Boxing is dead

[Abishai**]

Lets be honest, if anybody watched UFC 119, then they'd probably think MMA on the verge of being 6 feet under.

UFC/MMA seems to frequently roll out cards like that. MMA has lost so much steam that it has got to the point now where very few people give a shit about it.

Aside from North America, MMA is irrelevant and honestly people couldnt give 2 shits about it.

LOL...spoken like a true dumbfuck.

 

[Dragonstyle915]

MMA is becoming more technical and even in the Havies you see the cpmplaining about the wrestling ect.

 

[Abishai**]

It's funny that the only threads in the boxing sub forum that get over a hundred replies are these stupid fucking mma vs boxing threads...

LOL, insecure PMsing boxing fans vs. uninformed, TUF fans.

You gotta love it.

Dumbfucks...all of you.

 

[consortium11]

So much ignorance in one thread....

Wow, I'm not a boxing hater, I try to watch when I can, but I only recognize a few of those names, so I doubt the average person recognizes any more. The days of EVERYONE knowing a dozen or more boxing names, DLH, Tyson, RJJ, etc. are done.

"The average person"?

Oh, I guess you mean the average North American?

It wasn't meant as a comparison to MMA, but to boxing in the 80's and even 90's

Depending on where in the world you are boxing is often just as big, if not bigger, then it was previously (especially in the 90's). Yes there's been some fallout in North America... but across Europe, Russia, Asia, Africa and South America it's putting on huge shows full of fans... often bigger than it ever did previously.

The problem that always seems to crop up here is that those questioning boxing (especially in comparison to MMA) forget that boxing is a world wide sport that's less NA-centric than it has been for a while. In contrast MMA is still basically a regional sport based around North America and to a lesser extent Japan. In terms of impact outside its "home" regions MMA isn't dissimilar to Aussie Rules, Gaelic Football or the NFL... sure there's events and dedicated fans... but no-one really cares about them specifically.

I know it is, I've heard good things about it, just saying the name recognition isn't the same as it used to be, dont get so defensive. San Leandro, being right next to Oakland, is hardly "whitebred suburban America." I'm here cause the thread is in the "Latest Threads" bar along the side and I was curious.

When boxing can draw 70000 fans to an arena, when a third of Japan tunes in to watch a boxing bout and when 50 million Chinese watch Pac/Hatton I wouldn't say name recognition is doing that badly.

Work

Work/thrown fight

A shot boxer who hasn't looked like a force in his own sport for years changes sports and takes on one of the best of all time 50lbs (at least) above his best weight and the joint heaviest he's ever been in a fight (made worse by the fact in his last boxing bout he actually came in at a reasonable weight) and gets smashed.

Great.

He also made $500,000 which makes him one of the smartest prizefighters in the world.

I love how everyone uses Mercer>Sylvia as a way to say boxing is better, when it clearly isn't.

That night it was.

Let's be honest here. Outside of some selected trolling and pushing of buttons no-one seriously thinks that a boxer can walk into MMA with little to no cross training and do well. They may well do ok on the basis of just being a better athlete than their opponents (see Jeremy Williams) or on favourable style matches (the above mentioned Sylvia/Mercer and Lafever/Radach)... despite what people try and claim not every MMA fighter is a well rounded martial artist with skills in all areas who always chooses the best gameplan... but quite frankly it would be embarrassing if they could. No-one would expect a rugby player to walk into the NFL and dominate or a cricketer into the MLB. They're different sports with some similar characteristics.

There's a reason only a select few boxing fights could sell out arena's now, and ALMOST every UFC, WEC, Strikeforce and Dream event gets packed arena's.

When you have low standards it's ok I guess.

WEC Attendances

45: 1741
44: 1835
43: 5176
42: 2082
41: 13027
40: 5257
39: 6100
38: 10201
37: 643
36: 5227
35: 1006
34: 12682
33: No stats given
32: 4,648

Which basically translates to "when our big draws are fighting they have packed average sized arenas". "Draws" basically mean Faber and Pulver at this point although Aldo may have broken into that realm. It's worth noting that UFC 50 which featured the hyped Cruz/Benavidez bout only drew around 1900 fans. So sure the "arenas" may be packed... but they're small.

Likewise the UFC often sells out in Vegas: but the Grand Garden arena where they hold most of their events has a capacity of around 13000 so it's not some massive arena... and the Mandalay Bay Event Centre is smaller. Likewise the Palms where they hold smaller events seats around 2000... so it's not a challenge to sell that out. When they travel attendance is higher as there's the "tourist factor" of seeing the UFC, a promotion previously restricted to basically Vegas, in your local area. It will be interesting to see if attendance holds up if events become more regular.

If you look at Strikeforce figures they again fall into the "if it's a big draw we'll watch". The only comprehensive look at attendance figures post-2009 is unfortunately Wiki, but the sources check out and you can see it here.

As you can see, unless it's one of their draws... basically Shamrock, Carano, Cung Lee or Fedor... they struggle to get more than 10k in... and the smaller shows are generally only around the 5000 mark or under.

Dream pulls in some great numbers on paper... but nothing compared to Pride's heyday and they're struggling on TV as well.

When you watch boxing now, they are all in super small venues like college basketball stadiums and casino's, it's funny. The only exceptions are when Pacman or Mayweather fight, or for the super six 'classic'.

Or when Katsidis/Mitchell sell 25k tickets...
Or when either Klitschko draws 50k+ against average opponents.
Or when the on paper mismatch between Haye/Harrison has already sold 17k+ tickets.
Or when Kessler was drawing 20k+ for his fights
Or when Abraham/Taylor drew 14k
Or when Saul Alvarez sells 20k against a nobody
Or the Kameda's drawing 20k + in Japan.

I can go on... and these are with the boxing model which doesn't generally include decent undercards.

Even James Toney said it, and he hates MMA.

Toney's bitter towards the business of boxing because they won't pay him more than he's worth or give him title shots off the back of beating journeymen.

 

[consortium11]

Top 10 PPV buy rates, 2009
1. UFC 100: Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, July 11, 1.6 million
2. Boxing: Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto, Nov. 14, 1.25 million
3. Boxing: Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez, Sept. 19, 1.05 millon
4. UFC 94: Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn, Jan. 31, 920,000 buys
5. UFC 101: Penn vs. Kenny Florian/Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin, Aug. 8, 850,000
6. Boxing: Pacquiao vs. Ricky Hatton, May 2, 825,000
7t. UFC 107: Penn vs. Diego Sanchez, Dec. 12, 650,000
7t. UFC 97: Silva vs. Thales Leites/Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio Rua, April 18, 650,000
9. UFC 98: Lyoto Machida vs. Rashad Evans/Matt Hughes vs. Matt Serra, May 23, 635,000
10. Wrestling: WWE WrestleMania 25, April 5, 582,000 buys

So it's now a good thing that nearly all of MMA's biggest fights are only avaliable on PPV for their home markets?

There I was thinking it was a bad thing that boxing had moved towards the PPV model... something it's starting (not entirely successfully) to get away from.

Like I said, Manny and Floyd are boxings only draws. Once they retire, boxing will be devoured into oblivion further more than it already has.

Let me guess, you said the same thing immediately prior to Oscar retiring when Manny was a popular fighter with serious boxing fans but not really a big draw outside of them (at least in North America?)

The way boxing pays it's fighters is ridiculous.. getting millions and millions of dollars for 36 minutes of punching somebody? NOBODY deserves that kind of money. C'mon, man.. and people wonder why there are so many starving people out there.

While there are overpayed boxers out there, the ones with the staggeringly high salaries are the ones drawing 50-70,000 fans to arenas and getting huge network TV/PPV buys. The only MMA fighters who can come close to that are pretty much all retired at this stage.

Is it really better that on paper Carwin only got $40,000 to face Lesnar (excluding the back room deals the UFC does), Sonnen getting $35k to face Anderson or that Edgar's base pay for his rematch with Penn was $48k?

The only reason boxing has a better social acceptance and more money within the sport is due to the fact that it's been around a hell of a lot longer.

I think you need to study the history of boxing and MMA a little better... this is flat out ignorance.

While boxing as we know it today has an unclear history as setting out a definitive date it's safe to conclude that it was roughly 1900 when bareknuckle finally turned to gloved boxing in roughly the form it still is.

MMA as we know it really starts off in the early to mid 1980's with the creation of Shooto and Rickson's bout with Zulu (although I should point out the matches that took place in the 1930's and 50's between the Gracies and a series of other challengers (often Japanese judoka's) although these alternated between Vale Tudo and submission grappling rules). However, most MMA fanboys balk at this comparison as it would mean that when Pancrase and the UFC kicked off MMA was already at least a decade old. So we'll go with 1993 as the start of modern MMA.

10 years after boxing came into being as we know it boxing held the "Fight of the Century" between Jack Johnson and James J. Jeffries. Johnson's purse for that bout was $65,000 which roughly translates to $1,500,000 in todays money (and inflation calculators are notoriously hard to make accurate). For an example look at the different figures the calculation produces here

In 2003, 10 years after the UFC first appeared the highest paid fighter was Randy who made $175k (including win bonus) for beating Tito (Tito would have received the same amount if he'd won).

It gets even worse for MMA in comparison to boxing if you do consider the 1980's as its starting point. In 1927 Dempsey received $990,000 dollars for his rematch with Tunney (he then gave the promoter $10k of his own money so he could claim the first million dollar purse), which by today's money is around $10,000,000-12,000,000. Remember that's simply the purse, not any additional sponsorship monies

If we take 1980 as the starting point of MMA then 27 years later. The highest paid UFC fighter was Chuck who earned $500k for each of his bouts that year (outside of a cut of PPV's or sponsorship).

Obviously that doesn't include Japanese figures on pay which are notoriously difficult to get hold of... and the big leagues in Japan almost certainly paid more than the UFC until the last 5 or 6 years, but it still shows, "history" doesn't give an excuse for why MMA fighters are paid less. Boxers made more then than MMA fighters do now. We have just had two recent title challengers who came damn close to winning (Sonnen and Carwin) who were paid less on paper then Johnson made in 1910 not accounting for inflation.

The second MMA is legalized in New York (Which it should be), MSG will be sold out insanely quickly.

The Garden can seat just over 20,000 fans. If the UFC can't sell out the Garden at this stage for their big New York debut I'd be very worried.

Wait till they sell out the Rogers Centre in Toronto in 2011 (50,000+ seats)

They'd be doing as well as an average Wlad or Vitali bout in Germany against an ok opponent. Obviously it's great for MMA and it would be nice if an organisation other than K1 decided to hold huge MMA events but selling 50,000 tickets isn't some mind shattering numbers. K1 nearly made that (although few people paid) a few years back in the US.

MMA is huge in Europe. And Japan was the center of the MMA world forever until Zuffa bought Pride. Japanese MMA is still alive and kicking due to Dream, Sengoku, DEEP and Shooto however.

You have a strange definition of huge.

KSW does well and has drawn large numbers of fans on the back of Pudz but outside of that MMA isn't exactly tearing down the walls. UK MMA has just come out of a dark period and is starting to look up again but it's still very much a small scale event. Go to any UK MMA show... the vast majority of people will be friends, family and training partners of the fighters taking part. The UFC may be big... in the one off event sense... but so is the NFL when it does its game in Wembley every year. That doesn't make MMA "huge". Speaking anecdotally when I say I watched "MMA" or even the "UFC" most people look at me blankly.

Japanese MMA is alive and kicking in the sense it's going into a fit as people desperately try to resuscitate it. Prime time Network TV, the lifeblood of Japanese MMA and the reason Pride fell, only shows the big events when they can tie them to genuinely popular boxers having fights and FEG nearly closed down until they recently found a money man to invest in them: which is why the booking has been even more chaotic than normal. Senoku's struggling and even the K1 kickboxing events are a far cry from what they used to be.

This is the lowest Japanese MMA has ever been since the mid-90's.

As for Mexico, all they do is box..

And a whole bunch of other sports... but not MMA despite the UFC's long term attempts to woo them.

Has anyone noticed in passing that MMA and boxing for the most part cater to different fans? ESPN did a survey, and found that something like only 10% will watch only one or the other.

Thinking MMA and boxing are competing in a zero-sum game is like thinking the NFL is going to drive the NBA or MLB out of business ... sports fans tend to watch more than one sport.

I suspect the best thing for both MMA and boxing is for both to do well, as similar niche sports (and boxing and MMA are definitely niche sports compared to football, soccer, basketball, baseball, hockey, NASCAR and so on) tend to make each other stronger, not weaker. Every time someone who's never watched any combat sports gets interested in one of them, they're likely to get interested at least a bit in the other. Strong boxing is good for MMA, strong MMA is good for boxing.

Boxing's decline came long before MMA got going, and was self-inflicted (PPV's instead of Saturday Night Fights, way too many weight divisions and organizations ... there are 68 champs in just the major organizations, who can keep track of that?). If anything, MMA has resurrected a bit of interest in boxing (and judo and wrestling as well ... both have got a lot more young folks taking part since MMA started).

The different demographics thing is nearly completely true. It's an interesting little exercise to note when WWE/F PPV figures started to nose dive and when UFC PPV buys started to increase.

But of course all MMA fans these days watched UFC 1 on VHS after their martial arts teacher told them about it, lost track of it for a while and mysteriously only came back when TUF blew the UFC's (if not MMA's) popularity sky high.

Oh, and they all used to watch boxing when Tyson was around.

 

[PunchLikeAMan]

Hahaha the Mmgay fruit cakes always hating on boxing LMAO HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH You guys are soooooooooooooo hilarious .

Its like most MMA fans are Jeaolous cuz boxing has a bigger penis lol

 

[Abishai**]

Then again...I hold the ridiculous position of appreciating and enjoying both sports.

 

[Abishai**]

LOL...and you gotta love how defensive boxing elitists get when you question or criticize (regardless of how valid the criticism may be) boxing.

I could say something perfectly valid like, "big time promoters like Don King and Bob Arum and corruption undermine the sport of boxing..."

and I'll guarantee you will have a thousand responses from the PMSing douches here who will respond with emotional tirades such as, "oh yeah!?!?! at least we don't pay to see homosexuals grapple fu*k one another!!"

And I gotta love how many of you are keeping Kid McCoy's spirit alive by clinging to the absurd lie that Slice and Mercer was a "work."

ha ha ha ha hah

well..whatever helps you sleep at night.

 

[Steakeater**]

It's funny that the only threads in the boxing sub forum that get over a hundred replies are these stupid fucking mma vs boxing threads...

Same with the heavyweights. The Contenders are smart enough to let it go.

 

[Abishai**]

Same with the heavyweights. The Contenders are smart enough to let it go.

Like I've been saying...the moderators should just create one boxing vs MMA superthread to attract all of these dumbfu*k comments.

 

[xilliun]

It's funny that the only threads in the boxing sub forum that get over a hundred replies are these stupid fucking mma vs boxing threads...

LOL, insecure PMsing boxing fans vs. uninformed, TUF fans.

You gotta love it.

Dumbfucks...all of you.

That'd be because we're on an MMA forum champ. I'm sure if we were on a boxing forum the numbers would be reversed.

 

[rj1]

It's funny that the only threads in the boxing sub forum that get over a hundred replies are these stupid fucking mma vs boxing threads...

LOL, insecure PMsing boxing fans vs. uninformed, TUF fans.

You gotta love it.

Dumbfucks...all of you.

If you want the flipside of it, go here: MMA Forum - East Side Boxing Forum

(warning: at least 20% of all posters there will either call you a Flomo or a Pactard)

As far as those matches in general listed by the original poster:

Harrison-Haye is a disgrace on the level of Fedor turning down a fight against Alistair Overeem and then saying he'd fight someone like Mostapha Al-Turk. Based on everything he's said in the past two years, there's only two Haye fights I'll ever be interested in and those are Haye-Wlad or Haye-Vitali. Instead he ran off like a scared chicken just like Alexander Povetkin did.

Pacquiao-Margarito is another disgrace but a different kind. Leaving aside the mythical Mayweather-Pacquiao fight which now looks like it will legitimately never happen, Margarito should be banned from the sport. The only reason he's fighting is Nevada and California wouldn't reinstate Margarito, the State of Texas is desparate for money, their commission is a joke, Margarito is an Arum fighter, and Arum wants to keep the fight in-house (he decries the UFC but he's mimicking their promoting here, and he did the same thing with the last two Pacquiao fights because Cotto and Clottey are both Arum fighters).

Amir Khan...I've never really gotten the hype.

The Super Six fights on there...the Super Six was a great concept but the b*tching and politics before and in between fights have severely downplayed the competitive aspects. At this point I think you have to look at it as a failure from a promotional aspect as far as general level of interest in it due to what's occurred.

B-Hop is past it. Nice payday for Pascal though.

 

[Steakeater**]

This is why boxing people are so hostile

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f2/does-jose-aldo-have-faster-hand-speed-than-pacman-1376453/

 

[peestreaks]

beautifully said

 

[Astro Man]

Someone told me that it was ok to like both MMA and boxing.

hogwash!

 

[Astro Man]

Anyway, shut the fuck up. all of you.

 

[LilMountain]

When boxing can draw 70000 fans to an arena, when a third of Japan tunes in to watch a boxing bout and when 50 million Chinese watch Pac/Hatton I wouldn't say name recognition is doing that badly.

The fact that the few big names remaining can outsell the older legends doesn't change the fact that there aren't that many big names anymore.

But you lost all credibility making excuses for every fight where the boxer lost :icon_neut

 

[Sharkey]

Nincompoops.

The lot of you.

 

[McMurder]

Nincompoops.

The lot of you.

enough with the tomfoolery, let's hear some serious insight already.

 

[consortium11]

The fact that the few big names remaining can outsell the older legends doesn't change the fact that there aren't that many big names anymore.

*Sigh*

The 2 Kameda's are 24, 21 and 19. That's three huge names who have another 5-10 years left. Saul Alvarez is also 20 years old... again, 10+ years if he wishes. Kevin Mitchell is 26 and can draw 25k to an arena. Amir Khan is 24, Cleverly is 23. Chavez Jr hasn't beaten anyone but can still make decent money for Top Rank headlining PPVs, Ward has a pretty big following in Oakland, Pascal and Bute in Canada etc etc.

Let's also put it this way. If I'd suggested Pac would sell 450k PPVs in his first fight in 2008 in late 2007 everyone would have laughed at me. Yet he did, setting a record for the sub-147 (I believe) PPV sales. If I'd suggested that in the next 3 years he'd turn into one of the biggest draws in boxing you'd have thought I was crazy... yet he has.

In early 2005 no-one thought PBF would be the biggest draw in boxing. When he fought Gatti the PPV buys... which were good but not great... were ascribed to Gatti's fans. Yet here we are.

Boxing's huge PPV draws can pretty much just appear. Sometimes they need a helping hand by beating a huge name (as Pac and Mayweather both did), sometimes they just happen because of their own style or the fans just taking them under their wing.

But you lost all credibility making excuses for every fight where the boxer lost :icon_neut

*Double sigh*

As I said above the a boxer should lose in an MMA match against either a respected MMA fighter or even someone who's just trained it seriously (where the boxer hasn't). In truth it's an embarrassment to the sport (if not the spectacle) of MMA the times they haven't. I don't feel some obtuse need to explain away ever loss a boxer has ever had in MMA. The fact that he chose the most retarded ones to use is his fault, not mine.

I mean, seriously.





Butterbean V Ikuhisa Minowa - Explosive Fights

I could go on... I haven't even started on Nishijima or some of the more obscure boxers who have popped up.

Now, I guess you'll call it making excuses, but you have to consider 1) How good those boxers were to begin with and 2) what condition they were in when they did compete in MMA... they weren't in their prime top level boxers because, simply put, in their prime top level boxers don't compete in MMA. But those are all fights where MMA fighters did what they should (much like Randy did) against completely outmatched opposition.