During the last few months, the media has done a remarkable job of taking aim at the UFC and the perceived marginal cards the company has presented for pay-per-view consumption.

Each challenge to the value of an event contained references to the injuries and illnesses that had stripped a number of shows of their marquee names. Of course, those references usually came after mentions of how the world was coming to an end, how criminal it was for the UFC to ask for $49.99 for a certain card and how they were failing to live up to the lofty standards spoiled fans had come to expect over the years.

Yes, I said spoiled. Now, after coming through an injury-plagued final four months of 2009, the UFC is poised to put on two tremendous shows in the opening quarter of 2010, and the media will surely be singing the praises of Dana White, Joe Silva and the UFC once again.

Somewhere between now and UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi, a mass mea culpa from the media is deserved, though it will never come.

While some will ask, "Why?" and make reference to the media's job of questioning everything and offering no free passes, for me, the truth is that offering up such a statement would go a long way to not only increase the credibility of those in the industry, but also give Dana White and the UFC a nugget of credit in a forum where they are mostly put under the microscope.

First and foremost, I'm not trying to say that the members of the MMA media are without credibility. As a whole, they are an extremely talented and credible collection of journalists, and a group that I would one day like to count myself as part of, those opinion pieces like this may hurt my chances.

We live in a society of constant criticism and negative reporting; the heart-warming stories come at the end of the news and on the back pages of the few remaining newspapers, while scandals, crises and criticisms garner the bulk of the attention.

Retractions are printed in fine print and stuffed in a corner. Yes, we've missed out on Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin twice, Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Sean Sherk and Quinton Jackson have all at one point or another fallen off the marquee. Remind me, was that because White and Silva wanted to be jerks and keep their stars away from the fans, or because a rash of injuries, illnesses and the acting bug swarmed the company?

UFC 105 was free, and anything that you get for free is better than nothing. Arguing the strength of a fight card that delivered seven free fights is like debating how good free pizza tastes. They were free - accept them with a smile and move on.

At UFC 106, we got Forrest Griffin opposite Tito Ortiz in place of Mark Coleman. No offense to "The Hammer," but that fight would have been interesting in 2004 (maybe), not 2009. While Ortiz vs. Griffin 2 wasn't as exciting an "long-awaited" as the UFC hype-machine made it out to be, it sure was better than Ortiz vs. Coleman 1 would have been.

From where I was sitting - my couch, next to my wife and dog - UFC 107 was a pretty strong card with the destruction of Diego Sanchez at the hands - and shin - of the best lightweight on the...