Despite the boos that accompany a fight going to the ground, the cheers that echo each time Jorge Gurgel goes toe-to-toe with an opponent don't change the fact that he's lost more than he's won since switching from submissions to striking.

The fans might like him more, but his employers are the ones he needs to be trying to impress the most.

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More football fans are going to tune into a 50-47 shootout than a 10-7 defensive battle, but that doesn't lead defensively-minded teams to eschew their bread and butter in favor of airing it out and hoping to score more points than the other guy.

While Dave from Fresno probably cheered last night as Gurgel stood up for 15 minutes with Billy Evangelista as the headlining fight on the latest Strikeforce: Challengers series event, hearing boos could have meant a victory for Gurgel.

Instead, the fans kept cheering and he took a loss.

The problem is that right now, a large number of fans are going to boo every time a fight hits the ground, because to them that doesn't fit the definition of a fight.

Two guys on the ground is wrestling or grappling or boring or hard to understand or difficult to see or the always-popular-with-those-opposed-to-the-sport homoerotic, as if homosexuality is a taboo and unspeakable horror in 2009. Homophobia is so 1986...

A fight is two guys swinging for the fences, trying with every punch to knock the other guy out, and if they are going to grapple, they should do it standing up where there is at least the possibility that one guy slams the other to the ground.

After all, any time Mixed Martial Arts makes an appearance on SportsCenter that's what they're showing.

Matt Hughes carrying Frank Trigg across the cage and driving him into the ground.

Chuck Liddell trading blows with a beaten and bloody Wanderlei Silva.

Dan Henderson launching Michael Bisping's mouthguard back to Britain.

While Anderson Silva's technical performance in a victory over Thales Leites got panned and little airplay, his first round devastation of Forrest Griffin was in heavy rotation.

Lyoto Machida was viewed as boring before knocking out Thiago Silva at UFC 94, now he's a household name and pushed as one of the greats of the sport.

For everyone who cheers when Demian Maia drags another opponent into his guard, trapping them like a fly in a spider's web, there are 20 people booing and hissing, pleading for the fight to be stood back up so someone can catch a fist with their face.

Until it's not just knockouts and slugfests getting all the applause and attention, Jorge Gurgel is going to remain a boxer who keeps his Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt hanging in the cupboard for safe keeping.

And Mixed Martial Arts will remain on the outside looking in.

*E. Spencer Kyte covers the world of mixed martial arts with powerful opinions and lethal breakdowns sure to make you submit.