boxing has lost its way. i grew up as a boxing FANATIC.. i was that obsessed i used to borrow boxing books from the library and cut all the pictures out and stick them on my wall. but as i grew up i started to realise how much we are being ****ed over as fans. too many belts, too many protected fighters, too many greedy promoters trying to squeeze every last dollar out of the sport, even boxing fans now dont talk about the quality of the fight as much as how much the fighters got paid. you might get 4 or 5 big fights a year if were lucky and 3 of those 5 will turn out to be boring fights. the rest of the time its just people trying to pad their record or make a "name" for themselves. the sport has gone to the dogs the one good thing to come out of boxing lately though is the 24/7 type shows. i really wish they were around when i was growing up.
I enjoy both. I appreciate boxing for being technical, scientific, and precise. Since the fighters are limited in their attack, they need to perfect it. Given the right two fighters, they can make art in the ring. I like MMA for being more wide open and more unpredictable. Since the fighters have so many tools, fights can end at any time in a multitude of ways. There are more facets (though they're individually less developed than boxing) and upsets happen more frequently.
Boxing is losing it's glamour with no HW division. MMA has always had a HW division and the fights get made.
I am and always will be a boxing fan. It's one of the things I started doing as a child and it will always hold a special place with me. I'm also a big fan of any combat sport as I can appreciate the effort it takes to get to pinnacle levels. Theres nothing like watching a good boxing clinic or a phone box style boxing match ala gatti vs ward
Not at all, I absolutely love the sport of boxing, as I do MMA, they both play a massive part in my life!
Huge boxing fan. even with its flaws i still get more hyped for a big boxing fight than mma. started watching Japanese mma and loved it but i'm a huge Japanese pro-wrestling fan and mma in japan was just continuation of that. When pride died i would say i was big on ufc until about 12-18 months ago. Now I rarely watch mma. I'll watch certain fights but cant remember the last time I watched a whole event. Just doesnt interest me like it used too.
I am a hardcore fan of both MMA and boxing. Fans who don't like one or the other should not call themselves fight fans. I like fighting and that includes K1, Muay Thai etc I appreciate the hardwork and skill involved in all of them. This argument was only ever created by insecure fans/promoters. The boxing fraternity feared the new kid on the block as MMA exposed all of boxings flaws. On the flipside MMA sought to come across as a "real" fight to garner credibility. Both stances are embarassing but resulted in boxing having to improve their product and MMA continuing to strive where boxing fails.