FanHouse EliteXC

Since the demise of EliteXC last October, Gina Carano has remained relatively quiet. The female mixed martial arts fighter is one of the biggest stars in the sport and it seems like every day someone's talking about her proposed super-fight with Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos.

In the sport of mixed martial arts, UFC is unquestionably the leading organization, and it's not even close. Other MMA promotions exist, but they haven't even come close to reaching the levels of popularity -- or the levels of fighting talent -- that UFC has achieved.

But EliteXC has a chance of challenging UFC, thanks to a deal that will put it on CBS. Even if they do disappointing ratings by network television standards, the fights CBS will televise on May 31 will instantly become the most-watched fights in American MMA history.

And if EliteXC is smart, it will use that to attract top fighters away from UFC. Dan Stupp of the Dayton Daily News reports that EliteXC is looking to do just that. There's a real possibility that a number of the top fighters in UFC will head over to EliteXC -- or sign with Mark Cuban, whose organization is in its infancy but who hopes to build an MMA empire -- when their contracts expire.

Will that result in a bidding war for the services of big-name fighters like Chuck Liddell? It could, but I think it's more likely that second-tier fighters will be promised more exposure and more money for leaving UFC.

That's not necessarily good for the sport: The worst thing that could happen to mixed martial arts would be EliteXC, UFC and Cuban all signing top fighters to contracts that prevent them from fighting each other. But if the organizations would allow their fighters to fight across promotions -- the way the two top promoters in boxing, Oscar De La Hoya and Bob Arum, sometimes co-promote fights -- that could be good for the sport. It would certainly be good for the fighters' bottom lines.

For those who aren't aware (such as Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post), the sport of mixed martial arts is not a no-holds barred street fight, but a sport with rules and a referee who enforces them.

One of the rules is that a fighter can't strike with an elbow in a downward motion and can't strike an opponent in the back of the head. As you can see in the above photo, Malaipet Sitprapom did both of those things to Thomas Denny in Friday night's EliteXC event in Santa Ynez, California, leading to Denny winning by disqualification.

A fight that ends in a DQ is always a disappointment for the fans, but it may actually be a good thing for the sport that EliteXC -- which is about to get a huge boost in publicity when it has its first show on CBS in May -- had a bout end in this way.

There are still people out there who really don't get what MMA is, who assume that there would be no such thing as a disqualification because there's no such thing as a rulebook, other than "last man standing wins." If those people hear about this disqualification, perhaps they'll actually take the time to learn something about the sport before they trash it.