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Bloody Elbow's Luke Thomas, Sherdog's Jake Rossen and MMA Junkie's Steve Sievert are tangled up in an omoplata of opinion about the status of Mixed Martial Arts in comparison to "major league" sports. Not to leave anyone out - or miss an opportunity to pseudo name-drop - Fightlinker jumped into the mix as well.

There short and the quick of it is this:

• UFC 97 drew more fans than four baseball teams average for home games this season (Sievert)
• Those numbers are awesome (except for those four teams) but not necessarily an accurate representation of things (Thomas and Figtlinker)
• We're nowhere near the cultural and historical impact of baseball (Rossen)
• You're right, but comparing the two isn't totally out of bounds (Thomas)

To grab a little something from the end of Rossen's post and apply it here, this is essentially an editorital on an editorial on an editorial that was critiquing another editorial, wonder why being in the position we're in isn't good enough? You're right Jake... so it goes.

I want to see Mixed Martial Arts in the mainstream as much as the next person. I have been following the sport, like many, from the original days of the UFC and think it is one of the best examples of atheticism in the world today. That being said, there is no part of me that wants to see it go the route of Major League Baseball or the National Hockey League.

While I'd love to see the finanaces that are poured into those leagues - or the NFL and NBA for that matter as well - put towards growing and promoting the sport, I greatly enjoy the fact that Mixed Martial Arts isn't on FOX every Sunday and brought to us by any one of the forty-three erectile disfunction pills that sponsor most major sports league.

Like many, I too think fighters deserve an opportunity to make more money, but that doesn't mean I want to see Matt Hughes or Chuck Liddell shilling housewares and promoting chain restaurants between segments on The Ultimate Fighter either.

Watching the UFC and Mixed Martial Arts as a whole grow the way it has in the last five to ten years has been awesome, both as a fan and someone who spends a great deal of his day writing about MMA, and there are encouraging positives that can be taken from the data originally put forward by Steve Sievert.

But the thing is, we all already knew that MMA is growing by leaps and bounds; you can count on Dana White dropping at least one, "this is the fastest growing sport in the world right now" in every single press conference and interview he does. It's as omnipresent as the F-bomb. Okay, maybe not that much.

We also knew that the Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland Athletics and Florida Marlins have brutal attendance, so pointing out that one of our events did better than historically horrible franchises does carry much weight.

With movement into the "major leagues" comes hours upon hours of talk radio know-it-alls waxing philosophical about MMA and chances are that would put me on the unemployment line, seeing as that is precisely what I do on a daily basis.

Jokes aside, I don't understand why being in the position we're currently in - selling out shows at a record pace and growing with every passing day - isn't enough to hang our collective hats today?

Keep growing, keep building and keep improving, but enjoy what we have right now because it was too long ago that we weren't welcomed in those same places we're selling out now.