From the Sports Ed's desk

Saturday’s UFC event on FOX was clearly a step up from the first primetime spectacle. The first UFC fight on FOX lasted an hour but there was only one fight and Cain Velasquez was knocked out by Junior Dos Santos in 1 minute, 4 seconds.

That’s 58 minutes and 56 seconds of talking and commercials for 64 seconds of actual fighting. Not exactly awesome TV.

But Saturday was clearly a step up with three fights and two pretty good ones with Chael Sonnen and Rashad Evans each winning decisions after competitive fights. Neither fight was an amazing, stunning display, but they were solid fights. To hardcore fans who built up the sports popularity on SPIKE TV, it was probably pretty entertaining. But do mainstream fans care?

The big questions is can MMA, through FOX’s promotion, reach the lofty heights of MLB? NFL? Even NASCAR or PGA?

Some would argue the sport is just as big as NASCAR or pro golf already.

If UFC on FOX doesn’t quite work out the way Dana White hopes it will, the sport isn’t going to die. It’s a resilient spectacle. In the mid-1990s when politicans were pushing it completely out of the country, hardcore fans kept clamoring for it and it came back.

FOX has sort of gambled on this venture with showing UFC fights on Saturday nights and pumping it up like big-time college football. It could very well pay off, but it might not. Saturday’s fights were good, but will they bring in fans from the outside looking in?

It should be fun to watch how this turns out.

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