And as much as fans love knockouts, Alexander’s kayos of Keith Jardine and Alessio Sakara weren’t your garden-variety stoppages.

They were fast, brutal and savage, the type that left even veteran fighters with their mouths agape.

Alexander became the flavor du jour in the UFC’s light heavyweight division after he followed his 48-second carnage of Jardine with a 61-second savagery of Sakara. Fans clamored for him to be challenging for the title.

Some were calling him the best 205-pounder in the world.

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Houston Alexander chuckles and begs you not to make him out to be Superman.

After carefully examining the facts, though, you arrive at the inescapable conclusion that Superman is the perfect nickname for the fast-rising UFC light heavyweight contender.

And no, it’s not because of his two knockout victories in his first two UFC fights, which took a combined one minute and 49 seconds, though his victims, Keith Jardine and Alessio Sakara, may be buying into the Superman hype a bit at this point.

And neither is it because of his ability to bench press as much as 450 pounds, or more than twice his body weight, because being a star weight lifter is no guarantee of success as a mixed martial arts fighter.

Alexander, who faces his biggest challenge on Nov. 17 at UFC 78 in Newark, N.J., when he meets Thiago Silva, earns the Superman moniker every day as the single parent of six children.

Taking care of six children between the ages of 5 and 16 is a big enough job for a small squadron of adults. For a guy who has emerged as one of the world’s elite light heavyweights, with all the training and business demands that entails, to also be able to cook and clean around the house each day is super hero kind of stuff.

Cooking, cleaning and beating people up makes for a full day.

Admittedly, though, the image of one of mixed martial arts’ baddest men pushing a vacuum cleaner and cleaning a toilet is priceless.

“But you tell all those UFC fans, they come to my house and they’ll see me pushing that vacuum,” he says, laughing. “I’m no different than they are. I have to clean the house, too.”

He’s already begun to clean house at 205 pounds, one of the UFC’s deepest divisions. Alexander made his UFC debut in May, when he took a bout against Jardine on short notice.

At the time, it looked like Jardine was moving inexorably toward a title shot and there was a lot of backlash about the UFC selecting a guy precious few had heard of as his opponent.

Looking back, the hubbub seems ridiculous, but Alexander said he understood the concern.

“They didn’t know me,” Alexander said of the UFC’s fan base. “Keith fought on TV (on the UFC’s reality series, The Ultimate Fighter, on Spike TV) and he was well known. There was a way of doing things, where if you beat this guy then you fought that guy type of thing.

“But to a lot of the people, I came out of nowhere. I didn’t, really, and I never doubted that I would win that fight. But because people didn’t know who I was or what I was capable of doing, they sort of doubted me.”

Alexander then went out and caught Jardine with a combination that made a sound so loud it resonated like the casino implosions that have occurred up and down the Las Vegas Strip.

It took only 48 seconds and Alexander was the winner.

“You do that and then all of a sudden, things change a lot for you,” Alexander said. “The thing that pleased me, I got another fight (in the UFC).”

And though it took longer, this time, Alexander put those extra 13 seconds to good use. He pulverized Sakara at UFC 75 in London, making the battle of strikers essentially a one-man show.

He returns at UFC 78 with a potential 2008 title shot looming if he can get past Silva. And though Silva is 10-0 and was impressive in defeating Tomasz Drwal at UFC 75, he’s facing a totally different type of opponent.

He attacks with a ferocity rarely seen in the fight game.

“If this guy is to beat me, he has to be a terror,” Alexander said.

He’s seen all kinds in his lengthy fighting career, much of which was completed in obscurity in small towns around the Midwest.

Alexander figures he has around 40 wins, though his official record has him at just 8-1. But regardless of whether the missing fights were non-sanctioned or amateur bouts, they were fights just the same and provided Alexander with the experience to be able to take on the likes of world-class fighters such as Jardine and Sakara.

And though his future will in large part ride upon how he performs against Silva, it’s not causing him to lose so much as a wink of sleep.

“Pressure is raising six kids by yourself,” Alexander said. “That’s pressure. As far as fighting, I’m 35. I’ve got a lot of fights. However you want to categorize those fights I had, there still was someone standing across from me intending to hurt me. You learn from those – or at least you try – and after you’ve had a few, you don’t feel any pressure.

“My pressure comes from wanting to do the right thing for my kids. I want them to have the best life possible. And there is so much work that has to be done. Fighting is just a job. Kids are work, believe me when I tell you that. You want pressure, that’s pressure.”

Kevin Iole covers boxing and mixed martial arts for Yahoo! Sports. Send Kevin a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

On Sunday nights, those hits are of the hip-hop and rhythm and blues variety during his three-hour stint behind the microphone at Power 106.9 FM in Omaha, Neb. Saturday nights are for fighting, UFC style, and in just two short fights, Alexander has hit hard enough to climb the ranks of contenders in the 205-pound division.

After six years of fighting in obscure, small shows in the Midwest, Alexander received a call from the UFC to take a fight on five weeks’ notice against former reality show star Keith Jardine. It took Alexander, 35, a second to say yes. It took him only 48 seconds more to get his first UFC victory.

Alexander blasted Jardine with a flurry of punches at UFC 71 in May that sent Jardine to the mat four times before the contest was waved off. With his highlight-reel destruction of Jardine, Alexander (8-1 as a pro) quickly shed the “unknown” tag and had fans clamoring for more.

“I like fighting taller guys,” said Alexander, a single parent of six. “It takes them a lot longer to move. Once you get inside on a taller guy, and you have any strength at all, it’s hard for them to move. And, I move quickly.”

The UFC moved quickly in signing Alexander to a contract extension after the Jardine fight. The UFC added another two bouts to Alexander’s initial three-fight pact.

Proving he was no one-hit wonder, Alexander made short work of Alessio Sakara in his second UFC bout, taking out the Brazilian by technical knockout in 61 seconds.

While Alexander waits for his next assignment, he continues to train up to three times a day and juggle the myriad activities that have made him a familiar face in Omaha.

In addition to his DJ gig, Alexander and a troupe of colleagues, dubbed the Culture Shock School Tour, travel to schools throughout Nebraska to preach the positive aspects of hip-hop.

“I have dancers, graffiti artists, DJs and guys who beat-box and rap,” said Alexander, who has been leading the community-service effort for seven years. “Kids see so much negative imagery about the hip-hop culture on TV, they’ve lost sight of what the culture is all about. The culture is about music, dance and art. That’s what we teach the kids.”

During weekly school assemblies, Alexander serves as master of ceremonies and is often asked about his other job, which involves throwing punches for a living.

“I’ve been doing community service for a lot longer than I’ve been recognized as a fighter,” he said. “I don’t think it sends a mixed message. Now that I’m getting recognition, I think I can be an even bigger role model.”

Prime-time live for IFL

The International Fight League will bring live mixed martial arts to broadcast television for the first time next month.The team-based fight league will air a portion of its season-ending grand prix semifinals in an hour-long broadcast on MyNetworkTV. The televised bouts are expected to include a rematch between lightweights Chris Horodecki and Bart Palaszewski, and a heavyweight battle between Ben Rothwell and Roy Nelson.

The show amounts to a pilot of sorts for MyNetworkTV, which has carried the IFL’s Battleground series, but has not committed to additional IFL programming in 2008. The grand prix semifinals will air at 7 p.m. Nov. 3 from Sears Centre in Chicago.

UFC to open internationally

The UFC will begin its 2008 campaign on the road, with two international events.Firm dates are still up in the air, but the promotion is planning to host its first two shows of the new year in January in Newcastle, England, and Montreal.

The UFC originally planned to bring a show to Montreal this month, but UFC president Dana White said there were “a lot of different things that made that fight fall apart.”

In the past, White has cited scheduling conflicts with hockey for holding up a date, but the organization is close to finalizing its debut at Bell Centre in Montreal.

With mixed martial arts fans in Canada, the show is sure to be a success, but the timing of the event means the UFC will head north without its biggest Canadian star, Georges St. Pierre.

The former welterweight champion will face the winner of the Matt Serra-Matt Hughes title fight. But that match is set for December, removing any possibility St. Pierre would be part of the promotion’s first card in Canada.

Steve Sievert covers mixed martial arts for the Chronicle. mixedmartialarts@earthlink.net.

The ascending mixed martial artist, who has opened the eyes of UFC honchos and UFC fans with knockouts of Keith Jardine at UFC 71 and Alessio Sakara at UFC 75, patterns his ferociousness in the Octagon after boxing legend Mike Tyson, the poster boy for human pitbulls. “I’m tired of seeing people stand around in the ring or cage,” he tells ESPN.com cheerfully, even though he’d done a few hours worth of media already that day. “I’m a fan too. I’m watching to see a guy go after his foe, and if necessary, take a few to give a few.” Amen to that, most fight fans say, who in theory can marvel at technical excellence, but when all is said and done, go berserk over back-and-forth tradefests. “Fans want to see people fight for their money,” he says. The fans saw it, and then some, when Alexander blew through Jardine, who, incidentally, just defeated Chuck Liddell at UFC 76. Jardine, a solid meat-and-potatoes banger who likes to standup with you, throw strikes and turn your thigh to burger meat with kicks, had just stunned Alexander with a short right, and he looked to press that advantage. The two men clinched up, and Alexander lifted an educated knee into Jardine’s sternum. He then started throwing megaton hand bombs, right hooks that hit home, and quickly dropped Jardine with a right uppercut. A la vintage Tyson, Alexander didn’t take or give a breather. He kept on Jardine with a stream of fierce rights, and dropped him for good with a knee strike/right uppercut combo to the dazed man’s chin, which sent the ref scurrying in to prevent more carnage. It was a jaw-dropping (no pun intended) display of ferociousness, and comparisons to Tyson’s 1985-1989 reign of state-sanctioned muggings are not misplaced. Alexander’s decimation of Sakara was just as hurried and as impressive. A knee to the chin dropped the Italian, and Alexander hopped on him for some devastating ground and pound. Again, the ref intervened the one-sided melee to prevent excessive damage. While there is no evidence to suggest the well-conditioned Jardine overlooked Alexander, he could be forgiven if he did. Consider Alexander’s supposed win-Loss record floating around on the Internet. As of today, it stands as 8-1. Not even close, according to Alexander. The Nebraskan tells ESPN.com that he has fought for pay, but also on amateur MMA cards, over 200 times since he picked up the sport on a dare in 2001. There was a small weekly MMA event in Nebraska. Alexander was a decent athlete in high school, but didn’t move on athletically, as his first child’s birth sent him out to the working world rather than college. He got into the cage at the weekly show after a pal dared him to do so. He beat the fighter who was cleaning up week after week, winning the dare, and finding a new career in the process. At the time, Alexander was paving roads and lots, a rough task in the dog days of August. He was also a disc jockey on Saturday night on his own radio show, playing hip hop and R&B cuts. He still does the radio gig, Sundays from 7 p.m.-10 p.m. on Omaha’s Power 106.9 (www.Power1069FM.com). He was also getting the kids up, getting them to school, and picking them up at the end of the day. He sandwiched a workout before they got up, two while they were at school, and one right before he hit the rack for the night. Any spare time is spent doing pro Hip Hop talks at local schools, where he turns kids on to, and educates them on the positive aspects of that culture, which is too often dismissed as a breeding ground for thugs and misogynists. Alexander maintains he’s in no danger of burning himself out, mentally or physically, and points to the ageless one, Couture, as a role model for longevity. “At 35, I’m now in the best shape of my life,” he says. “I’m in better shape than in high school. I don’t get hurt. In the past seven years, I got hurt really bad once, when I broke my hand. In five, six, seven years, I’m going to be doing this, the Couture thing.” It’s also worth considering, if you are betting against Alexander, and think he can’t continue this run against more skilled and touted competition, or you dismiss Nebraska solely as a breeding ground for college football studs, that until seven months ago, he was coaching himself. He now has a team of respected tutors, which includes coaches Mick Doyle, Wille Stewart and his cousin Curly Alexander. “I’m still learning,” Alexander says. The fact that MMA is exploding now is fortunate for Alexander. If he keeps hammering foes and entertaining PPV audiences, his paychecks are going to get bigger and bigger. Good thing, as his oldest daughter is hitting college in two years. “With six kids, that’s a lot of college I’m trying to prepare for,” he says. “I’m glad this is happening now. I thank UFC for providing me with college money. I mean, I don’t know if I’m a future star. Justin Timberlake is a star. I’m just a hard-working guy from Omaha, as far as I’m concerned, I’m a dad.” As far as foes in the Octagon are concerned, Alexander is trouble, early-Tyson-like trouble. Michael Woods, the news editor for TheSweetScience.com, has written for ESPN The Magazine, GQ and The New York Observer

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This latest bout could propel one of two promising 205-pound fighters into title contention.

Akexander splashed onto the UFC scene with a quick 48-second knockout of Keith Jardine at UFC 71. He followed up that KO with an encore performance over Alessio Sakara last month at UFC 75, defeating the Italian in just 61 seconds. The Nebraska-based hip-hop DJ has come out of almost complete obscurity right on the cusp of the light heavyweight division’s elite.

He’ll now take on an undefeated Silva, who also posted victories at UFC 71 and 75. Silva defeated James Irvin in July when his opponent suffered a knee injury early in the bout, and he then posted a second-round TKO of Tomasz Drwal earlier this month in London.

The Alexander-Silva bout will likely make the televised portion of the event.

The UFC also confirmed some rumored fights MMAjunkie.com previously reported, including Karo Parisyan vs. Hector Lombard, David Terrell vs. Ed Herman, and Frankie Edgar vs. Spencer Fisher.

For the latest UFC 78 fight card, check out the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.

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