COMMENTARY: Baltimoresun.com establishes full-fledged MMA section

I may be a bit biased in thinking this, but this may be the biggest MMA news of the weekend. Yesterday, Baltimoresun.com rolled out a subtle but significant change in the way it will cover mixed martial arts going forward.

The site now has a distinct mixed martial arts section, which you can visit here. This new section is an upgrade over the old section for a couple of reasons. 1) For visitors to the site looking for MMA news, they can click on the left menu panel on the "Sports" tab and then click underneath on the "Mixed Martial Arts" tab. Previously, there was no "Mixed Martial Arts" tab in this menu. 2) Mixed martial arts is now being recognized by the Sun as a real sport, worthy of its own space separate from boxing and no longer a subsection of boxing. In fact, the MMA section is at the same menu level as all the other major sports.

As MMA continues to grow, mainstream media will progressively redefine the way it views the sport. I like to believe that Baltimoresun.com is at the leading edge of this movement. Maybe readers of my blog can help me with this, but has any other major newspaper site in this country given the sport the respect the Sun now affords it?

With that said, I would like to pause for a second and take time to thank those at the Sun who have made this possible and especially thank the readers of my articles whose strong interest level has helped make this change possible. Please continue to send me feedback regarding both my articles and my blog entries.