IF THEY WERE STRAIGHT THEY'D BOX:

Is Ultimate Fighting Gay?: The head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship recently became the first head of a major sports league to welcome gay athletes. (Thaddeus Russell, 10/31/09, Daily Beast)

I had heard the accusations and innuendo. And just two minutes into the first preliminary fight of last week's Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event I saw something that confirmed them. I was in a sports bar in the San Gabriel Valley, a predominately working-class suburban area just east of Los Angeles that has produced a disproportionate number of mixed martial-arts (MMA) fighters and is home to some of the sport's most committed fans. Malls in the area are filled with men wearing gothic-inspired MMA t-shirts and baseball hats, and the parking lots often become mock battlegrounds for teenage boys acting out the punches, kicks, and grappling moves of the fastest-growing and what many believe is the most macho sport in the United States.

Spokesmen for professional boxing, which has seen a large share of its fan base gravitate toward MMA, have been quick to accuse their rivals of promoting gay porn. Boxing promoter Bob Arum described MMA as "guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground."

But when Chase Gormley threw Stefan Struve to the mat and mounted him between his legs, a young woman in the corner of the bar yelled "that is so hot!" A minute later, Struve turned the tables with his own throw and mount, then clasped Gormley's head, neck, and shoulder between his legs in what is called a "triangle choke hold." At this point the woman, who was sitting with two quiet and increasingly embarrassed men, moaned lustfully then turned to her companions and told them she was "getting ideas" for things to do with her boyfriend. A man wearing skull-and-bones MMA gear sitting near me slammed down his Bud Lime and shouted at her that she was "ruining the fight."

I found out later that the two men sitting with the aroused women were among a growing gay MMA fan base. They told me that they were just as turned on by the action as their female friend but contained themselves for fear of retribution from the "hyper-macho" crowd. "She says what we can't when we watch the fights in public," one said.