THE ULTIMATE IN PPV? : `NO-HOLDS BARRED' FIGHTING GAINS POPULARITY, CRITICS.

Byline: Tom Hoffarth

If the future of sports is tied up in pay-per-view, as the lords who preside over it claim, it would behoove all of us to take a more active role in determining what kind of content we'll be willing to pay for.

This goes beyond a 1:49 Mike Tyson fight.

We're told that viewers will never have to face the moral dilemma of paying $49.95 to see a public execution on TV. Neither will cockfighting, dogfighting nor bullfighting lead us into temptation.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, however, not to be confused with any of the aforementioned evils, has not only survived for about two years, but it's picking up steam.

A self-proclaimed sport, it thrives on blood-thirsty young males who have nothing else to do on a Friday night and some disposable income.

UFC XI, which begins tonight with the pregrapple show at 6 p.m., can be had for about $20. Operators are standing by.

Of course, it would be ultimately less expensive to shove a quarter into the ``Mortal Combat'' video game to watch a guy rip his opponent's arm off and then use it to beat him senseless.

That's not what the UFC is all about, organizers insist. Death does not become it. Violence is secondary in their pursuit of happiness.

But a viewer can hope, can't he?

``No one has ever been hurt'' during a UFC event, said Robert Meyrowitz, president and CEO of Semaphore Entertainment Group, which puts on the UFC.

``Anyone looking for death should, according to statistics, be watching car racing. Anyone looking for blood should be watching - I don't know - horse racing. That's just factual. This is tough, incredibly tough action. This is contact. People watch it because it's a real association with these athletes.''

And the UFC, unlike those Extreme Fighting or Toughman Competition events, doesn't include overweight bar bouncers looking to burn off some testosterone.

They're well-trained, involved in an event that's intent on determining what discipline would prevail in an all-out battle. These guys just happen to climb into a locked, caged octagon to work out their philosophical differences.

The media has yet to take it more seriously than a circus event that caters to the idiot side of guys who don't seem offended by such a label. Try finding the results in the paper the next day. It's even tough to find unreality-based Roggin-types running highlights on the 11 o'clock freak show.

A strong fan interaction on the Internet (http://www.seg.com/ufc ) is probably why names like Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Tank Abbott or Mark Coleman stay alive while other such contests of pugilism have come and gone.

In the October issue of the nationally respected Black Belt magazine, an interesting juxtaposition takes place. The magazine, based in Santa Clarita, carries a full-color glossy ad for tonight's fight. On the next page, publisher Michael James' commentary asks readers to question whether this is what martial arts should be all about.

``I want to stimulate debate,'' said James. ``I have mixed feelings. In a way, I'd like to see it be successful, but it's taken a road I'm not willing to go down myself. If I was a martial artist, a competitor, I'd walk away from something like this.

``It's more like wrestling where you see a good show and have a bunch of loud mouth guys beating each other to a pulp. It doesn't have the quiet class that usually is associated with martial arts.''

You want quiet? Hit the mute button. You want class? NBC is pushing a show this fall called ``Men Behaving Badly.''

Neither of those are TV-friendly terms.

James says that of 10-12 stories in his magazine each month, there are one to two stories on UFC because ``it's very popular and some readers want to hear about it.''

Translation: It sells magazines.

``People also hate it and don't want to be associated with it,'' said James. ``I have a feeling the people who really like it are the `armchair' martial artist. It's never interested me to see athletes hurt each other.

``I'd give it my full support if they'd make appropriate changes and quit calling it no-holds barred. They're fooling themselves to say there's not severe consequences when someone gets hurt and does die for whatever reason from this.''

(Right about now, there's someone laughing like Beavis and Butt-head).

There is TV money is to be made, but so far it's not by cable operators. This isn't a huge draw - less than 1 percent of a cable subscriber village will buy it. But it's a steady business that Lorraine Leach, the pay-per-view coordinator of CVI in the West Valley, said she learned about quickly.

The first UFC match was scheduled for a live two-hour block. The contest ran long, and the conclusion wasn't aired.

``We had a lobby full of Harley-Davidson hog bikers the next day demanding to know how it ended,'' Leach said.

``These are a different breed of viewers. They tend to enjoy blood-letting and Roman-style battle.''

PPV wrestling might have the same cartoon drama, and PPV boxing has the live-event legitimacy element. The UFC appears to combine both. Kind of pugilism's ``We Are the World.''

``At the beginning (two years ago), the blood-and-guts element was played up,'' said Meyrowitz. ``Unfortunately most writers just repeat that now. They haven't seen it. They still want to call it `human cockfighting.'

``Very few want to say what would happen if Mike Tyson went into this.''

So what if Tyson went into this?

``I think Tyson is done in two minutes,'' said Meyrowitz. ``I don't know if you can beat a minute-49 (as Tyson did against Bruce Seldon last week).''

Tonight's alternate choice of barbarism includes HBO's coverage of Pernell Whitaker vs. Wilfredo Rivera and, if you care to look at it that way, KTLA (Channel 5) has the Dodgers grappling with the Padres in that nasty NL West race.

It's your call. Let your conscious, and wallet, be your guide.

STATION BREAK What smokes

Vin Scully's Hall of Fame call on Tuesday's no-hitter by Hideo Nomo. Scully, who spent the first hours of the rain delay trying to make KTLA's ``Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' reruns sound enticing, was probably at his best in the top of the ninth when the Dodgers' at bat dragged on and he likened it to ``the overture to a musical . . . let's get to the big finish . . . although there is no fat lady at Colorado.'' He even let loose an ``all right

'' when Nomo struck out to end the inning. As ESPN joined in live in the bottom of the ninth, Scully invited the nation to ``pull up a chair.'' And the addition of the Japanese TV call was perfect. Imagine a slobbering Harry Caray in that situation? Yikes.

The abundance of kind words for the big-hearted Allan Malamud, the L.A. Times and legendary L.A. Herald-Examiner sports columnist/writer who died Monday at age 54. It's tough to find joy in Mudville this week.

A price war driving down the cost of the Direct Broadcast System (DBS) tiny satellite dish. Nationwide, subscribers to services that provide DBS content (DirecTV/USSB, PrimeStar and EchoStar) total 3.4 million, according to Broadcasting & Cable magazine. The annual cost of programming is still about what one would pay for cable TV, but the price for the dish has fallen from about $800 two years ago to the $199 range (PrimeStar doesn't force a dish purchase). They haven't solved the one nagging problem: The need of a separate antenna or basic cable to get broadcast TV channels.

The inclusion of Raiders lineman Steve Wisniewski on Howie Long's ``Tough Guy Award'' team, announced last week on Fox's NFL pregame show. Said Wisniewski of the pseudo-honor: ``I'm so tough that I would pay to see `Broken Arrow' for a second time.'' Think that's just a joke? Go ahead and rent the movie.

What chokes

The potential for a $60-plus pay-per-view price tag on the Nov. 9 Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight. That is, if it's on PPV at all. Promoter/self-made-king Don King has threatened to go the closed-circuit route if cable operators resist his demand for a flat $27.50 per-buy rate. Since cable operators bank on a 50-50 arrangement with promoters, that would drive the cost to consumers into a rare stratosphere that frankly isn't becoming of a Tyson egg-timer bout. Or the cable guys could give consumers a break. But why start now?

Variety show co-host-in-training Fred Roggin. The KNBC-Channel 4 sports anchor will moonlight this month with entertainment reporter Arthel Neville to shoot a pilot for the NBC syndicated talk/variety show scheduled for a fall '97 debut. ``Arthel & Fred,'' which sounds like a short-lived ``I Love Lucy'' spinoff, could debut sooner if an NBC affiliate is desperate enough. Isn't that special?

The forgotten man at KWNK-AM during the ownership change: Rich Herrera. He was out fighting a vertigo problem for a few weeks and basically lost his job as a mid-morning sports talk-show host. Remember those zany Sports Gods? Dave Smith and Joey Haim take the 10 a.m.-1 p.m. spot starting next week.

Dan Dierdorf. Three games into ``Monday Night Football,'' and this bears unfortunate repeating: No upright mammal uses as many words to convey as little original thought. And it's getting worse.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Mark Coleman, top, does battle with Ga ry Goodridge during the last UFC event in July.

Daily News File Photo

(2) SCULLY

Box: STATION BREAK (see text)