Bleeding into the mainstream: how John McCain popularized human cockfighting.

• Author: Beato, Greg
• Position: Columns - Ultimate Fighting Championship

LAST DECEMBER AT Ultimate Fighting Championship 66, in the first round of a many-holds-barred, mixed martial arts grudge match between the evenly weighted gladiators Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, the former floored the latter with a gloved right hook that had been fully sanctioned by the Nevada Athletic Commission. Bleeding from a gash over his eye, his back pressed into the ring's padded canvas, Ortiz bit down hard on his physician-approved mouthpiece and used his legs to ward off further blows from Liddell, who carefully refrained from striking his opponent's throat, attacking his groin, or intentionally inserting a finger into any of his orifices.

The Las Vegas crowd went nuts over the scrupulously regulated assault. At home, more than I million viewers spent $39.95 apiece to watch the match on pay-per-view TV.

A decade ago, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other legislative strongmen had choked the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) into near-submission. Nearly 40 states banned mixed martial arts events. The cable industry, over which McCain exercised considerable influence as the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, took note too. In 1997 TCI and Time Warner stopped carrying UFC pay-per-view events on their systems. Semaphore Entertainment Group, the company that produced UFC, nearly went bankrupt.

When he attacked the UFC, McCain never pushed for rearm; he wanted to eliminate it entirely. But despite its initial image of lawless, bone-crunching mayhem, the UFC ultimately proved quite capable of policing itself. Apparently, the public's interest in the fights was not as base as McCain had perhaps imagined. Today, the UFC is a sanitized, bureaucrafized, more genteelly marketed version of its former self, yet it's also more popular than ever. As much as we like violence, we apparently like it even more when it's tempered by a sense of order.

In its first incarnation, the UFC was a cult phenomenon. Now it's bleeding into the mainstream. In 2006 it outearned boxing and wrestling in the pay-per-view world, taking in more than $222 million. It has spawned video games, a reality TV series, and enough books and magazines to fill a library. Liddell has played himself on HBO's Entourage and graced the cover of ESPN magazine; noted dramaturgical he-man David Mamet is writing and directing a movie about the sport.

It's not the first time Hollywood has taken notice of the spectacle. In 1993, when the UFC made its debut, the bouts took place...