First, context. Because my opinion of UFC is extreme -- I consider it barbaric and hope that it loses popularity and ultimately fails. You can make billions of dollars manufacturing and marketing cigarettes, and misguiding the public about their dangers, too. That doesn't mean I'm going to stand up and cheer the tobacco industry. MLB still can get rid of "smokeless tobacco" because of all the players who are addicted to it. So, don't try to sell me on UFC and MMA because it is "successful" or because "people will watch it." There's never been a hideous highway accident that didn't draw gawkers. Or a huge fire. The list goes on and on.

So, the context -- in my case, at least.

I was the Post's local and national boxing writer for quite a few years, mostly in the '80's -- from the locals gyms up through Sugar Ray Leonard title fights (and a couple of Ali fights, etc.)

I'd cover fighters (at DC Armory) who'd win, make $400 and tell me afterwards that the purse wouldn't cover the price of their dental bills. I'd talk to men in their 40's who were already "punch drunk." I always had deep qualms about covering boxing -- something I never felt with any other sport, or at least not to anything like the same degree.

The "competition" for the sport I most wished would diminish or go away was Unlimited Hydroplane Racing. I covered hydroplane racing (essentially boats with jet engines that raced on water) back in those days. One day, a man in the sport showed me a group picture of the hydroplane racers from a somewhat earlier era -- maybe 15 years earlier. According to him, about a THIRD of the drivers in the photo were dead -- killed in hydroplane accidents. Regardless of the exact percentage, hydroplane racing was almost insanely dangerous -- boats would essentially flip, fly through the air and blow up when they hit the water at far over 100 mph. Yet every years hundreds of thousands lined the Potomac River along Haynes Point to watch the Presidents Cup Regatta.

I don't consider UFC a "sport." I consider it a brawl in a maximum security prison yard. And I bet plenty of people would watch that, too.

Good luck with the $4B. I hope the people who promote the sport and make a buck off it CHOKE on it. As for the fighters themselves, I feel as I did for the boxers. Sympathy, fingers crossed for them to survive to the degree they can and an understanding -- case by case -- of why being a prize fighter fit their lives. But every UFC or MMA fight that I have ever watched was far more violent than boxing.

Everybody has their own "lines" that they don't cross. There are people who go to dog fights. I obviously wouldn't. There are also people who won't go to football games because of the concussion and injury issues. I would and I do.

In other words, where is my line? There are several sports in the Winter Olympics where, over time, there have been people killed -- luge, bobsled, downhill skiing and ski jumping among them. I'm fascinated by the people in those sports and have interviewed quite a few; they don't cross my personal "line." One MLB player has been killed (by a bean ball about 90 years ago).

So, there are gray areas. Life's dangerous.

But, for me, UFC is FAR over my line.

And I wish the sport all the worst, but those who participate in it all the best. And, no, it is highly unlikely that you will ever see a column on this subject -- because you are publicizing it not matter how you treat the subject -- from me. Should we, in some manner, cover it. Yes, I suppose so.

But just because something comes into existence, then makes money, is no reason to assume that "it must be OK."