this may of already been posted, not sure? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ot...ont-away-time-Haye-Klitschkos-box-clever.html
The fanbase who have made the UFC what it is are the same fans who do follow trends. Maybe MMA will be more than a trend, I don't know, but I do think the same fans who buy every UFC PPV, were the same ones who watched WWF and WCW religiously, made extreme sports big and, if you want to look outside of sport, they are the same fans who dictate music trends. I don't know whether MMA will fade away. I doubt it will entirely but I'd be surprised if it could become a staple sport, such as boxing, NFL, football, rugby, basketball etc.. I don't know if it has that appeal to every demographic. Sure, it will sell amongst a certain type of fans right now but there's a difference between being big in the eyes of those fans and being a truly mainstream sport.
Why does it need to go away? It's a legit sport with growing popularity. Wishing it would go away is like a basketball fan saying, "Gee, I wish football would away." There's plenty of room for boxing and MMA in this world. Don't worry.
Realistically any fightsport is going to find it very hard to be truely mainstream in the western world today. I'd be supprized if MMA didnt at least retain a decent viewership but I do think your right that its rather too focused on a "fadish" audience right now. The UFC do not seem to be interested in deviating much from the formula established 5 years ago and thats IMHO limating the growth of the sport to a wider audience. Most obviously the production for events is clearly aimed at the former pro wrestling market but the way the hype is delivered is also geared to those fans. Some will disagree I'm sure but UFC hype is often incredabley dishoniest, both in terms of the quality of the fighters and the quality of the matches. The easily led former pro wrestling fan with a short memory can be taken in by that but the wider mainstream audience isnt going to be nearly as much. There going to see Lesnar hyped as the "baddest man on the planet" then run like an amature and look on the sport as a joke.
The UFC has never been about the Pageantry that PRIDE had which had a heavy "pro wrestling" influence from its inception. The UFC though is fast turning into the circus that WWE is. A ton of hype and little on substance. Essentially it makes their brand a "fad". And Fad's always have a limited shelf life.
Yes. Any promotion that is giving Maynard, Okami and Shields title shots while choosing JDS-Lesnar over Mir-Lesnar III has clearly embraced pro-wrestling pagentry to a circus level extent.
Maybe but MMA wont go away, its an exciting combat sport..it only grown and grown and grown since its professional inception in 1993. Its not perfect matchmaking but still the best fighter the best more often than Boxing does. In fact if K1 was marketed for North America, and Europe more then it would be huge....literally to be the champion you have to fight the best which is how it should be done.
one thing that boxing has over MMA that I wish MMA had is that boxing fans seem to know their sport, like in MMA when it goes to the ground people start boo'ing, most mma fans have probably never heard of guys like fedor, overeem, aoki, alvarez etc pisses me off
Most American boxing fans haven't heard of top foriegn fighters...indeed I'd say that boxing is far more parochial than MMA due to its obession with home fighters. And the reason that there's occassional booing on the ground (its by no means always) is because MMA actually convinces casual fans to pay money to buy a ticket. Boxing is to put it lightly, less successful at that
It depends alot of what you consider "pro wrestling influence" I'd say, Pride certainly had more in the way of extravagant enterances and production in general but by the early 2000's I think it was a more "honiest" org. Thoughout there history they had mismatches and freakshows BUT they were generally acknowledged as such, they werent say selling Crocop/Dos Caras Jnr as a big fight. The GP's aswell were by there very nature honiest, if someone kept on winning they were champ. Chuck being promoted as a striking god or Lesnar as "the baddest man on the planet" was fundamentally dishoniest and in the end both of them blew up in the UFC's face. How many people who desided to give MMA a go based on that hype came away with a negative impression? The same is true of Sapp in K1, he drew massive interest short term but long term his embarrising performances hurt the sports credibility with a wider audience.
Thats more unique to UFC. And predominantly MMA in the West. Japanese MMA fans rarely do this. Incidents such as the hard time Japanese fans gave Ishii are very rare.
This i agree with. Although K-1 is imploding because of the demise in Japanese MMA. I wouldn't attribute that to Sapp at all.