Campbell, no Jeremy Shockey to kick around, more Pouting Plexico... or:
Hell, think we're gonna live the stereotype and watch a Gray's Anatomy rerun.
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