By Mark Vester

The Ultimate Fighting craze appears to be getting bigger in 2007, much bigger. According to the Boston Herald , the UFC could be landing soon on ESPN.

Dana White, president of the UFC, told the paper that ESPN is very interested in having the UFC on their network, and he is already planning a trip to New York to hold meetings with the network.

"All the top meetings over there are about the UFC,” said White. “When they start talking about this stuff on ‘SportsCenter,’ that’s really going to help us. That’s going to help us get to the next level."

The UFC already has HBO coming into the picture to televise future live events, and they still have an ongoing deal with Spike TV. Due to the heavy demand from major networks for exclusive UFC events, White thinks his company could possibly get the point where they are staging three events per month. But White still thinks it will be a long time before the UFC becomes mainstream.

"We’re the biggest thing on pay per view. We’re bigger than boxing. We’re bigger than WWE. But we’re so (expletive) far from mainstream. Mainstream is Shaquille O’Neal. If Shaq is walking down the street, everyone knows who he is."

“The weird thing about this is Chuck Liddell is one of the biggest superstars in other places. We went to Ibiza, Spain, and he’s getting mobbed there. We couldn’t go anywhere. He goes to New York and people are all over him. I mean, it’s tough to miss a guy with a Mohawk and Chinese writing on his head. They might recognize him, but they don’t immediately know the UFC.”