Has the UFC/MMA reached the heights of boxing?

[tripleo]

checks out pay per view numbers

mma has a lonnnnnnggggg way to go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-per-view

 

[Isaiah095]

Considering I got massive amounts of hate on this forum for simply suggesting Khabib coming out of retirement to eventually face Khamzat would be a massive fight I would say most MMA fans are close minded and can’t see the potential in the sport.

Way to make it about you!

 

[The Chosen]

Way to make it about you!

 

[No Skill Gap]

No-one in MMA has compared to the popularity of Ali yet.

Idk if that's true.

Ali is more of a respected historical figure, yeah sure. But McGregor and Rousey are pretty fucking famous or were.

McGregor, Brock, Rousey were all mega stars. Jones/GSP/Khabib are also pretty popular.

I don't understand the scale here anyway, like right now? Yeah the UFC has more big names that normal people would know right now than boxing. 100%. Boxing right now is basically Canelo, mainly retired Mayweather, Pac, Fury/Wilder, Ryan Garcia/Loma/GGG maybe as some names?

And if we're talking all-time it's still a stupid argument because the UFC and basically organized MMA has been around for 27-30 years now and it was in the stone ages for at least 7-10 years of that time pretty much. Boxing has been around for like hundreds to thousands of years and organized boxing has big names from literally 1910-1920s (Dempsey), the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, etc. So it's just a retarded comparison.

The peak stars in boxing are more popular still I think, but at this point it's pretty fucking close. I'd say McGregor is more popular than any current boxer.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

wiki says over a billion people world wide watched the thrilla in manilla

Do you really believe that though? thats roughly 1 in 4 people on the planet at that time, and global poverty rates were much higher back then plus theres the time zone factor etc. Its much easier to make up insanely exaggerated unprovable numbers for something from the 70s or 80s than it would be today. And boxing is very prone to hyperbole and romanticization of its past. I doubt even soccer world cup games get anywhere near that kind of viewership even today with twice the global population and more ways to watch.

 

[No Skill Gap]

As a piece of evidence - McGregor has 8.47 million twitter followers, Canelo has 2.4 and Pacquiao has 1.6, Fury has 1.7, Wilder has 700k, Garcia has 500k, Loma has not even 200k, and GGG has 600k

So just based on twitter here, McGregor has more fame than Canelo, Pacquiao, Fury, Wilder, GGG, and Garcia combined. (8.47 to ~7.9 million)

So if the argument is TODAY, which sport has the more popular stars? It's MMA. Easily. I'd count Khabib in there as a pretty big international star, we're not counting Ronda. We really cannot count Mayweather. I mean fuck the UFC was just on ABC and has inked deals with Fox and ESPN in the past, so yeah it's surpassed boxing imo in popularity.

edit: Went back and read every comment and realized this thread is retarded.

People equating anyone to Muhammad Ali is just so autistic it kills my brain cells. Ali was a historical figure, he was drafted into the Vietnam War and didn't go, he was a black/muslim man in the 60s-70s, there was so much more going on around him that isn't going to happen to McGregor or Khabib or Canelo today.

People have made good points too, now it's an age of streaming. Back during May-Pac, and definitely every Mayweather ppv before that...streaming was not as big as it has been in recent years. I watched Hatton over a friends house in 2009, we were all young and no one had a clue about streams, they didn't even exist I don't think or were rare/underground.

It says something that the 2nd highest PPV ever in boxing was Mayweather-McGregor and it was 2+ years into the future where streaming was more prevalent, and close in numbers (and yeah fuck off we're not counting the bullshit free tv Ali numbers).

Sorry for along ass post, but jeez...is this a boxing circle jerk? No Boxing has clearly been dying, and the UFC has pretty much surpassed it. That's facts. The most popular boxing star by far is Mayweather and he hasn't fought a real fight since 2015.

 

[FIghtxIQ]

Yes, just not in not in terms of money, popularity or skill...

No, not yet. No one in mma has that level of head movement from Canelo and Floyd. Or the level of boxing of Canelo or Floyd.

 

[chance mccoy]

MMA isn’t that young anymore. Its been roughly 3 decades. Have we has the biggest fights ever? Boxing arguably had its time, and its still around. But nowadays, when people say “professional fighter” its probably an mma fighter.

so has mma had its ali/frasier, mayweather/pacquiao? Do you put mma at its biggest as big as boxing?

Tyson has blown more money than every UFC fighter combined has made

 

[chance mccoy]

Tyson has blown more money than every UFC fighter combined has made

And that was in the 80s and early 90s

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

checks out pay per view numbers

mma has a lonnnnnnggggg way to go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-per-view

Theres like 2 boxing PPVs in history that did bigger buyrates than Conor/Khabib, and one of them is Conor/Floyd. The UFC has been a more consistent PPV draw than boxing since around 06/07. And in the last five years the two times boxing has had the biggest drawing PPV of the year over the UFC were freakshows involving retired boxers, exhibition bouts, Youtubers, NBA players and MMA fighters.

 

[FIghtxIQ]

Boxing is more mainstream and universally accepted because it's been around longer and people are more familiar with it. Plus it's become embedded with hip-hop culture, plus all the classic movies from over the years about boxing.

MMA will get there eventually but it'll need more cross over stars like McGregor. Most boxing stars tend to be crossover stars and in mma there are only a few cross over stars. You always see boxers with hip-hop stars, movie stars etc. In MMA it was only McGregor, Ronda, and Brock. Khabib also but in a different type of cross over star, the non Hollywood type.

MMA needs stars that can generate interest in more ways than just MMA fights. That's why Tyson is still drawing more interest currently than active fighters and he's set to have more fights soon that's probably going to have high ppv numbers just like his last fight. Also probably why mma fans were confused by the way the PPV was set up with Tyson's last fight. A different culture and target group that boxing has compared to mma.

 

[oldschoolmmafan]

No, not yet. No one in mma has that level of head movement from Canelo and Floyd. Or the level of boxing of Canelo or Floyd.

If only we saw Alvarez vs Mayweather in their prime.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

Yes, just not in not in terms of money, popularity or skill...

Cool, hows his ground game?

 

[empsim]

No, and boxing will never reached those heights again either.

You're not gonna see random ass people who don't even follow the sport wear a Conor or Mayweather T-Shirt in 30 years like it is with Ali.

 

[tripleo]

Theres like 2 boxing PPVs in history that did bigger buyrates than Conor/Khabib, and one of them is Conor/Floyd. The UFC has been a more consistent PPV draw than boxing since around 06/07. And in the last five years the two times boxing has had the biggest drawing PPV of the year over the UFC were freakshows involving retired boxers, exhibition bouts, Youtubers, NBA players and MMA fighters.

well you are wrong
you purposely didn't include CCTV, Ali Frazier 3 had 100 millions sales, Ali Foreman had 50 millions sales,
If we are talking about modern time
there are several Tyson fights, Floyd fights that exceed the Khabib/Conor buys,
not to mention Manny and Sugar Ray Leonard both have fights reach above 2 millions buys

read that fucking wiki page and find out before you spew bullshit

 

[SherdogFan23]

It will be hard for MMA to pass boxing in the USA at its peak if we are talking about percentage of population. Boxing was the second most popular sport in the USA in its peak. Worldwide the situation might be different since the USA dominated boxing for quite a few years. Many boxers during its later prime became bigger names from people watching the Olympics which was also huge on TV ratings during those days. Having more boxers that people could identify helped to create more interest. Boxing and Ali had the benefit to the commentator Howard Cosell who also did work for Monday Night football (another popular show in its era). Now days with the internet and so many sporting events occurring simultaneously, it is hard for any one sport to be gigantic everywhere. This reduces all MMA fighters from becoming as famous unless they can cross over to other non-MMA stuff like movies, etc.

 

[Yrat]

The only way for Mma to grow would be to open up a new promotion where you only have top 10 fighters in the world. Let's say you have 4 heavyweights, 6 lightweights and so on

From there you can build up a hype.

Dana was right when he asked the journalists what kind of superfights you can do between Ufc and Bellator and since Chandler is now signed with Ufc there is just no interest. Maybe Vadim Nemkov vs Jan Blachowicz

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

well you are wrong
you purposely didn't include CCTV, Ali Frazier 3 had 100 millions sales, Ali Foreman had 50 millions sales,

No they didnt, thats blatant hyperbolic bullshit and you're very gullible if you believe it. Lol @ fucking CCTV views, like that can reliably be tracked. Not to mention the wiki link claims only 3% of that 100 million viewers were in the US, sure bro 97 million people outside of America paid to watch two Americans punch each other in the face back in 1975. And dont forget a BILLION people total (ie 1 in 4 people on the planet back then) watched in some capacity. Oh and 300-500 million people on averaged watched Wladimir Klitschkos fights too, because Wikipedia says so so it must be true.

 

[Gamer007]

Lol no

The fact that Conor came along is a god damn miracle for MMA mainstream popularity, he’s already 32 with not many big stars behind him. This is a golden era for MMA just by having Conor active on the roster.

We might actually see a regression once all the OG legends and enigmas like Conor retire.

 

[Saku_96]

IMO, boxing is on the decline, but MMA has a long way to go to reach how big boxing was in it's prime years.

Without a doubt, the biggest MMA star is Conor, and his biggest purse hands down was his boxing match with Mayweather. No MMA fight, title or not, is remotely close to the kind of pay for one match. I'm positive Canelo wouldn't trade his 30-40 Million per match deal for a few more million twitter followers.

Iron Mike still gets a sense of awe from those around him to this day. Multiple current day athletes are still star struck when they meet him, and just about everyone in America knows who he is. Conor, not so much.

In terms of pure total PPVs sold. The top 6-7 of all time are dominated by boxers. Conor is mixed in with WWE stars, which seems to be how UFC is operating nowadays (nickel/diming employees, ranks don't really matter, etc.)

I'm all for the best athletes in the world to compete in UFC/MMA, but I don't see that happening until the pay is significantly higher. Boxing has been around forever, and it'll take time to reach that level.