Microsoft Commercial: 'My Name Is Rashad Evans. I Am a UFC Fighter.'

This Microsoft commercial is a wonderful sign of how far mixed martial arts has come toward mainstream acceptance:

The ad begins, "My name is Rashad Evans. I am a UFC fighter."

We MMA fans might take this for granted, but in the 1990s, a company as mainstream as Microsoft would have preferred an endorsement from Saddam Hussein to an endorsement from a UFC fighter. It really is extraordinary how far the sport has come in such a short period of time.

Guys like Evans -- smart, articulate, attractive, college educated -- are laying the groundwork for a day when participating in MMA won't be the kind of thing that gets used to attack someone's character.