There are a couple things that jump out at you right away about the CamSoda Legends fight card going down in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday night.

The first is that it’s being put on by a porn company, one that specializes in live cam streaming, and it will supposedly incorporate some of that business model’s methods into this new foray into the world of mixed martial arts, though no one seems totally clear on how exactly that will work.

The other thing is the names on the fight card. There’s former UFC heavyweight champion Ricco Rodriguez taking on former UFC middleweight Alex Nicholson. Then there’s former PRIDE veteran and all-around agent of chaos Charles Bennett, who takes on Bruce Lutchmedial.

Between Rodriguez and Bennett you have a combined total of nearly 150 pro MMA fights. You also have two fighters who seem like they’ve reached the point in their careers at which they’d agree to just about anything in order to keep getting paid for stepping in the cage, which might explain how they’ve ended up here.

And that’s another thing they have in common. Ask them both just how they expect tonight’s event to work – promoters have advertised it as a free streaming event, with the option for viewers to “tip” fighters in the much the same way they would with cam models – and they both admit they have no idea.

“I’m going to be honest,” Bennett told MMAjunkie. “All I remember seeing was the numbers on the contract.”

Rodriguez went through a similar thought process. He didn’t even realize CamSoda was a porn company at first, he said. It wasn’t until after he was announced as the headliner that a friend who happens to be a porn actor filled him in.

“I get a lot of strange requests, so I’m just trying to make sure the checks clear,” Rodriguez said. “I have over 80 fights, and a lot of times I’ve had checks not clear. I figured this one, the check would clear because porn has money. Plus, it’ll probably look good, because if you’re paying a young lady to do something inappropriate on the internet, chances are it’s gonna be in (high definition).”

Event promoters aren’t running from the porn association, either. The CamSoda name is splashed everywhere on promotional materials. A press release for the event stressed that the ring girls would also be available as cam girls “as a special bonus” after the fights.

It’s clear what this is supposed to be: a union of MMA and pornography, at least on the same stage and with some of the same payment methods, if not at the same exact time.

Maybe that’s what makes it feel extra exploitative. You take two aging fighters (Rodriguez is 40; Bennett, who is adamant that he no longer be referred to as “Krazy Horse,” is 38) who have just enough name value to get people’s attention, but not so much that they can afford to turn down offers like this one, and you throw them on a live cam stream that was made for porn, seemingly in the hopes that they’ll be willing to try whatever stunts the paying audience demands of them, all for a quick buck.

Not that either fighter seems to have much of a problem with it. Even if it might feel unseemly to some viewers, to these two fighters it feels perfectly comfortable, and maybe even familiar.

“How do I feel about it?” Bennett said. “Fighters are getting paid. And I’m trying to get into porn, so I like it. I want to do (expletive) porn when this is over. I would love to be on webcam so they can hit that button and throw a few dollars every time I hit that (expletive) in his head. I want to take this (expletive) down and try to end this fight by slapping him multiple times. Tell the people they can pay me to do that.”

As for Rodriguez, his plan is to go from this event to a state-sanctioned bare-knuckle boxing event in Wyoming next month. His goal is to reach 100 pro fights, with 75 wins, before he retires. He doesn’t get caught up with thinking about being exploited by small promoters looking for a gimmick, he said. It’s better than being frozen out of the sport altogether for the mistakes of his past.

“Listen, I was young, and I did some stupid stuff,” Rodriguez said. “I pissed off top executive people. I made enemies with people I shouldn’t have made enemies with. I’m not going to sit around and cry about it. I found another way to do what I love, and I’ve traveled all around the world doing it. Something like this, if you’re a fan, they’re giving you an opportunity to do something different. It’s a chance to actually have fun. When’s the last time you had fun at a fight?”

This particular brand of fun streams live online at 8 pm ET. Whether it’s the kind of fun you can still feel good about in the morning remains to be seen.