Don't hate me, but I want to see this.

Update, 5:59 p.m.: I remember seeing my first UFC event several years ago when Galley Brother B.J. and I went looking for a rainy-afternoon video at the non-Blockbuster in town. Intrigued, we picked up the first Ultimate Fighting tournament and sat, mesmerized as we saw a series of fights, none lasting much longer than a minute, where big, tough guys from different disciplines beat the tar out of each other. I could hear Bill Bennett scowling, but let's be honest: UFC was a revelation.

The biggest shock was watching Royce Gracie, this little Brazilian bad-ass who weighed, maybe, 170 lbs. win the damn thing. The next day we returned to the video store and picked up the second tournament on DVD. Gracie won that one, too. In the course of these two tournaments, he wailed on guys much, much bigger, meaner, and scarier looking, mainly by absorbing punishment and then choking them into submission.

But now it looks like the UFC is being domesticated. The new show on Spike, for instance, has weight classes. But that was part of the original appeal of UFC: What does it look like when two grossly mismatched fighters collide, and how do they adjust to the speed and weight disparity?

I'm sure this stuff should be banned, but it's awfully hard to resist.