I just searched on google - it looks so violent.
In a way it is violent because it involves kicks and elbows and knees and fists, sometimes to the head. It tends to produce more of a spectacle than watching two heavyweights in boxing hugging each other for twelve rounds. Although when the fight goes to the ground with a bit of Brazilian Ju-Jitsu then it can become a little tedious to watch if you don't get the intricacies of grappline for position and submission techniques.
If you have Sky, then you can usually watch MMA on Bravo and TWC, although it seems that the growing popularity has seen Sky Sports buy into it as they are screening, for the first time, Cage Rage (the UK's main MMA event) live on Saturday, April 21st.
MMA is a growing sport and I believe it's starting to outsell boxing events in the US as regards pay-per-view events. It's been growing over here too with many grassroots events appearing across the country at weekends. It's a lucky sport in that it has so many feeder sports such as muay thai, wrestling, boxing, ju-jitso, judo, and more. It's still in its infancy (just over ten years, really) but I'm sure in the next ten we'll start to see it becoming a really big money thing with good boxers being matched against experienced grapplers, etc.
A good 'in' to the sport is to watch the reality series from the UFC,
The Ultimate Fighter. It puts sixteen guys in a house and shows them living and training together. Unlike most reality shows, however, there's no phone voting - it's straight out fighting in the octagon. Winner stays on, loser leaves the show. Simple as that.