The Globe and Mail's Stephen Brunt has a big feature on Ultimate Fighting in Saturday's paper. Being the elitist that I am, having got some college and all, I found this sentence particularly amusing:

When I attended one of those early shows in Buffalo, the fights seemed remarkably crude and pointless, and the audience seemed drawn from a demographic that would have found pro wrestling as challenging as Shakespeare.

My first and only introduction to Ultimate Fighting came about five years ago in a scuzzy Scarborough bar frequented by my uncle -- plus a few who could have been Goodfellas extras, plus a few more from the Larry The Cable Guy demographic.

I was obviously repulsed by what was happening on screen. One of the sub-humans noticed this. With eyes glittering, he turned and asked me in an eerie voice: "Whatsamatter man? Too real for you?"

Yes! Exactly!

The full story might not be available online for non-subscribers to the Globe, but it's worth a read if you can access it by whatever means necessary.