They scrap like wildcats in an octagonal metal cage, kicking, punching and jumping all over each other to inflict the sort of bodily harm normally the result of back alley muggings. It is called UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), a brutal no-holds-barred amalgam of martial arts and mayhem that has become something of a cult worldwide. Now this Cage Rage reckons it has mainstream boxing on the ropes.

Ultimate Fighting is all hands and knees with plenty of boomps-a-daisy. Gouging, biting, butting and punching to the groin with the four ounce fingerless gloves are not only permitted but positively encouraged. You can even hit a man when he's down. Ground and pound, they call it.

The moguls of the mixed martial arts business were in London last week claiming that it is now second only to football as a global attraction, hugely followed in 145 countries covering every continent, beamed into almost a billion homes via TV, with 50 million hits a week on YouTube-and regularly filling the world's biggest arenas to capacity.

Which if it is all true means it surely won't be long before UFC is pounding on the doors of the International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach at Lausanne's Chateau de Vidy HQ, demanding entrance to the five-ringed circus. Well good luck with that.

UFC may attract as an occasion, but surely holds no lingering passion for those who prefer sport in its more traditional form ©Getty Images



Personally I have as much belief in UFC as I do UFOs. It may attract as an occasional glitzy night out, like another US import grid iron football, but surely holds no lingering passion for the majority who prefer their sport in a more traditional form.

Those behind this "phenomenon" cite last Saturday night's event at London's O2, for which all 18,000 tickets went within four hours, as how big it is becoming here. Beat that, they said.

Well, boxing did just that.

Fight game impresario Eddie Hearn swiftly counter-punched when 60,000 tickets, ranging from £30 ($49/€35) to £1,500 ($2,494/€1,798) VIP packages, for the return world super-middleweight title fight between Carl Froch and George Groves at Wembley Stadium on May 31, went within an  hour of being put on sale on Monday - a post-war record for a big fight in  Britain. Hearn is now seeking permission to increase the capacity to 80,000, and you can bet there will be plenty of action on eBay by the end of the week.

Moreover, this is not just promotional hype. Tickets went on sale at noon and friends who tried to buy tickets just after 1pm found there were none left.

We know from the 2012 Olympics that when the public fancies an event, the tickets cannot be printed fast enough, whatever the cost.

Carl Froch (left) and George Groves will get back in the ring for a highly anticipated rematch at Wembley Stadium in May ©Getty Images



But nothing out-sells really big fights. Last Saturday in Las Vegas it took only 10 minutes for 12,000 tickets valued at $12 million (£7.2 million/€8.6 million) to sell for the Floyd Mayweather versus Marcos Maidana fight on May 3. The cheapest tickets are $300 (£180/€216) compared to £30 ($49/€35) for the Froch–Groves fight, which helps explain the difference in revenue.

The all-British bash will also be screened live via Sky Box Office, with revenue expected to exceed £20 million ($33.2 million/€23.9 million).

It is a contest that has sold itself.

Champion Froch – knocked down, battered and trailing on points – stopped Groves in highly controversial circumstances in the ninth round last November.

The intervention by experienced British referee Howard Foster seemed hasty and ill-judged, and was subsequently deemed "improper" by the US-based International Boxing Federation Federation (IBF) one of the two sanctioning bodies, who in a rare judgment upheld Groves' appeal and ordered a re-match.