No doubt its also not looking good this year. That being said their biggest stars all want to box now.
Hate to tell you this but Hockey is way more popular worldwide than the NFL. Only North America cares about or has pro football leagues. Hockey is played on every continent. plenty of guys are world famous since Gretzky. Ovechkin is every bit as well known as any current boxer or ufc flavor of the week.
I live in Finland, one of two countries on the planet where hockey is the most popular sport lol. Yeah, its more popular internationally than American football but that says more about the extreme insularity of American footballs popularity than anything. Hockey is still a pretty niche regional sport (US, Canada, Russia, Nordics, parts of Eastern Europe) with virtually zero interest outside of those places. Conor has almost 30 times as many followers as him on IG. Even someone like Adesanya has almost 5 times as many. The most watched Ovechkin video on Youtube has 7.3m views. Conor has literally dozens of videos with higher views, the highest at 69m. Nobody has a ****ing clue who Ovechkin is outside of the regions I previously mentioned. Plenty of people all over Asia, Africa, South America, Western and Southern Europe PLUS the hockey regions know who Conor, Khabib, Fury, Joshua etc are.
Holding onto a belt for a long time in the UFC is much harder than in boxing. You actually have to fight the top challengers consistently and on a technical level its chess to boxings checkers. Way more variables to have to think about, way more stylistic challenges to adapt to and split second decisions have more chance to end a fight. Undefeated records and belts are handed out like candy in boxing. Its the only combat sport where manufacturing records through ducking, cherry picking and dodgy decisions is considered the norm.
Thats more reflective of boxings current health than MMAs. 20 years ago nobody was going to be paying middle aged washed up UFC guys millions of dollars to main event boxing PPVs, it wasnt necessary. Theres a reason its happening now along with the Youtubers and retired old boxers coming back.
He doesn't play in backwaters like the UK. If they've watched NHL or International Hockey the past twenty years, they've seen him.
No interest outside of those places yet there are pro leagues in western Europe and Asia. Hockey is a quickly growing game. Mongolia, Vietnam, Iran, Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Qatar, Lebanon, UAE, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Columbia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Algeria, and more have all joined the IIHF in the past decade or two. Every country in Europe bar Albania play Hockey. Much like Soccer, only about ten countries play well enough to win a world cup.
Participation rates and spectator interest are different things. Obviously combat sports arent going to have high participation rates because most people dont like being punched in the face. Usman is in the new Black Panther movie, Ngannou was in the latest Jackass movie and was the third MMA fighter to be in a Fast and Furious movie, Conor is working on the Road House remake and was featured in a Call Of Duty game, Gina Carano is in The Mandalorian. Adesanya was in a commercial for one of the biggest video games of the year. Within the last few years Ronda, Fury, DC, Cain have all been in the WWE, JDS and presumably some other MMA guys were in AEW. Stuff like "send me location" is known to people who dont follow MMA etc etc. Hockey doesnt bleed over into popular culture like that.
Why is the UK considered the backwaters? Ice Hokey just isn`t popular here, Michael Jordan is more famous here than any ice hokey player and he`s been retired for years.
We ll you shouldn`t have mentioned soccer along with Brazil and Argentina, those two countries are fanatical about football, to mention hockey alongside soccer is laughable to South Americans, a lot of poor Brazilians learn to play football as kids in the street or on beaches like Pele, that`s where Maradonna learned to play, it`s in their blood.
No. Would be mainstream, imo. Wish a billionaire boxing fanatic would come in and clean house. Buy out the garbage belts, buy out all the fighters, and start a centralized boxing promotion lol.
he is still probably one of the top ten most famous athletes on earth in any sport. stop replying to me, it is like talking to my dog.
