UFC is bigger than boxing in america

Because brock fought twice!!

If floyd fought twice i think we know who would sell more

 

sad really

It's only cause boxing is so fragmented.

 

Lets also take into account that UFC non-PPV fights are usually low level, especially now with the WEC merger.

I wouldn't want to pay for 15 PPVs a year.

 

It's because the UFC gives the fans what they want to see. The fans don't want Brock vs. Mir 3 so they get Brock vs. do Santos. The fans don't want Henderson vs. Franklin 2 so they get Franklin vs. Belfort.
The way Strikeforce setup their tournament Fedor will fight either Werdum or Overeem in the second round. That are the fights the fans want to see and that make sense.

In boxing the fans want to see Pacman vs. Floyd and the fight will never happen.
The only relevant fight in the heavyweight devision between Haye and Klitschko will also never happen.

MMA is just more fan friendly. Sometimes the fights on the undercard are more intriguing than the mainevent. When was the last time you said that about boxing?

 

Many major MMA fights never got made because of the lack of co-promotion. This is a fact that is conveniently ignored.

 

But vitor, the top three would be boxing.

The ufc is bound to have more in the top ten as it has a big ppv every month.

The ppv record is 2,400,000 for a BOXING match, can you honestly see a ufc fight doing that?

 

That's true to an extent, we will probably never see for example Cain v Fedor, or GSP v Nick Diaz.
But that doesnt mean relevant matches dont get made at all. Look at the Strikforce heaveyweight tourney or the depth of the UFC LHW division and the amount of interesting fights that can and do get made, just within those two orgs. This is often overlooked by both boxing and MMA fans

 

Which is what Lesnar does already.

Strikeforce vs. UFC would make not one bit of difference. Most MMA fans consider the UFC beltholders the true world champions and rightly treat all organisations as being at a lower level. The truth of that is that Shields vs. GSP is a far less marketable match than Koscheck vs. GSP even though Shields is an unbeaten Strikeforce Champion on a fifteen fight win streak.

The arguments from efc85 completely misunderstand how PPV works. The more PPVs you run the more difficult it becomes to secure the big numbers for a variety of reasons; fans pick and choose events due to cost, you have less time hype each event, MSM coverage is less extensive, etc. Mayweather himself has talked about how him fighting needs to be like the Superbowl - something that comes round once a year.

Boxing has a handful of legitmate blockbuster matches each year - the UFC needs one at least every month to sell that month's PPV. Sometimes it needs two a month. It can do that because it has a variety of ways to make stars. TUF, the championships, the free events and hype specials on basic cable, the strong focus on undercard matches all mean that its far easier to get somebody over as a big deal than it is in boxing. In North America there are two boxers who can actually draw money at a national level - Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. Both only became genuine draws by defeating Oscar De La Hoya. Again - what happens if they both retire without losing? What happened to heavyweight boxing after Lewis retired with the belts would provide a clue.

To say boxing only has three of the top 10 pay per views in North America actually overstates how well boxing is doing. Here's the full list from Meltzer:

1,400,000 - Floyd Mayweather vs. Shane Mosley
1,150,000 - Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito
1,100,000 - UFC 116 Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin
1,050,000 - UFC 114 Quinton Jackson vs. Rashad Evans
1,000,000 - UFC 121 Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez
785,000 - UFC 124 Georges St. Pierre vs. Josh Koscheck

770,000 - UFC 111 Georges St. Pierre vs. Dan Hardy
700,000 - Manny Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey
600,000 - UFC 117 Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen
535,000 - UFC 118 B.J. Penn vs. Frankie Edgar/Randy Couture vs. James Toney
525,000 - UFC 115 Chuck Liddell vs. Rich Franklin
520,000 - UFC 113 Shogun Rua vs. Lyoto Machida
500,000 - UFC 112 Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia/B.J. Penn vs. Frankie Edgar
500,000 - UFC 123 Quinton Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida/B.J. Penn vs. Matt Hughes
498,000 - WWE WrestleMania Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels streak vs. career
300,000 - UFC 108 Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva
295,000 - UFC 119 Frank Mir vs. Mirko Cro Cop
275,000 - UFC 109 Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman
259,000 - WWE Royal Rumble
215,000 - UFC 110 Cain Velasquez vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
203,000 - WWE SummerSlam Team Raw vs. Nexus
175,000 - WEC 48 Jose Aldo Jr. vs. Urijah Faber
160,000 - WWE Elimination Chamber John Cena vs. Ted DiBiase vs. HHH vs. Randy Orton vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Sheamus
150,000 - Shane Mosley vs. Sergio Mora
135,000 - Bernard Hopkins vs. Roy Jones Jr.

The highest boxing pay per view to not feature either of its biggest stars is at number 24 (Mosley vs. Mora), barely ahead of two faded stars battling it out in Hopkins vs. Roy Jones. Both are lower than the UFC's redheaded lighter weight sub-company WEC's sole ppv. They are also lower than several UFCs that were widely derided as lacking in star power and whose numbers were treated as disappointing.

And the thing is you can't look at anything else to pretend that boxing is doing better in the United States. Participation rates are well below amateur wrestling and ancedotally MMA gyms are fast replacing boxing gyms. Crowd attendance at even major boxing matches is pathetic and the sport's regular television coverage is the ghetto of ESPN2 and premium cable.

The fact that boxing has *some* success outside of America doesn't alter the fact that its in a dire state in the biggest sporting market in the world. Particularly when you consider that boxing does a pisspoor job of highlighting these foriegn events - UFC shows from Abu Dhabi, England, Australia and Germany were all shown either live n PPV or same day tape delay on basic cable. Boxing can't be organised enough to get the World Heavyweight Champion(s) same day television coverage of massive stadium shows.

I love boxing...I'm a huge boxing fan. It is absurd to stick your head in the sand and pretend that everyone is going okay because Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather can do big numbers. That's exactly the same mentality that saw boxing ignore the lack of American talent in the heavyweight division because at least Mike Tyson can do big numbers. Boxing in North America survives today because HBO and Showtime are willing to pay over the odds for it. If they wake up and decide that they should go in a different direction then its ****ed.

 

Boxing was never pulling in UFC PPV numbers, in fact PPV is seen as a negative while in MMA it's a badge of honor.

MMA hasn't had any effect on boxing since it blew up in 2005.

 

I never said that. Personally I think both sports have broken systems, for different reasons but in the end 'prize fighting' has always been and will continue to be full of problems.

 

Thanks for the pay-per-view numbers and the analysis, Will. Great post.

I actually imagined the UFC brand was a little stronger than that. I figured they'd do about 400-450k buys regardless of what was actually on the card, but the fanbase appears to be a bit more discerning than that. The 108, 109 and 119 events were all considered quite weak on paper, and suffered for it.