How many years until MMA surpasses Boxing in popularity?

To the op, you are saying with boxing big names gone, but the biggest name you mention in MMA, doesn`t have much life in the octagon as well. How many matches do you think this 3 have ? Conor Mcgregor, Khabib, Jon Jones
From 2016 to now(we are in 2020 already) Conor have just 1 fight and he lost it. I really don`t see how you can keep the interest going with 1 fight for 4 year. This dude is pathetic. He spend his prime years away and doing b.s.
Jon Jones is a piece of ....., have problem with drugs, law, was caught with steroids and so on. He doesn`t have much career left in him as well.
Khabib himself said that he has 2-3 matches left in MMA.

While saying all this i will admit that boxing has his problem, as ridiculous scorecards, just need to mention Fury - Wilder and GGG - Canelo, but the list goes on, to the ridiculous things that happen with WBC, aka they allow Wilder to milk the title however he want, just because he is American and the only hope for American champion.... Also the refusing of top fighters to fight each other in a lot of categories, and this is due to id****** rules in boxing. You don`t see very often now prime fighter to fight other prime fighter, what they did is to wait for the right moment, to see the opponent is fading and hop there you go.
If they make better rules and remove even half of the corruption boxing will be in a way better state.

 

It's already happened. Boxing's only hope is the best guys consistently fighting each other and more celebrity matches such as KSI vs Logan Paul.

 

All if's.

 

Man look at what happpened in Canelo's last fight vs Kovalev (which was a big fight with two big names), it got delayed so people could watch the Diaz vs Masvidal main event...

Canelo is one of the biggest names (maybe the biggest name) in boxing and he got put/pushed aside and the fight was delayed till late in the night for people so people could watch a pretty average/decent MMA main event. Boxing in terms of views and popularity is sadly inferior to MMA.

 

Khabib is also a monster in the making
I do agree that Boxing have brighter top stars (bar McGregor), but the UFC have more house hold names.

However, there will come a time when the UFC will have a major competitor and that will see MMA follow boxing with different champions in different organisations

UFC stack their cards and pay some top fighters little dollar, but I can't see that happening forever. Especially with their ESPN deal

Boxing is definitely still bigger where I am from

 

How can it die out?
In certain regions, boxing is only starting to grow now. When one market fades, another one opens up.
FFS, Norway lifted it´s ban on pro boxing in 2014.
Zou Shiming was the first Chinese to win a medal at the Olympics in 2004.
In 2014, Xiong Zhao Zhong was the first to win a title in the pro ranks.
Chinese boxing has steadily been growing.

U.K has become a massive player in pro boxing over the years. They have always had great talent and champions, but now there is big money backing it all up. Box Office records are broken on a nearly yearly basis.

Uzbekistan and Ukraine have become major players in the amateur ranks. Ukraine has also made massive waves in the pro ranks.
And Uzbekistan has a lot of talent coming up in the pro ranks.

MMA is massive in Brazil, but yet there is a boxing revolution happening there.
Robson Conceicao was the first Brazilian to win a Gold medal.

If you look deeper, you can see that the sport is thriving.

 

Well, no one actually knows what the top UFC stars are making. Their guarantees a low(in boxing terms), but no one seems to be complaining.

Jon Jones makes 500k per fight according to the official payouts. You bet your ass he would be complaining if it were all he makes per fight.

 

That's a lie regarding popularity.

 

One big problem is the best fighters fighting the best fighters. UFC is just one company, every fighter there is signed to UFC so it's pretty easy to make fights happen. Whereas in boxing fighters are signed with various promoters, managers and TV companies (SKY, BT, DAZN, Showtime, Espn etc) which makes it really hard to make fights happen.

 

Khabin made a guarantee $6 million vs Dustin and I am sure he got some PPV points

It's rumoured Conor made $40m vs Khabib, but I think that figure is likely inflated. Probably more like $25-30m

That ppv vs Khabib supposedly hit 2.4m buys and Conor made less than Canelo in a fight were he does half the numbers?

That is a crazy difference in pay

 

How would you know what Conor´s deal with the UFC is?
And 40mil is more than possible, considering they cleared at least 70mil from just the US PPV sales. Add to that their revenue from other markets and the live gate plus sponsorships, 40 mil seems more than feasible.

And the official pay isn´t that different.
UFC 229:
McGregor - 3m
Khabib - 2m

Alvarez Vs Golovkin II:
Alvarez 5m.
Golovkin 4m.

Obviously boxers get the bigger PPV cuts, but that´s all we know. We don´t know what the UFC´s cut with the cable companies is.
We don´t know what the UFC fighters contracts are.
Heck, we don´t know how much Alvarez made just from Mexico.

In boxing, athletes have deals with networks, in MMA the UFC has deals with networks and the athletes have deals with the UFC.

 

The breakthrough for MMA in recent years has been that it has produced crossover stars who have managed to grow beyond the UFC brand. The MMA product has been of a much more consistent quality for a while than boxing, and has started to put on big mainstream events that were previously the sole reserve of boxing.

That said, I don't see why the sports can't co-exist, and MMA isn't necessarily a threat to boxing other than when PPV events clash. The target market and fanbase is different. If anything, pro wrestling is more vulnerable to MMA than boxing.

Boxing is what it is; a complete cluster**** of a sport that can still put on huge events and provide great entertainment. It doesn't need to obsess over what MMA does though, any more than it does any other competitor. It's more a case of getting its own house in order and making the big fights happen.

 

Really interesting reading these responses. It's obvious that MMA has become a major sport in it's home, The States. This could be down to scheduling of TV slots among other reasons. American fight fans have always backed their own guys and sadly, largely for socio-economic reasons, there are nowhere near the number of top level American fighters as previously.
The MMA audience does not seem to be influenced as much by nationality which suggests that the audiences are more separate than simply one bloc swinging between one sport and another. With a relative lack of American talent, perhaps the Boxing audience is, to an extent, dormant.
Aesthetically the sports are entirely different and I really don't see much of a crossover audience. I am very much from a Boxing background but my eldest Son is a Mixed Martial Artist. He never watches Boxing and the only MMA I watch are his fights.
I think both sports will continue to develop independent of each other. Several people have made the point that the big threat to Boxing comes from within and that is where our sport should shine a very bright light for its own good.

 

Not a expert on MMA but there must be thousands of active MMA fighters around the world. They can’t all be signed to the UFC?

 

It's origin by the number would be 1993. Well organized under Dana White 2001 really unified & or eliminated any chance for competing orgs and promoters to the benefit of fans.

Popularity in terms of any thread, blog or forum proves unequivocally that MMA fans are way the "F" more happy with their matches than boxing fans are.

By the $
Taken from Wiki:
In 2016, UFC's parent company, Zuffa, was sold to a group led by William Morris Endeavor for $4.025 billion.
4 billion is some nice change. Most recent numbers I could find was revenue of US$609 million in 2015. While Floyd can generate 1/2 to most of that himself, what does boxing do without him $ wise?


Almost 30 years since it's birth, boxing has still found a major seller that dwarfs their top dogs.
Since then it would've been Tyson-De La Hoya-Mayweather-Pacquaio. Preceding them Ray Leonard, Larry Holmes, Ali.

Mano Y mano Boxing kills them in comp, but overall it seems MMA has a slight edge. I like to think between Canelo & Lomachenko we will have a newly anointed cash cow.
Only if Wilder had a bit cleaner style of fight he could draw & Uysk I don't think will truly crossover even though he is fun to watch.

Last, Tank Davis said he is the new cashcow, I say he is probably the next great under-achiever.