Mixed-Up Martial Arts: So Over It

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- The two top heavyweights can't face each other, faceless champions have rendered divisions and weight classes mere formalities and the biggest promotion in America's only "women's division" comprises scantily clad round-card holders.

Welcome to mixed martial arts: a sport where the agony of leg strikes and triangle chokes is matched only by the growing pains that come with grappling for a spot in the public eye.

Heavyweight legends Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will brawl on Aug. 29 in what organizers are trying to market as one of the most anticipated fights of the year.

It's strong enough that dominant promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship and its heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar, earlier this month pulled in 1.72 million pay-per-views for its UFC 100 bill (which, according SNL Financial, ranks among the top 5 pay-per-view events of all time and far eclipsed the more than 1.25 million boxing fans who watched 2008's top pay-per-view event -- Oscar de la Hoya and Manny Pacquiao).

Yet it's vulnerable enough that EliteXC, which aired its events on CBS(CBS Quote), choked itself out last year after a terrible performance from not-ready-for-prime-time headliner Kimbo Slice. Clothing manufacturer and former EliteXC partner Affliction, meanwhile, was forced to shut down its promotion wing in July when heavyweight Josh Barnett failed a steroid test.

Bas Rutten, a former UFC heavyweight champion, host of "Inside MMA" on HDNet Fights, Slice's former trainer and one of the developers of the International Fight League -- a mixed martial arts promotion that folded last year -- says big egos and big spending on big venues often get in the way when promotions try to compete with UFC.