mma vs boxing (no hate, only a simple question)

the bottom line is that mma has stolen some of boxings thunder. the sport has fallen into disrepair and the fighters these guys grew up idolising no longer carry the title of worlds toughest man at their weight
Personally i grew up obsessed with boxing. OBSESSED. i used to sneak into the pub and hide under tables just to catch a glimpse of the latest big fight on ppv.
Id borrow every boxing book in the library and return it with every picture cut out and pasted on my wall.
but as i grew up my interest slowly but surely drifted. just too many **** cards, **** fights, too much greed,corruption and lack of willingness for the champions to fight the best.
mma fills this gap to a degree..
I still watch the big fights but now id call myself a "fight fan" as opposed to a "boxing fan"

 

when people feel threatened they fail to react logically but instead emotionally. boxing and mma both felt threatened so re-acted like children. the truth is they are both great sports and as a combat fan i love both. i appreciate the technical aspect and simply want to see the best fight the best and establish the best legacy possible in their career.

 

I second rusty nails, most people now-a-days are fight fans who can appreciate all forms of combat sports. My first love is boxing, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate MMA, Muay Thai, wrestling, Karate or whatever.

I would disagree with your point on Dana White loving boxing. He may have come from a boxing background but make no mistake he hates it more than he likes it. I can understand some of the comments he makes about boxing can come accross as harsh even if boxing fans argue the same thing (e.g. too many belts), but you ever notice they all go on about "watching boxing" but never mention anyone by name unless its Mayweather (who they hate).

Also with the matchmaking, you have to consider as MMA grows in popularity so will rival MMA companies. People seem to think UFC will forever be in this protective bubble where they will house most of the best fighters. They only got most of the best fighters after aquiring PRIDE in 2006, and only 4 years later they have a decent rival in Strikeforce who have one of the most marketable fighters in Fedor Emelianenko, not to mention alot of Asian and European fighters are still fighting in their own backyards.

There is a downside with the UFC showing a PPV every 4-6 weeks, in that they run the risk of saturating the market with a product. Not every fan can afford to buy all the PPV's and sign up to the cable programs. The same problem happend to WWE when they saturated the market with too much of the product. This is reflected in the recent ratings which had shown UFC cable programs had remained stagnant over the past 12months, and in particular UFC 118 and 119 had returned dissapointing numbers.

Also because UFC is so centralised UFC can only have one major event at a time, whereas boxing markets the fighters and depending on where they are from can create superfights around the world within a short space of time.
For example in November boxing has:
R Marquez v Lopez
Pacquiao v Margarito
Haye v Harrison
Martinez v Williams II
Katsidis v JMM
Froch v Abraham.

Now if that was UFC that could be one big November card, but the point is it would happen once in the month whereas boxing can now have major events peppered throughout the month or even in different countries at the same time

So going down the list it would be possible to have a major boxing event in different countries like:
Puerto Rico (Lopez_
Philippines (Pac)
England (Haye)
USA (Williams)
Mexico (JMM)
Germany (Abraham)

 

I'm not sure how you can claim that either UFC 118 or UFC 119 did disappointing numbers - 550,000 is a good number for a lightweight title fight and predictions for it to do better were in the expectation that Couture vs. Toney would click better. If UFC 119 comes in at around 300,000 (which its expected to do) that's a miracle number considering how badly put together that show was. Bear in mind that two years ago, a Middleweight Title fight would do 300,000 on pay per view and that anyone in boxing other than Mayeather or Pacquiao would kill to do that business on pay per view in 2010. Ratings have stagnated, but that's less about oversaturation and more about the UFC having not worked out how it creates television stars for Spike shows now that interest in TUF has died down.

I don't understand your last point either - sure boxing could organise its November schedule to have several huge events all across the world, but its not doing that. Its going to have almost all of those fights in America, with Froch vs. Abraham being the only meaningful fight to happen elsewhere. And because of the systematic problems with boxing that fight is not even happening in the two markets were the fight would actually do decent business.

Compare that to the UFC, which in addition to Vegas has had successful shows in New Jersey, Montreal, Vegas, British Coloumbia, California, Massachusetts, Indiana and for the final quarter has a show planned for Michigan in addition to returns to California and Montreal. And despite not having the pool of foriegn talent that boxing enjoys, has also run successful events over in Australia and Abu Dhabi...and will run a very successful London event (pretty much already sold out) and a German event (decent advanced sales).

 

It's got more to do with hype comparison to actual numbers. Over 500,000 are great numbers, however with 118 you have to consider that it was featuring Toney (a pro boxer), so the expectation was there would be extra viewers i.e. pure boxing fans and casual fight fans interested in the outcome. Again, it's not a bad outcome but the expectations were alot higher.

UFC 119 brings me to the point of saturisation; there just aren't enough marketable fighters to place in main events every couple of weeks, so when you market every PPV as a must see it loses its appeal that you're watching something special. If you start to doubt the quality from PPV to PPV then the brand suffers.

As for the TV ratings you could be right, we'll have to wait and see. But generally products go through life cycles (i.e. introduction, growth, saturisation and decline) so I believe we've passed the growth period (where UFC is generally accepted and the rapid growth has slowed) and are moving into saturisation of an accepted product.

I think i was typing the last point faster than my brain was working but my point was boxing main events are more spread throughout the world rather than centralised so it does have advantages (Whether or not it's being used to its potential is a different matter). Using the November example, you are right they won't put it in other countries (except Haye and the Abraham fight), but the option is there. In fact Pac Vs Margs (USA) is on simultenously (give or take a few hours) as Haye Vs Harrison (England), wheras they don't have a UFC 120.1 (in USA) and UFC 120.2 (in England) at the same time.

 

When you look at it like UFC contracts the fighters, dictates the bouts and does all the promotion, its easy to see why they have some good things going on.

For starters, a loss in UFC isn't considered a showstopper for your career. Heck, if it was, they would be cycling through fighters so fast they couldn't hold events so often.

Basically, it would be like Golden Boy putting on its own pay ppv every month, showcasing their own fighters and having them fight for an in house championship. That is what the UFC does and why they have so much control and are able to be so organized.

If you consider Golden Boy equivialnt to UFC and Strikeforce equal to Top Rank, then you see how things stall out. How long have people been talking about Lessnar vs. Fedor? Is it going to happen? Probably not, because of the $$$ involved and the terms the two organizations would have to agree to. Its just too much red tape.

That is how you wind up with Mayweather vs. Pacman disappointments. Two promotional bodies can't agree so the big fights never happen.

Lucky for Dana, he has, or at least he makes everyone believe he has, all the top fighters in the UFC because they drill it into the consumers mind with advertising.

So what happens next? "Hey, we need one neutral body that regulates the championship fights between all promoters!" Enter the IBF...or if they are corrupt or doing a bad job..."Hey, we need a new sanctiontiong body because the IBF sucks."...and then you get the WBO....or the WBC...or whoever else.

That is why boxing is seemingly complex. Its had a longer period of time to develop into a mess.

 

I definitely loved boxing way before I even heard of MMA.
I kind of hated MMA at first as well. It was mostly because I didn't care to look into it, didn't even bother to watch it. The time I did watch it I wasn't fair and watched it with really bad attitude. I simply hated it out of ignorance.

Then I saw Fedor fight, and like any sport I'll support anything that is Russian. So I watched, and became a fan of the sport.

 

But again, what evidence is there that the UFC's business on pay per view is slowing? The UFC is in the middle of what will end up being a record breaking year. One pay per view underperforming early predictions is insufficent proof of the company's performance on pay per view - its just a sign that a particular fight failed to connect with the audience. Especially in the case of Toney vs. Couture when it was clear that the fight had serious problems i.e. by MMA standards Toney's trash talking was embarassing and that boxing fans weren't interested in such an obvious mismatch.

The UFC actually has the roster to run high quality monthly pay per views, its just that it strangely keeps two-sevenths of its fighters in a low-profile ghetoo called WEC. Five days after UFC 119, Zuffa put on one of its best events of the year with genuine star power and a World Title fight. But because it featured bantamweight and featherweights it recieved a fraction of the exposure of the pisspoor PPV the weekend before.

There's no reason why the UFC can't do split site shows, indeed a centralised structure makes that easier not harder. The UFC could sit down and book three venues, have two matches in each and broadcast it as a one show. Its their decision to not do that - partly because there isn't the sheer volume of MMA events as in boxing. But also because it doesn't actually make business sense. Why put two shows on at the same time - so training British fans to watch the British event and American fans to watch the British event, when they could put them on seperate weeks and market both events to both fanbases? The consequence of that is that MMA has a far more global fanbase, with fans being more familiar with high profile fighters from other countries. That's surely a positive? There's also the fact that by keeping them seperate they are giving more fighters exposure and recieving more money in rights fees/pay per view buys.

 

The problem with this argument is that the UFC and Strikeforce are in no ways equal. Indeed UFC vs. Rest of MMA is not equal either. You go through the five main weight classes and its literally six or seven of the world's top fighters are in the UFC.

The thing with MMA is that the fights that don't get made are far less relevant than the ones that do. Because the UFC has such a strong roster and like you said has so much promotional muscle, it can quickly move past any failure to sign a fighter and put together a fight that excites most of the fanbase. Compare Mayweather vs. Pacquiao with GSP vs. Silva. Both are P4P-deciders that fans are desperate to see. But whilst one is allowed to poision the whole sport, the other is kept on the backburner whilst the two champions defend their world titles.

To me the key with the UFC is that its come to operate on the WWE model not a pro-boxing one. Its an unified operation with the production, fighters and championships all under the ownership of one organisation. That gives the UFC the ability to brand itself as the 'champions league/superbowl' of MMA in a way that no boxing sanctioning body or promoter has ever tried to. They've established a dominant market position and its going to be incredibly difficult to break that, particularly as more and more people come to identify MMA with UFC.

 

I think you are supporting what I'm saying. :huh

My point wasn't that UFC or Strikeforce are any better than one another. My point was that because of their autonomy, those two promotional organizations are able to do things professional boxing cannot because they are organized differently.

The closest example I can think of is Fedor versus Lessnar. Everyone wants that fight, but it won't happen unless Fedor signs with Dana. Instead Dana will try to convince us that whoever he puts Brock in with next is worthy and that we should be equally as excited about it.

Its a situation just like Pac vs. Mayweather. Two promoters are ruining the fight, so instead we get Pac vs. Cheato and Arum tries to convince us that its going to be awesome.

Meanwhile, in both cases, we don't get the fight we want to see.

UFC won't be able to keep every single great prospect out there, forever. They cut Paul Daley (for good reason) but Paul just signed to Strikeforce.

Houston Alexander, Jardine, Kimbo were all cut. Also, Dana won't put on womens fights so you don't get that draw of Gina Carano or Cyborg....all probably going to Strikeforce.

Eventually, someone who is a big draw will become a free agent and pull a Mayweather....and won't sign with anyone but the fans demand to see them fight. Its not a matter of IF, its a matter of WHEN. At that point the autonomy fails and you need a universal MMA sanctioning body.

 

Hey man
I am also from mtl and a long time boxing fan for maybe 10 years. Now I have become a fan of both boxing and MMA and I recognize that it takes talent and technique like boxing but the no1 thing is that if you compare the top boxers to the top MMAritists, it's easy to see that the level of ability in boxing is on another stratosphere right now

 

im sick of this ****ing ****