Hopkins lost 2x to Taylor Oscar de la Hoya lost 2x to Mosley Groves lost 2x to Froch Marquez loss 2x to Pacquiao although the first was a draw.
Barrera vs Pacquiao I guess you can say Morales vs Pacquiao although technically it was a trilogy where Morales lost the last 2.
It's also easier when one ultra super megarich promotion owns all the fighters, only recently have UFC fighters started making real money, Dana White robbed them blind
Compared to boxing? Sure, as a lot of top tier boxers are way overpaid. But if you compare the undercards, the UFC pays a lot better. Porter made over a mil for Ugas, who himself banked a cool 300k. But the rest of the card were paid in peanuts: Efe Ajagba $8k, Amir Mansour $25k, Damien Vazquez $15k, Juan Carlos Payano $5k, Eimantas Stanionis $8k, Samuel Figueroa $10k, Robert Guerrero $25k, Hevinson Herrera $1k, Jesus Cuellar $40k, Carlos Padilla $1k. The recent Covington-Lawler card: Robbie Lawler: $220,000 ($200,000 to show, $20,000 fight week incentive pay) Jim Miller: $210,000 ($95,000 to show, $95,000 win bonus, $20,000 fight week incentive pay) Colby Covington: $100,000 ($45,000 to show, $45,000 win bonus, $10,000 fight week incentive pay) Antonina Shevchenko: $93,500 ($20,000 to show, $20,000 win bonus, $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus, $3,500 fight week incentive pay) Matt Schnell: $87,000 ($16,000 to show, $16,000 win bonus, $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus, $5,000 fight week incentive pay) Nasrat Haqparast: $82,000 ($14,000 to show, $14,000 win bonus, $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus, $4,000 fight week incentive pay) Clay Guida: $81,000 ($61,000 to show, $20,000 fight week incentive pay) Gerald Meerschaert: $75,000 ($35,000 to show, $35,000 win bonus, $5,000 fight week incentive pay) Scott Holtzman: $74,200 ($33,000 to show, $33,000 win bonus, $3,200 from Ma for missing weight, $5,000 fight week incentive pay) Lucie Pudilova: $69,000 ($14,000 to show, $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus, $5,000 fight week incentive pay) Mickey Gall: $65,000 ($30,000 to show, $30,000 win bonus, $5,000 fight week incentive pay) Claudio Silva: $39,000 ($16,000 to show, $16,000 win bonus, $3,000 from Williams for missing weight, $4,000 fight week incentive pay) Lauren Murphy: $29,000 ($12,000 to show, $12,000 win bonus, $5,000 fight week incentive pay) Kennedy Nzechukwu: $23,500 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 win bonus, $3,500 fight week incentive pay) Miranda Granger: $23,500 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 win bonus, $3,500 fight week incentive pay) Joaquim Silva: $21,000 ($16,000 to show, $5,000 fight week incentive pay) Trevin Giles: $20,000 ($16,000 to show, $4,000 fight week incentive pay) Mara Romero Borella: $20,000 ($16,000 to show, $4,000 fight week incentive pay) Dong Hyun Ma: $17,800 ($16,000 to show, $3,200 fine for missing weight, $5,000 fight week incentive pay) Jordan Espinosa: $15,500 ($12,000 to show, $3,500 fight week incentive pay) Darko Stosic: $13,500 ($10,000 to show, $3,500 fight week incentive pay) Salim Touahri: $13,500 ($10,000 to show, $3,500 fight week incentive pay) Hannah Goldy: $13,500 ($10,000 to show, $3,500 fight week incentive pay) Cole Williams: $10,500 ($10,000 to show, $3,000 fine for missing weight, $3,500 fight week incentive pay) In boxing, the main event guys basically take the entire damn pie. Which leads to **** cards.
Barrera lost to junior jones n then lost the rematch. Think he retired for a year n then came back and had an epic legendary career.
And when the talent pool is so small that it's a bunch of hyped up journeymen who each aren't dominant enough to string a couple of victories together in a row.
And exactly how closely to you follow MMA, or the UFC? Don't belittle another sport because you don't like it. How often do we see champions in boxing defend their titles against legitimate top 10 guys on a consistent basis? Once you get that UFC belt, it's nothing but killers. Guys don't get to take tuneups like LSC or Cherry Garcia do.
That's not helping your case at all. Boxers who headline and appear on co main events do get paid more than UFC counterparts, that's a fact. What you showed, or proved rather, there is a "ceiling cap" for UFC fighters (by Dana White). Boxers are free to negotiate whatever money they want and those that aren't televised don't expect to be paid much. That's why there is incentive to grow yourself into an upper tier boxer for the networks. Scrubs like Danny Garcia make way more than his UFC scrub counterparts.
Garcia and the likes get paid because everyone else gets shafted. Wilder made 10mil for Breazeale. How does that make any sense? SHO literally threw money away there. Dana could pay their top billing but that would cut their undercards.
I follow it close enough. The number of professional fighters in mma is a small fraction of the number of professional boxers. Their talent pool is therefore much smaller and they have far fewer elite athletes. The sport survives on hype and intelligent promotion to keep the fans satisfied that they are being delivered a high quality product. It's very intelligent marketing. But they consistently oversell the abilities of their fighters. They've had maybe 4 fighters in their history who are elite level athletes like our top ten p4p boxers: Silva, Jones, St. Pierre, Johnson. Everybody else's records in that sport are pitiful. Their heavyweight title defense record isn't two or three because the sport is so hard. It's because they've never had a really elite heavyweight like a Klitshcko, Lewis, Ali, Holmes. Jon Jones and Demetrius Johnson don't have any trouble putting wins together on a consistent basis. Honestly, I think LSC and Garcia's tune ups are probably as good as a UFC top ten guy. I think most of their talent is only domestic level instead of world class. Also, I've seen the politicking that goes on with the UFC. It's a lot like boxing.
You can dress it as you want to, but the truth is that no top fighter has lost 2-0 vs another top fighter and has continued to be considered a top fighter. At least recently. De la hoya? he lost to mosley to get his crap beaten the hell out by anyone else. Kovalev? fighting useless fighters and losing to alvarez, being a shadow of himself, nice recovery dude! groves? lol, I didnt consider him a top fighter even before losing to caveman froch. You can dress it as you want to, as I said, but if AJ loses again and there is no 3rd fight, his career is 99% done. Marquez didnt lose 2-0 to pacman, btw. EDIT: ok, let's say 90% instead of 99%, because I'm sure that you will find a weird fighter that lost 2-0 and recovered, that odd guy in 1976, or 1982 or 1965. I dont give a F about exceptions. Take your toll, that 9%, it's yours, dont waste my time.
Terry Norris disqualified twice in a row hitting Luis Santana after he was down. Third time's the charm. Also, as someone noted earlier Hopkins lost twice to Taylor. Barrera lost twice to Junior Jones. Marquez lost the first two of his series with Pacquiao. De La Hoya was still considered elite after Mosley. Tyson after Holyfield. Carlos Ortiz lost the second and third fights with Duilio Loi and dropped down to lightweight where he ruled for some time. Emile Griffith was still elite after he lost twice to Nino Benvenuti. Joey Giardello won the middle two of his bouts with Dick Tiger and Tiger went on to be middleweight champ again then light heavyweight champ. Ruben Olivares still had a bit left after losing twice to Rafael Herrera. Flash Elorde lost four times to Shigeji Kaneko, went 1/3 with Masashi Akiyama early in his career, lost twice to Miguel Berrios. Kid Gavilan lost twice to Ray Robinson. Ike Williams lost 3/4 to Willie Joyce, lost two to Kid Gavilan and regained his title. Harold Johnson lost 4 out of 5 against Archie Moore and ****ed up everybody else. Sandy Saddler lost the last two of a trilogy with Paddy DeMarco and regained his featherweight title. Barney Ross beat Tony Canzoneri twice and then Canzoneri continued to kick ass. Jimmy McLarnin lost the first and third fights with Bud Taylor and only won the middle one on a DQ.
