A few weeks earlier, there was a fight of another kind which also had a message attached. Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. were on the front of Sports Illustrated, and the question was whether their fight would save boxing.

Turns out neither message was all it was hyped up to be.

Yes, De La Hoya and Mayweather fought in the richest fight ever, a megaevent that drew the rich and famous and generated a staggering $150 million in revenue. They engaged in an entertaining if not terribly dramatic fight, and all but the most ardent De La Hoya fans went home happy.

But it was just one fight, and boxing remains ill with a lot of problems that will never be cured.

Chuck Liddell, meanwhile, met Quinton Jackson in the same arena Saturday night, except the two were fighting in an octagon cage instead of a ring. Nearly 15,000 mostly not-so-rich-and-famous paid their way in, and the UFC was expecting to strike it rich on a million pay-per-view buys.

Liddell is the face of the UFC, the sport's biggest name, and this was a grudge match to avenge an earlier loss to Jackson. He was favored to win not only in the Vegas sports books, but by the rabid fans who booed Jackson from the moment he entered the arena.

I had planned to see the fight in person, but was on another assignment. So I watched it on a big screen in a sports bar in Indianapolis to see what I'd been missing.

Sorry, but it sure seemed a lot of fuss about a lot of nothing.

For starters, Liddell didn't seem to take the biggest fight of his career all that seriously. A gossip columnist reported he was seen partying in the days before the fight on the Las Vegas Strip, and he came into the ring with a paunch hanging over his trunks that would make James Toney blush.

But it was the fight itself that disappointed. I expected to see savage punches to the head, forearms to the neck, and kicks to the midsection. I figured there would be blood, and lots of it, as befits a sport once called "human cockfighting" by Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Silly me.

There wasn't much action at all, and when Jackson landed the first good punch of the fight Liddell crumpled to the canvas like a Las Vegas hotel being imploded.

There are rules in UFC (no eye gouging or groin punching among them) but hitting a man when he's down isn't one of them. So Jackson jumped on Liddell and started punching him until the referee jumped in and stopped the bout less than two minutes after it began.

If this had been boxing, there would have been cries of a fix. If this had been boxing, the referee would have been crucified for stopping it too soon.

If this had been boxing, cups of beer would have been flying into the ring and fans would have demanded their money back.

But this is mixed martial arts, a sport so new that even those watching aren't always sure what they're seeing. The sport is for real, but the audience of mostly 20-something white males look like they would be just as comfortable watching Hulk Hogan as Chuck Liddell.

The crowd on this night was upset, but only because their man lost.

Now, UFC types will tell you that part of the beauty of the sport is its unpredictability, and that fights can end so many different ways. That includes quitting in the middle of a fight, something viewed as a badge of honor of sorts.

Roberto Duran would have liked the idea of "No mas" becoming socially acceptable.

There's no denying that UFC is hot. A recent card in Columbus, Ohio, brought in more money than a Rolling Stones concert, the shows sell out in Las Vegas, and the company is doing a card next month in Northern Ireland.

Some 3,000 fans showed up to watch the Liddell weigh-in, and the pay-per-view numbers are comparable or better than most major boxing matches.

Boxing has floundered because of a lack of stars, but that's not a problem at UFC, where they crank out a new one every month or so and market them with zeal. While dozens of promoters and organizations battle each other for control in boxing, UFC is a company shop and can sell its product with a singular message.

The formula works, though UFC officials acknowledge they have work to do to expand the sport outside its core audience. The latest card was supposed to help do just that, just like the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight was supposed to save boxing.

Both efforts probably failed, not for a lack of promotion but because both sports will always be on the fringe. Boxing has been legal for more than a century and is still a niche sport, so it's hard to imagine mixed martial arts will do much better.

The UFC better watch out, though. Many more fights like Saturday's main event, and it could begin getting something boxing has had for a long time.

Something it doesn't need — a bad reputation.