Ryan Hockensmith, a writer on ESPN.com, had this to say about the UFC's "long-term health" recently:
"to build the brand, the organization needs name stars to keep winning. The emergence of Anderson Silva, Georges St. Pierre and possibly Rampage as unbeatable forces is terrific for growing the sport. Die-hard MMA fans will buy the pay-per-views no matter what. But casual fans seem to flock to the sport when there are big stars on big winning streaks, a la Chuck Liddell a year or so ago. It's a tried and true formula in sports: dynasties sell."

Ted's Take: It sounds good on paper, but only in the WWE will it REALLY work. Why? Because mixed martial arts is unscripted. Fighters lose. Yeah sure, it's cool when a fighter goes on a winning streak, but in reality, dynasties are boring. After all, what is a dynasty? It's when your team, or fighter in this case, always wins. How exciting is that?

Take Anderson Silva for example. He's lauded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. The most accurate striker in MMA. Destined to hold onto the middleweight belt for as long as he wants. But really, it's going to be downright boring to see him just effortlessly mow through his next five opponents.

So, now that Silva's champ, say you want to keep him there as Hockensmith says. What you'd have to do is to feed him cans. Otherwise, every fight is an opportunity for a challenger to unseat the champion. That's what makes this sport so appealing - on any given night, any fighter can win.

So if I'm Dana White, I'm going to be scouring the earth to find the guy who I think can beat Silva, and then hype it like that. And if that guy fails, I'll find the next fighter who I think can do it, and so on ...

I'll tell you what's exciting. The natural drama of winning and losing, then winning, then losing again. Basically, the triumph of the human spirit. Georges St. Pierre lost the welterweight title in spectacular fashion to Matt Serra, the world's biggest underdog. Rumors then start flying that St. Pierre is not right in the head.

St. Pierre gets on the comeback trail, dominating a top wrestler by what? Wrestling. And the kicker was prior to his dominance over Josh Koscheck, he SAID he was going to out-wrestle him. Then St. Pierre submits the former top dog in the welterweight division, Matt Hughes, setting up a rematch with Serra. But is the match-up one of those things where Serra just has St. Pierre's number? Will St. Pierre crack under the pressure of performing in front of his home-town crowd? Now that's drama. And none of it would have been possible if St. Pierre had beaten Serra.

The best thing the UFC can do is what they've been doing: give the fighters room to develop their personalities and set up the best fights they can. Do that, and the fans will flock and multiply, no matter who wins or loses.