 What or who was a determining factor in prompting the beginning of UFC's decline in popularity?
UFC's flameout from national sensation to total irrelevance is a tragedy of American sports, a cautionary tale of prudishness, heavy-handed politics, and cultural myopia. Promoters built an octagonal chain-link cage, invited eight top martial artists, and set them loose in no-holds-barred, bare-knuckles fights. UFC allowed, even promoted, all notions of bad sportsmanship: kicking a man when he's down, hitting him in the groin, choking. Soon, UFC was selling out huge arenas and drawing 300,000 pay-per-view subscribers for its quarterly competitions. UFC's caged matches revolutionized the idea of fighting. Nursed on boxing and Hollywood, Americans imagine fights as choreography, a dance of elegant combinations, roundhouse kicks, clean knockouts.
 Senator McCain.
 The UFC's grotesque use of a chain-link fence surrounding the octagon.  The UFC's lack of boxing gloves.  Senator McCain.  The cable TV industry.