"Back then" is three years ago - what huge matches have we missed out on because the UFC won't co-promote? I can't think of anything other than Fedor vs. Lesnar, and its not like they didn't move heaven and earth to get him to sign in 2009.
pure boxing fan and only saw 1 mma fight this year and it was lesnar, that dude got his head boxed in and fight shouldv been stopped but he came back, brocks certified!
This is slightly inaccurate. Showtime and HBO shows are not free - you have to be a premium subscriber. The same is true for the Friday Night Fights on Sky Sports. That means that only relatively older, affluent fans who on some level are probably already big fans of the sport have access to the best matches. Boxing does have Friday Night Fights on ESPN in America, but the show's largely a joke with commentators openly talking about how the undercard is young prospects against tomatoe cans. The UFC's main television partner is Spike, a cable entertainment show. The UFC has 24 weeks of first-run television with The Ultimate Fighter, each show having at least one match.The fighters may be young and raw but its a good mechanism for creating superstars. Its PPV hype specials are shown repeatedly on the station. They also run several live shows on free tv - this year they'll have 7 on Spike (plus two on Versus). These are real events that usually have high-profile fighters on them. And they most PPVs now have an hour pre-game show on Spike featuring at least two live fights. But where the UFC really excels over boxing is how they use matches that were first shown behind the pay wall. The UFC has a highlights program called Unleashed, which every week shows classic matches that fans may have missed because they couldn't order a pay per view. And the UFC has started doing specials focused on showing the matches of a particular pay per view. Put that together and the UFC has a far stronger television presence in America than high level boxing. In the UK while they're held back by not having a deal with Sky Sports, they have a deal with Five that gives twenty-six weeks of first-run television with FiveUSA showing The Ultimate Fighter and its Finales plus the highlights programs that air on Five itself.
@Will Cooling Spike is great for the UFC since ZUFFA has them by the balls, its really a non-stop infomercial channel for them. But still Boxing has more cable TV dates with Fox Sports Net, Telefutura, Telemundo, ESPN and some other small ones...sure its not great, but how many live UFC on Spike shows will they have this year? Maybe 5 (without looking it up), the rest is all PPV, and please don't compare PPV with premium cable prices, that is literally hundreds of dollars difference. Bellator and others are already at deaths door (im sure this a 'positive' for you), just like almost any other MMA promotion besides the UFC. TUF is TRASH TV, and though its had a remarkable run a reality show can only go so long. Three years ago was 2007, zombie pride was still around and half the Pride contracted fighters would be frozen out until a year later. So a large chunk of the talent pool couldn't compete because the UFC froze them out. There has always been plenty of big names/talented fighters that weren't given the chance to compete against UFC fighters, we can go division by division...this problem has only shrunk to a degree today because most of the rival promoters have gone out of business. If you want we can start with the two biggest fights in all of MMA not happening in the past three years (Fedor vs Couture 07-08 and Fedor vs Brock 08-present) because the UFC refused to work with others. Edit: So Spike has 7 shows, that's about 15 less shows then the Top Rank shows on FSN. The Spike shows are B shows at best, Keith Jardine vs Hammil is not better then Martirosyan-Ouma and a bunch of others. There hasn't been a big UFC fight on Spike since 2007 (Jackson vs Henderson), for a company that swears that they are giving its fans quality free cards they sure shove a lot of turd on Spike.
Anderson Silva, the "best pound-for-pound" fighter fought on Spike T.V, which was well after Henderson vs. Jackson at UFC 75. UFC 89 also, I believe, was free on Spike headlined by Bisping and Leben. Just sayin'...
Anderson fought a journeyman to counter Affliction's first PPV. Bisping and Leben? Like I said, B level (or better yet C level). I like MMA and have no problem admitting that financially they are doing incredibly and that they do many things that boxing should improve on (marketing). I also have no problem talking about all the problems boxing has, and there are many. I'm just sick and tired of UFC fans never having a problem with all the issues that MMA has. Its always a bunch of positive rants by zealot fanboys.
Hmmm...not sure I've met any hardcore fans that are completely happy with the state of MMA. Maybe widen your gaze.
I am a boxing fanatic and sorry to say... UFC is winning in the presentation arena. Now they are not "winning" all around, but they are winning in the arena of shows and fan base. I have been to both shows. There was a distinct difference in crowd makeup. The boxing fan base was decidedly older.
Why should MMA fans moan and groan when we get good matchups all the time and many many quality cards every year! Jealous?
these are not official matches. they are considered exhibition fights. they do succed in hyping fighters perhaps rashad and koscheck are good but are obviously limited fighters with some added hype for flavor. A joke? really? you must be joking
D, that looks like a young Kurt Godel in your AV. Is that him? (Sorry, I can't get the accent marks necessary for his name's actual spelling)
Exhibit A of what I was saying. Oh what a glorious run of garbage PPVs the UFC had from late August 2009 until this Spring. I'm sure you and your UFC buddies creamed their pants for epic PPVs like Tito-Forrest, Rashad-Silva and Couture-Coleman. Bottom line, whatever the UFC sells its fans will buy it. That is how James Toney is suddenly a big attraction.
