DaytonDailyNews.com

Sorry, but when I first saw ultimate fighting, it reminded me of my Catholic grade school at recess.

Two kids would square off over nothing, and it would spill onto the asphalt until one pummeled the other into submission or it was broken up by whichever doddering nun was on playground duty.

Sometimes, like a pro rasslin' referee, the nun could be distracted, allowing for additional carnage and ripped clothing. All that was missing, usually, was a metal folding chair.

So it's easy to see why people find ultimate fighting entertaining.

These are highly conditioned athletes trying to beat the heck out of each other, and there's always going to be an audience for that, just as there was on the playground.

And the fighters gravitating to this genre are armed with a certain charisma, it seems.

"We're taking over," someone named "Rampage" Jackson said on ESPN recently. "I don't hate boxers, but they ain't doing it right. They ain't got no Mike Tyson, no Muhammad Ali, no Rampage. We're going to take over rasslin', baseball, tennis, golf, sand dune driving, water polo."

Water polo? That's personality.

"I know, we can't compete with basketball," he added. "They got slam dunkin'."

Boxing is dead because, as Rampage points out, there are no personalities. At this point, you'd settle for Larry Holmes. Or, failing that, any American who could rightfully be considered a heavyweight contender.

Sadly, the face that most people see when they think of boxing, even decades past his prime, is that of Don King.

In ultimate fighting, at least the show is the deal. And, unlike rasslin', it's on the level, presumably. I don't know what exactly, but there's something to be said for this.

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or smcclelland@DaytonDailyNews.com.