Dethroned!

Congratulations to George St. Pierre, the new welterweight UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) champion. Saturday evening "Rush" displaced Matt Hughes, who possessed that title for the better part of the last 4 or 5 years. Oddly enough, at the previous UFC event (#64), Rich Franklin in the middleweight (< 185 lb) division was also dethroned after holding the belt for over a year.

It was probably about 13 years ago or so that I started watching the Ultimate Fighting Competition. My friend Shawn and I would rent them on VHS, then eat two PB&J's and a big glass of milk each while watching them. It was a tradition of sorts. Back then there were little or no rules, no weight classes, and some of the participants were little more than bar brawlers, and hardly anyone knew about it.

The event itself has come a long way since those early days, and now I know that the UFC is actually part of a much larger sport called mixed martial arts (MMA). Today it's sanctioned by numerous state's athletic commissions, there are clearly defined rules and weight classes, and the participants have been training for the better part of their lives in multiple martial arts disciplines. And thanks in no small part to The Ultimate Fighter reality series on SpikeTV, the UFC event has grown fairly popular here in the U.S. Maybe there's hope for the manliness of America's men after all.