Would boxing be more popular if the best fought the best?

Your ****ysis of the best fighting the best in boxing and MMA only tells half the story. Boxing may have more best v best fights due to greater numbers, but percentage wise, these match ups occur less in boxing than in MMA due to the set up of boxing.

You have to wade through more mis-matches and pointless title defenses in boxing than MMA before you get a good match up at elite level.

 

UFC also trained their audience not to overreact to losses. A u boxing organization would have to try very hard to change some attitudes. A boxer loses once and they are called a bum because of ****ty attitudes developed over a 100 years of the sport.
Also the brutal nature of the sport means 3 losses and a boxer is done as a competitive top fighter. A bad loss, especially early on can derail a career. I imagine careers being much shorter if boxing fans were listened to then we'd be right back to where we are now asking where are all the elite fighters but for a different reason than a lack of marketing. It would be oh they knocked each other out and suck now.

 

Boxing lost Floyd
Canelo is ducking GGG
Wilder and Povetkin didn't happen
Fury Wlad looks in trouble
4 big ones right there

 

Boxing was better 10 years ago. A lot better.

Remember Gatti/Ward Trilogy? Marquez vs Vazquez trilogy, Pacquiao vs Barrera, JMM and Morales. Even Mayweather had his share of big fights like Corrales and Castillo.

The last few years, boxing has been a wash. So forgettable. All I remember from the last few years is Mayweather/Pacquiao happening too late, Cotto taking advantage of a one-legged Martinez, Ward and Garcia fighting their promoters, Rigo ducking Loma and boring people to death, the entire 160 division ducking GGG, Stevenson ducking Kovalev, Garcia running from any threat, Canelo's 155 division, Billy Joe Saunders acting like he's a 10 and refuse to date anyone, fighters pricing themselves out of fights, etc.

You get bright spots like Martinez/Chavez Jr and Maidana/Broner, but nothing too memorable. It's because not enough top fighters are fighting each other. Look at the biggest boxing event of 2016...Canelo handing the belt to GGG. Maybe GGG/Brooks will turn out to be really good and maybe Ward will finally sign to fight Kovalev. But I'm not keeping my hopes up. As a boxing fan, I'm used to disappointment.

Boxing needs new golden age. Boxers need to have some pride and want to fight the best. There are too many divas in the business right now.

 

Yes but with the orgs mandatory obligations you don't get to see it. Less belts would be the answer but those days are gone go back to just the WBC and WBA.

 

So you are saying that there are no mismatches in mma? Elite fighters don't ever dominate every round or blow through their opponents in one?

 

Those were exciting fights. Unfortunately the Morales vs Barrera trilogy snuck by most people unnoticed while Mayweather was fighting De La Hoya, and the Marquez vs Vazquez tetralogy was positively underground by comparison. But if you want entertaining fights in recent times let me refresh your memory.

2009
Bernard Dunne vs Ricardo Cordoba I
Juan Manuel Marquez vs Juan Diaz
Paul Williams vs Sergio Martinez I
Brian Viloria vs Ulises Solis
Andre Berto vs Luis Collazo
2010
Ivan Calderon vs Giovani Segura I
Juan Manuel Marquez vs Michael Katsidis
Amir Khan vs Marcos Maidana
Humberto Soto vs Urbano Antillon
2011
Pawel Wolak vs Delvin Rodriguez
Hernan Marquez vs Luis Concepcion I
Akira Yaegashi vs Pornsawan Porpramook
Marcos Maidana vs Erik Morales
Victor Ortiz vs Andre Berto
2012
Robert Guerrero vs Andre Berto
Roman Gonzalez vs Juan Francisco Estrada
Brandon Rios vs Mike Alvarado I
Juan Manuel Marquez vs Manny Pacquiao IV
Brandon Rios vs Mike Alvarado II
Mike Alvarado vs Mauricio Herrera
Brian Viloria vs Hernan Marquez
Orlando Salido vs Juan Manuel Lopez II
2013
Tim Bradley vs Ruslan Provodnikov
Giovani Segura vs Hernan Marquez
Guillermo Jones vs Denis Lebedev
Omar Figueroa vs Nihito Arakawa
2014
Monty Meza Clay vs Alan Herrera
Orlando Salido vs Terdsak Kokietgym
Lucas Matthysse vs John Molina
Francisco Rodriguez Jr vs Katsunari Takayama
2015
Orlando Salido vs Roman Martinez I & II
Ola Afolabi vs Victor Ramirez
Francisco Vargas vs Takashi Miura
Nathan Cleverly vs Andrzej Fonfara
Marco Huck vs Krzysztof Glowacki
2016
Orlando Salido vs Francisco Vargas
Carl Frampton vs Leo Santa Cruz
Keith Thurman vs Shawn Porter

So Ward vs Froch, Donaire vs Rigondeaux, Mayweather vs Alvarez, Pacquiao vs Mayweather, Pacquiao vs Marquez, Pacquiao vs Bradley, Kovalev vs Hopkins, Gonzalez vs Estrada, Klitschko vs Fury, Crawford vs Postol etc doesn't do it for you?

 

100% agree.
:bbb

 

Ward/Froch was over 5 years ago. I liked the super 6 tournament...but that was so long ago. Donaire vs Rigondeax was good, but that also felt like ages ago.

Mayweather vs Alvarez - good. The weight drain shouldn't have happened.
Mayweather vs Pacquiao - happened too many years too late.
Pacquiao vs Marquez...I think I mentioned those fights.
Pacquiao vs Bradley - First one good, robbery. 2nd one good. Doesn't need to happen 3 times.
Kovalev vs Hopkins - High expectations, one sided fight.
Klitschko vs Fury - I was so tired of Wlad hugging everyone to death. Fury did a good job, but it wasn't an exciting fight.
Crawford vs Postol - I expected Crawford to win a clear decision, so it didn't do much for me.

A lot of these fights are just not exciting. It's hard to call any of them a classic. The last 3 years has been very disappointing. Big fights are rare and when they're on the verge of happening, they fall through. Boxing need these fights right now:

- Gonzalez vs Inoue
- Kovalev vs Beterbiev, Stevenson, Ward
- Stevenson vs Beterbiev
- GGG vs Canelo, BJS, Lara
- Lomanchenko vs the best guys available
- 147 division top 10 guys fighting each other
- 154 division top 5 guys fighting each other
- Wilder vs Povetkin
- Klitschko vs Fury 2

The most important fights are obvious (Light Heavyweight, Middleweight) and they're far from happening. There's too much BS going on. I'm grateful for the active Cruiserweight division. Still give me hope that the elite guys will fight the elite guys.

 

The ultimate difference is boxers stay protected.

Have a look at James Toneys record most dont even have a wikipedia page. That was fine years ago where people could not just google the fighters name and see who hes fought but now it begs the question...Someone mentioned "bum" earlier on and perhaps its always been applicable to boxing. How many fights does a fighter need to have before he steps it up a notch ? Hell even the much loved Ike Ibeabuchi has 3 fighters out of 20 who have wikipedia pages. That just does not happen in MMA and when it does aka Fedor people arent realy sure he deserves goat status. The curve is completely different.

This is not always the fighters fault, or is it ? How many fighters are blinded by prize fighting purses as oppose to just fighting the best.

The catch 22 is belts have a habit of routinely changing hands in MMA but theres opportunities for comebacks ala overeem vs miocic.

Also the UFC also suffers from oversaturation plus a production stuck in the early 00s.

 

Totally agree. Used to be that way specially in the 60s 70s based on what I 've seen on videos.
These days, money , picking and ducking comes ahead of real fights....

 

Pick at James Tony all you want but there aren't any UFC guys of any equivalent stature who've got 90 fights on their resume like Tony does. The standards of greatness are so low for mma that people elevate fighters to all time great status after 8-10 fights. Having 40 fights is pretty rare for the stars of UFC which is pretty pathetic. But I'll tell you what, no mma fighter has a record with the quality of names on it James Toney does: Michael Nunn, Mike McCallum x3, Roy Jones Jr, Vassiliy Jirov, Evander Holyfield, etc.

The names after that are less pound for pound impressive unless you consider that Tony started at middleweight and became a top 10 heavyweight of his era having to put on more than 30 percent of his original mass to compete there. Some of those "bums" you are talking about him fighting were contenders from 4 weight classes above where Tony started, and that's pretty impressive even if he wasn't fighting Lennox Lewis or Wlad Klitschko at that weight.

I noticed the weird fact years ago that everyone in mma has a wikipedia page. I don't believe that is warranted. I assume that is simply due to the higher profile of mma in the U.S. rather than from actual merit.

 

Im not picking on James Toney just using him as example because just the other night I watched Toney vs Jirov. I disagree the standards are not low for greatness but rather you are going to be pushed into challenging fights far earlier than Boxers. 25 fights into his career and his first fighter that you can actually gain information on is called Merqui Sosa. Shoud Lomachenko fight 20 unknowns before a major fight ?

 

i'm fairly certain vince mcmahon either secretly owns ufc or is at least the behind the scenes puppet master. the two promotions are run in almost exactly the same way. "athletes" flow freely back and forth, to and fro, between the promotions. i mat be wrong, but someone would have to prove it unecquivocally.

 

When I was a kid there were like 5 television stations. and all the big sports came on abc you know the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat commerical. alot of fights were shown on regular tv i can remember watching leonard vs mayweather they beat the hell out of each other.

then cable television came along and not everyone had cable or if they did they didnt have hbo and showtime. hbo and showtime were throwing lots of cash at boxing So no more free boxing. leonard hearns, arguao pryor all hbo.

the casuals were left behind to the wwf and hulk hogan ultimate warrior on network tv never to return.

Then Al haymon had a idea we can get more fans on network television. everyone has basic cable and we can show some on atena tv networks. I think slowly interst will build back up but they spent 40 yrs tearing it down for dollars.