UFC is actually a really, really poor product. I've watched it since it's creation and it's been on the decline for a long time. A lot of UFC cards are pretty poor overall and it's more quantity over quality (you could say the same about boxing cards). I preferred Pride over UFC. The cards were better and the events felt more special. Boxing PPV's are usually poor products which they have no reason to be (better cards could be made). The talent is growing and is there in boxing but they can't make proper cards. The majority of UFC cards (including fight nights) are X fighter (a washed up fighter with tons of losses) vs Y fighter (some unknown) and most people won't care to watch them fight. If you look at both sports boxing has way deeper talent pool where competitive fights could be made over mma. Where you see quite a dip in up and comers coming through in their 20s compared to the younger up and coming boxing talent. If Danny Garcia was an MMA fighter he'd get paid around 100 to 200k a fight at best vs 1.1 mil in boxing. That's the main issue with UFC is getting the right balance in what a fighter is worth to the company. In the old days of UFC fighters could express themselves more and get additional sponsorship.
MMA is global dude. UFC is in the US mostly and Brazil but the sport itself has a huge global following.
the company & audience is for sure global. they have fighters from all over the world as well. they have 3 African champions homie. https://www.africanews.com/2021/04/26/african-born-champions-take-over-ufc-by-storm/ they have Aussie fighters, New Zealand fighters. Russian / Eastern European fighters Chinese fighters Canadian fighters Mexican fighters Korean fighters Italian fighters German fighters French fighters Etc.
UFC is a passing fad, they don't even show the fights at bars anymore here. Meanwhile canelo just sold out 75k people in Texas, that counts as the USA right lol?
I guess it depends where. In Europe and UK boxing is fine. In US boxing is dying big time. There are too many sports and netflix and other apps it competes with and with apps like ESPN and DAZN ypu cant attract casual viewers. So boxing is dying. UFC is getting bigger. I dont think it will can ever take on the 3 big leagues though
MMA/UFC is in a dangerous period where the explosive growth is over and now it will be about making more profit out of what they have. I wouldn't be surprised if, when profits disappoint and relationships strain, you see the sport begin to fragment and go through a process similar to what boxing has gone through over the last 40 years.
I dont think most of the people that tune in specifically for these freakshow fights actually stick around and become long term boxing fans. In the case of stuff like Floyd/Conor and Paul/Askren a lot of those people are gonna be MMA fans anyway.
The UFCs roster is very international these days, most of their current champs arent from the US or Brazil. Before the pandemic the UFC was holding events outside of the US in double figures every year. Then theres One FC based in Singapore, Rizin in Japan, ACA, M1, RCC in Russia, KSW in Poland etc. And why did you put "fighters" in quotations? arent they fighters? isnt that term more applicable to them than it is to boxers?
boxing never will be 100% ultimate combat sport and this now is damn worse than mma, kb , mt and grappling. These holy judges cards and boring, predictable comments in forums, yt and boxing forums, commentators and so on. Boxing is to build a brand and sadly now we do have things like these: big event, undercards should be good and enough competitive despite yeah, we do know about A and B side and who is match make here to win this one till boring condition. Now: prospect vs TBA till almost last day, prospect vs even 0-4 lad after beated up 0-10 lad. All these comments and score cards are too damn boring till sleep. Including forums comments. Pro boxing by 90% sadly is very predictable and very boring here. xx numbers of champs are milking their belt and all this biased stuff, it is shame and boring during decades more and more boring. Predictable and boring.
