Last Thursday, the Fox network signed a multi-year deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship that includes fights that will be shown on Fox and its cable partners FX and Fuel TV.

The first big event will take place Nov. 12, which will be shown on FOX. This weekend the UFC has a pay-per-view event in Brazil, but the Nov. 12 card on FOX has not been announced as of Tuesday.

MMA is one of my favorite sports to view either in person or on television, however in the past few months I have been out of the loop for many reasons. At the same time, this deal has peaked my interest back into one of the fastest growing sports in the world.

Of course, there are the naysayers out there, who do not like the sport for many reasons.

It is too violent, fighters act like idiots, etc.

Most of them are just likely say similar things about auto racing fans, but ususally they only base their opinions on what they hear instead of actually taking the time to learn the sport. Just like people who say, auto racing fans only watch for the crashes; those same people think MMA fans just want to see blood.

That is not true. In the past few years, Murfreesboro has played host to several MMA events. It is a lot better in person than on TV.

It’s basically a chess match in the cage.

For example, one fighter might be a great striker and wants to trade blows standing up. However, their opponent might have some wrestling experience and it wants to take it the ground. That’s what makes the sport very entertaining to watch.

I have covered three of the Murfreesboro events for different publications around the area, and to be quite honest I hardly saw any blood.

The fights were still entertaining to watch without all of the blood and guts that non-fans believe happen in every fight. However, their have been those fights that made me uncomfortable to watch because of all of the blood, but hey that is part of the sport.

As for the fighters themselves, they are actually some of my favorite athletes to interview. It’s not one of those things were their quote at the end of the night was: “Man, I just whipped his butt.” They are like most of the other athletes; I get a chance to speak to. They are very well-spoken and they treat the craft like all of the athletes in the so-called traditional sports do in terms of wanting to be the best.

However, there are exceptions like last February during MMA fight at the Murphy Center. Former reality television star, Jeremiah “Big Rig” Riggs acted like a total idiot after his win over Eric Slocum. He flipped off the crowd, because they were booing him since he used some illegal low blows during the fight. His post fight interview was not any better, because he made some disrespectful comments about women.  However, he did dedicate the win to his mother who just had surgery.

However, those are the type of fighters that will turn people away from the sport. However, organizations like the UFC and others have done everything in their power to prevent indents like that from happening.

So in a couple of months, I can not wait to see what unfolds on national television. Hopefully, it will take the sport in the right direction and I think it will.