BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- As I sat listening to the raucous Irish crowd go absolutely bonkers for their first taste of live mixed martial arts UFC style, I couldn't help but wonder just how nuts they would have gone had there been a stellar top bill.

Fans were treated to a few decent scraps, yet the last two contests failed to deliver because the headliners just could not or would not engage the way people have come to expect from mixed martial artists.

Rich Franklin (Pictures) did what he could against an extremely tentative Yushin Okami (Pictures), but the fight lacked pizzazz. That's not to say the blame lies on Franklin's shoulders. He has one fight left on his contract and as things stand right now that will come against the winner between UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and Nathan Marquardt (Pictures).

That's quite a lot to think about for a guy who will have a crack at breaking the bank when it comes contract negotiation time. Imagine where he would have been career-wise had Okami gotten the guillotine that had Franklin, by his own admission, "gurgling."

With the explosion of the sport, fighters are realizing the enormous importance of winning fights versus the novelty of just being exciting. That fact could not have been any clearer Saturday night after watching Forrest Griffin (Pictures), as charismatic a showman as you will find in MMA, jabbing and leg kicking his way to a unanimous decision win against an overmatched Hector Ramirez (Pictures).

And who was the man guiding Griffin's strategy: UFC heavyweight champion and overall MMA icon Randy Couture (Pictures).

The champ is a master of game planning and he could be heard imploring Griffin to "strike and get out" throughout the three-round tilt. (Who could blame Griffin after losing by knockout to Keith Jardine (Pictures) this past December?)

Fighters, despite some popular opinions, are not dumb.

They see the lifestyle guys like Couture and Chuck Liddell (Pictures) are currently enjoying and understand that in order to attain the riches that go with the accolades they must win fights.

Sure the undercard produced a fight-of-the-year candidate when Tyson Griffin (Pictures) squeaked out a narrow split-decision over fellow lightweight fireplug Clay Guida (Pictures), but the trend of top-of-the-card fights is undeniable.

It started with former heavyweight titlist Tim Sylvia (Pictures)'s five-round snoozer against Andrei Arlovski (Pictures) at UFC 61 and continued through nearly every card right through Saturday. Generally, it has been the fighters with a lot to lose who have backed off the throttle in hopes of grinding out wins -- which are more important than ever as the UFC continues to expand its fighter roster.

Aside from this weekend's card, recent fights between Arlovski and Fabricio Werdum (Pictures), Josh Koscheck (Pictures) and Diego Sanchez (Pictures), Matt Hughes (Pictures) and Chris Lytle (Pictures), as well as Sylvia (again) and Jeff Monson (Pictures) were all fights for a title or with serious championship implications.

They also all came up short on the entertainment side of the equation.

That brings us to the main quandary: Is this sport? Is this entertainment? Or is MMA some combination of the two?

Any sport that hopes to capture the imaginations of consumers has to be entertaining at some level, but in the end, let's face it, Vince Lombardi was on to something.

The Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2002 with a smothering defense and very little offense. The Detroit Pistons won a pair of NBA titles with the same formula. Stanley Cups can be raised on the strength of a hot goaltender stifling the opposition's attack (OK, so no one other than me and Canada really cares about hockey).

The fact that those sports are established institutions in fans' eyes allows them to survive a shift in styles of play, even when they are considered boring.

MMA does not have that luxury yet.

Boxing, a sport often compared to MMA as an example of what not to do, suffers from a lack of exciting fighters. Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. staged a bout that was billed as the saving grace for the Sweet Science, yet it delivered another lackluster performance.

Selling over 2 million pay-per-views, De La Hoya-Mayweather may have actually helped put another nail in boxing's coffin rather than reviving the noble sport. Sure there are great boxers who are also exciting to watch, but they have become few and far between and that has led to the sport's decline in the minds of some fight fans.

Mixed martial arts should be wary of the same pitfalls.

It won't be an easy fix, but steps should be taken to ensure fighters understand that continued lackluster performances cannot be tolerated.

Neither Franklin nor Forrest Griffin (Pictures) should be confused for fighters that don't deliver, not yet anyway. They have time and again left everything they had in the cage, delivering numerous memorable fights. But the issue, which could become an even bigger problem as more money floods into the sport, remains.

It is a difficult dilemma, one without a simple answer. When looked at from a fighter's perspective it is tough to argue with a do-whatever-it-takes-to-win mindset. On the other hand, the long-term success of the sport may suffer if the product fails to appeal to a broad base.

There is definitely no easy answer, not from either angle.

UFC 72 thoughts

There are some amazing fans in the United Kingdom. The Belfast crowd was one of the loudest, most enthusiastic crew I have ever experienced at a MMA event. The soccer chants were priceless. … UFC president Dana White commented after the show that a rematch between Forrest Griffin (Pictures) and Tito Ortiz (Pictures) was discussed, but Ortiz declined. He went on to call Ortiz "a big baby," while Griffin was adamant he would love to take another run at "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy." … White also claimed that ticket prices were to blame for the event not selling out. He noted how pleased he was to have done the biggest gate in the history of the arena, a reported $1.2-million USD. … With a lack of a sanctioning body in the United Kingdom, the UFC was forced to regulate the Belfast event on its own. UFC vice-president Marc Ratner oversaw the show and informed Sherdog.com that the participants in the main event, along with two random fights, were chosen for drug screening. He went on to say the results, once in, would be sent to White and that they would be disseminated at his discretion.