That's nothing. The hardest man in the world once did a full weeks work, got asked if he fancied getting in the ring with 11-0 (6 KO's) Henry Akinwande the next day. Being a fighting man he promptly agreed, got up the next morning, had a fry up and then lasted 3 rounds before he fell under the spell of Henry's magic wande and went to sleep.
The Steve Robinson two day notice situation is unparalleled. It helped that Steve was an exceptional professional and had virtually no ego.
The main difference is that the best fight the best. Look at the joke that is the HW Division, or Crawford/Spence, or Spence/Thurman.
I'm starting to enjoy the UFC more and more, don't misunderstand me, I'm still a boxing fan first but there is a lot to like about the UFC and they way it is managed. The major differences are there is one world champion, makes a huge difference, you get the top fighters in every division having to fight each other. You don't get many poor stoppages in UFC, they let it play out, they understand the dangers and let fighters go out like the warriors they are. You don't get many mismatches, well, they try to make every fight somewhat competitive, you don't see young fighters getting soft touch after soft touch. Loses are not considered career ending, although you get online trolls hammering fighters for losing, the UFC community sort of accept loses will happen and it really isn't a huge deal. There are quite a few things boxing could take from the UFC that would improve things,
Thats all true but it's a bit of a false equivalence with UFC being the main organisation but not the actual sport.
In boxing it takes a bit more time but by and large the best do fight the best. Broadly speaking we ultimately get the big fights we want to see because there's enough money to make them happen. Yes some historical fights never materialised but the same is true for MMA.
As has been said the UFC isn't a sport - it's the elite promotion of a wider network of smaller organisations. If it grows substantially and ends up with the same numbers boxing has competing in it, it seems likely more champions will be recognised. I'm not sure poor stoppages are a realistic point of contention given how many fights end with someone submitting. You can't get a poor stoppage in that sense. I'm also not really sure losses are considered career ending in boxing. I mean, does anyone actually think this? What about the evidence when a big name finally lost? De La Hoya, Pacquaio, Tyson, Holyfield, Lewis, Klitschko. I could obviously go on. On a domestic sense alone Joshua responded to a loss by becoming a two-time world champion. Less than eighteen months after losing against Mayweather Hatton was fighting Pacquaio in a massive fight. Froch lost against Ward having already lost against Kessler, won a world title in a thriller in his next fight and not long after that was selling out Wembley. If anything, I think the idea that losses are considered career ending is a myth.
There are loads of suspect stoppages, poor cards and terrible refereeing. You quite often get mismatches or fighters given an easy channel to a title fight if they are marketable enough (Francis Ngannou is a prime example). The sport is absolutely rife with PEDS and fighters are given as minimal ban as legally possible and then welcomed back with open arms. There is only one champion in UFC but unfortunately MMA spans several global organisations which do not integrate as of yet (unlike alphabet boxing organisations). The reason they fight so often is that Dana White doesn't pay them much and heavily penalises anyone who refuses a fight or does anything out of contract, a lot of reason why many top fighters moved to Bellator. He does a lot of things very well but is for all accounts a dictator and is getting crazy rich while his fighters are struggling to pay their gym fees, his treatment of legends like Mark Hunt has been nothing short of disgusting and he should be ashamed of himself. I would not be surprised if it's written into Masvidal's contract that he has to take fights at short notice, if not he would have been told take it or you will get nothing else for a long time.
UFC have marketed their brand very well . There are other MMA organisations but it seems that most see moving to UFC as a promotion. They have their fighters under contract so much easier to make fights than boxing so in theory best fight best and as someone mentioned you can lose fights and still be box office. They don’t fight for as big purses as in boxing and their are a few of their top fighters moaning about pay so that will be interesting so see how that develops.
Of course you can and there are countless examples although you cannot see any of them because Dana White has had all the video's removed. Try Ryan Jensen vs. Steve Steinbeiss.
One of the things that has been really noticable is how moderate the Top Rank cards viewing figures are compared to the UFC at the moment. Top Rank are getting 400k to 600k. The Pre lims the another week for UFC did over a million. Do think there are lesson boxing could take from UFC as they are clearly more marketable atm
Al Haymon has matched all of his top welterweights against each other. I wouldn't describe that as a good example. Crawford vs Spence is not a big enough fight yet...Al Haymon and Bob Arum timed Mayweather-Pacquiao to perfection from a commercial point of view.
