Is UFC to blame when it comes to the decreasing popularity of HW boxers?

Boxing is hell-bent on destroying itself. So no. And yet boxing will always capture imagination more than the MMA, because it has an over century of rich history intertwined with the cultural reality of yesteryear. The structure of it further cements the allure—the numerous rounds, the knockdowns, the restriction of using only the gentleman weapon, that being the hands. There is a good reason boxing gave birth to countless fantastic pieces of literature, movies, essays etc.

It has qualities unlike any other fighting game, though they are not without merit.

 

Also lol at Islam beating Usyk. Usyk already knows his stuff when it comes to grappling. Give him tune ups and some world level kickboxing coach and see what happens.

 

Usyk has clearly done a lot of training learning to defend against being clinched in a boxing ring. Grabbing him appears to be about as successful as grabbing a snake covered in grease.

But does that actually translate to anything useful under MMA rules?

The boxers I'd think would have success under MMA rules would be the big hitters. Throw Dubois in an octagon tomorrow and there's a non-zero chance he ices his opponent before the guy so much as touches him. Usyk doesn't have that kind of power.

 

Boxing's problems are self-inflicted. I think if anything, UFC has given boxing a lifeline by keeping people interested in combat sports. It is possible to be hardcore boxing fan, and casual UFC, or vice versa, so I think they support each other a bit, and of course, there are the crossover athletes and fights between boxing, UFC, kick-boxing, etc, although there are not as many as I would have thought.

 

No. Have you watched the UFC HW division? Its awful I don't think there is a single HW in UFC history on the level of Usyk in terms of skill.

 

Not at all. I know a lot of the blame falls on the idea that, "Top American boxers play other pro sports", has been tossed around. And there's probably a little truth to that. But reality is, American boxing has been falling for decades now. The days of a stacked US Olympic squad are probably over.

But another thing I see is what has become of boxing today. Way too much put in to the 'Risk vs Reward' idea, and when you have 4-5 belts per division, why fight the toughest guy when a weak belt holder will fit the bill.

Non-PPV fighters requesting PPV-type money, the loss of boxing on SHO/HBO, poor streaming services, inactivity....this affected all of boxing, and not just the HW division.

Just my 2 cents

 

Tom Aspinall isn’t that popular though. So doesn’t that kind of disprove the whole premise? Aspinall is from the UK, but his popularity there is laughable compared to AJ or Fury.

In fact I don’t think the UFC has ever had a true heavyweight superstar, it has always been one of their weaker divisions. I guess the closest would be Jon Jones, but he built his legacy at LHW and has pretty much disgraced himself at HW by refusing to fight the best competition.

 

It's not about exposure, but it is about how long it's been around—it's been here at the times of Mendoza, Sullivan, and the eugenics. It's been here during the extreme racism, with all its stories of fearless opposition and defiance like Johnson, Louis, Moore and the Murderer's Row. It's been here during the glamour of the Roaring 20's, during the daunting terror of the WWII and the crippling poverty of the great depression which produces man like Jersey Joe Walcott who chased their dream through extreme conditions incomparable to modern first world countries. It's been here during the civil rights movements, it's been here when the heavyweight champion of the world was invited to the White House, it's been here when boxers like Ali symbolized far more than pugilism, transcending as universal symbols of human rights, and it's been here when Mike Tyson became so ridiculously popular that he is literally a character in major fighting game franchise and a pop culture staple with ridiculous amount of Google searches, featuring across so many media (games, movies, cartoons like the Simpsons) that it's almost ridiculous. And it's not about him being the baddest man on the planet, though granted it did capture the imagination. It's about his personality, background (D'Amato et al.), his philosophy, his style, his knockouts.

Boxing had time and form to produce countless larger than life stories than UFC, during times which bred that sort of man as ignominious and harsh as they might have been. Books like Gods of War and countless biographies and essays are straight literature, because boxing has been a topic that demanded such high a form of literary description.

Won't even go into the darker side of the obsession boxing sparks which is birthed by the unapologetic, exploitative, corrupt part of it—all the men that profit from the fighting game, 80's being arguably the peak of the abyss for the fighters with Don King at the top.

PS. Usyk kills the lightweight. That part is pure bait on your part.

 

Blaming the UFC is a sad excuse for the declining talent of American HW's in recent years.

 

I reckon most MMA fighters agree boxing is more brutal sports boxing for 12 and beforehand 15 rounds. Knockdowns alone are a brutal rule which essentially drags you to your feet for more punishment if you are able to, and most fighters are expected to.

Boxers are the symbol of strength and resilience because wars like Holyfield-Qawi, Duran-Leonard, Ali-Frazier I and III, Foreman-Moorer, Lyle-Foreman, Norton-Holmes, Graziano-Zale and the likes are and always will triumph most fighters can pull off under the ruleset of their own game. Any pretense of being the baddest man of the planet by a fighter quickly pales before the cold reality of knife and gun anyway, so finding on sport more appealing because of the human spectacle if produces is understandable in my book.

 

There is a huge amount of truth to this. Deontay Wilder wanted to play american football but he is built too weird so ended up boxing.

An elite athlete is going to get pushed into football in America. Jon Jones is really the super outlier to be such an elite athlete, have two brothers in the NFL but somehow not be good at football or not want to play football.

In America, your father has to practically force you into boxing if you are an elite athlete or otherwise you will just end up in a different sport that is offered in high school. Teofimo I think is a good example. If not for Sr, he would have ended up in a different sport in high school and been really good at the high school level in almost any sport with how twitchy he is. Not world class in any sport but certainly a much better athlete than my friends and I were in high school.

Alot of the football team in high school is also on the wrestling team. The super good athletes that are too short for college football keep going in wrestling. That is how you get the college wrestling pipeline into MMA but it is also why HW MMA is always going to suck in terms of Americans. A guy like Brendan Schaub is never not playing football first. The really good version of MMA Brendan Schaub is a starting defensive end in the NFL.