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In a gym in West Jordan, Steven Sharp trains for his next mixed martial arts fight while his partner - exhausted from the sparring sessions - vomits in the corner.
Sharp's sessions last a few minutes or more, and he changes partners at each interval. He is slight, with a face that has absorbed its punches and kicks and is worn like aged oak - sturdy, but scarred. His partner, who is also his brother, begins to gag from overexertion and the gym's owner, Rob Handley, calls for a bucket. His brother is sick.
Sharp, though, continues to hop and dance while his brother's head is in the bucket. He hasn't reached his limit yet.
Neither has his sport.
MMA's popularity is growing like a storm cloud, threatening to cover the mainstream sporting landscape. And it is boxing that might soon be left in the dark, forgotten by everything except history, say MMA's supporters.
"It will be way bigger than boxing and a lot of people already love boxing," said Sharp, a 28-year-old Salt Lake native who is the seven-time Ultimate Combat Experience (UCE) champion.
"A lot of people have their great uncle or grandpa, or something like that, that's been in the army and brags about their boxing records. (Years from now) you'll have all these people whose grandpas or whatever, who used to do MMA," Sharp said.
Boxing's glory days of Muhammad Ali, "Sugar" Ray Leonard and Rocky Marciano have passed, and even its staunchest supporters agree the sport's audience has dwindled.
A 70-year-old Jordan native who had a 20-5 record as a professional boxer, Jay Fullmer trains boxers at the Fullmer Brothers Boxing Club. He winced when he gave his opinion on MMA.
"It probably is more popular than boxing," Fullmer said. "There's some of those [boxing] fights, I agree nowadays, that aren't the fights we're used to."
Sharp says MMA, which incorporates a number of disciplines, has become more popular than boxing because it's "the overall best of the best."
"You can have the best wrestler, you can have the best boxer, you can have the best kickboxer, but you've got to be able to put them all together," he said.
Boxers such as Floyd Mayweather, who recently fought Oscar De La Hoya in arguably the biggest boxing match since Mike Tyson vs. Lennox Lewis in 2002, denigrated MMA by saying "boxing is an art. UFC is a fad." Johnny Riche, a former MMA fighter and current co-host of UCE broadcasts, disagrees.
"I think a lot of those guys think that mixed martial arts is a fad, but the thing about it is, it's not," Riche said. "We're here to stay."
Youth movement
The sport's appeal can be interpreted in many ways, but there is one defining quality that draws in crowds to MMA events, say its fighters.
"It's the most exciting sport to watch," Riche said. So exciting that the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the largest MMA organization in the U.S., broadcast on Spike TV grabbed the most coveted television demographic -18- to 34-year-old males - from other major sporting events.
UFC 70 "Nations Collide," which aired on April 24, became the second-most watched UFC fight in history with a 1.84 household rating (1.7 million homes tuned in). The event attracted more 18- to 34-year-old males than any other event that day, including NASCAR, NBA playoffs and MLB games featuring the New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs vs. the St. Louis Cardinals. UFC 70 drew 100,000 more viewers than the next most-watched event, which was NASCAR.
"Eighteen- to 34-year-old males love it," Riche said. "They love that excitement that comes from two guys getting in a cage and putting all their skill on the line."
The fan following, Riche said, is similar to that of NASCAR, the second-most popular sport after football, according to TV ratings.
"Our fans are a lot like NASCAR fans in the fact that they're loyal," he said. "They want to come to the shows, they pick their favorites, they buy their merchandise and they want to be a part of the MMA scene because it's growing so fast."
Twelve-year-old Austin Avila, of Sandy, took second place in April's Venom jujitsu tournament in Heber City. Avila said his dad saw a poster and signed him up.
"I wasn't really in good shape," he said. "Now, I feel better than ever."
Avila practices jiujitsu at the same gym in West Jordan where Sharp practices MMA.
"You're going to have guys that are 21 that have been doing this for 15 years," Sharp said. "It's going to be crazy. There are going to be a lot of good fighters in the next 10 years."
New fighters - young and old - tend to want to be involved in the sport for the same reason, said A.J. Stidham, who coordinates fights for the UCE.
Stidham said amateurs view the sport as a way to express those innate fight-or-flight tendencies, while avoiding the threat of legal punishment.
"The comments I hear are 'Oh, I just want to do it without getting in trouble,' " she said.
But most who come to fight do so to see what kind of fighter they are, Stidham said. After the fight, depending on how they do, some will join a gym.
"Once they get into the training part, then it gets serious," she said.
Eduardo Mori, owner of the Mori Academy of Brazilian jiujitsu, said he has about 150 students training in mixed martial arts. A teacher and former MMA fighter, Mori said the sport's growing popularity is no great mystery to him.
"People just want to go learn how to kick butt, that's all there is," Mori said. "They like what they see on TV and they want to be the same. They want to be fighters."
'New fight capital'
The average elevation in Utah is 6,100 feet above sea level and that, say several MMA fighters, makes it an ideal place to train.
"Utah is the new fight capital of the USA," Sharp said. "There are so many different gyms here in Salt Lake. If you watch the UFC, they're talking about Salt Lake at least once."
Sharp said he runs in high-elevation areas, such as Park City, to improve his cardiovascular fitness.
Then, when he fights elsewhere, it feels like "I have clean air in my lungs the whole time."
There are weekly Utah MMA fights; UCE has contests in Sandy, Ogden, St. George, Park City, and Tooele. The best place to find information on local fights is ucombat.com
Utah also has one of the top female fighters in the country in Salt Lake's Jennifer Howe, who is 13-2 and "considered by many to be the top pound-for-pound female mixed martial artist in the world," according to utahmma.com .
More fighters have come to train at elevation and that's made it easier to find a fight, Sharp said. And because there are so many fighters in Utah who train and fight each other, MMA scouts attend the different events. Utah natives Josh Burkman, from Salt Lake City, and Brandon Melendez, from Bountiful, are now both professional UFC fighters.
"We're like a farm league," Riche said. "We try to give these guys a platform to show their skills."
* Stand-up styles: Boxing, muay Thai, kickboxing, karate, tae kwon do, kung fu.
* Ground styles: Brazilian jiujitsu, wrestling, freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, judo, sumo wrestling.
* No head butting the downed opponent
* No knees to the head of a downed opponent
* No downward point of the elbow strikes
* No strikes to the spine or the back of the head
* No groin or throat strikes
* No eye gouging and no hair pulling
* No stomping, kicking or kneeling to a grounded opponent
* No grabbing the clavicle
How to win In Ultimate Fighting, five three-minute rounds determine the winner.
Ways to Win
1. Decision via the scorecards (as in boxing) 2. Submission by physical or verbal tap out 3. Technical knockout (referee stops contest) 4. Technical decision 5. Technical draw 6. Disqualification 7. Forfeit 8. No Contest Source: ufc.com
UFC title holders Division Weight class Champ
Heavyweight 206-265 lbs. Randy Couture
Light Heavyweight 186-205 lbs. Quinton Jackson
Middleweight 171-185 lbs. Anderson Silva
Welterweight 156-170 lbs. Matt Serra
Lightweight 145-155 lbs. Sean Sherk
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