getting recognition

Hey guys name's Boxy. I come from a very small state where MMA has just started settling in over the past few years. We've got a few descent fighters who've even gone overseas to fight (a couple in Russia even one in the USA), I could name them if you'd like. So, anyway, it's still a growing sport but it is still not recognized by the mainstream sport crowds as anything other than a brutal savage display of two people beating each other bloody (the same people also prefer watching soccer/football).

So I was wondering, how did MMA become a respectable sport in your country? Was it a long laborious process, like childbirth or a thing which seemed to happen over night? what were the crowds like when it happen?

PS
sorry for my sucky english, it's a second language.