Sunday Indo: Boxing on the ropes as MMA becomes the No 1 contender

rovert

Wouldnt normally post Boxing vs MMA articles but this one is Irish:

Boxing on the ropes as MMA becomes the No 1 contender
Professional boxing is slipping into irrelevancy as fight fans embrace the violence of mixed martial arts, says Patrick McEllin

Sunday July 04 2010

Professional boxing has fallen a long way in terms of popularity and relevance since its golden era of the '70s and '80s.

At the moment it resembles a punch drunk boxer, clinging to what he can, blinded to his own decline by the memories of his glory days and the faint hope of their return. Mixed martial arts may prove to be the opponent which finally retires boxing as a commercially successful professional sport.

A glance at the list of top-ten television pay-per-view buys in America for 2009 shows mixed martial arts is clearly in the ascendency. Six of the top-ten positions were taken by MMA, twice as many as boxing. Interestingly, the three boxing cards to make the top ten included either Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Paquiao while the MMA events had five different titles on the line held by five different fighters. When you consider that MMA has only come into mainstream consciousness in the western world in the last five years, its rapid ascendency is quite staggering.

But why is it increasing in popularity at such a rapid rate while boxing is slipping into irrelevancy in terms of popular mainstream sports? The merits of MMA and the public's increased ease with the violence involved in the sport have been huge factors in its rise to prominence. However, MMA has also been quick to take advantage of boxing's sorry state to fill a gap in the market.

The lack of credible American heavyweight boxers has hurt the sport badly. Heavyweight has traditionally been the sport's marquee division. Frazier, Foreman, Tyson, Ali and a host of others caught the American imagination and the rest of the western world followed that lead. Nowadays, however, the great American heavyweights are thin on the ground.

Traditionally, boxing was seen by the black underclass as means of escape from poverty. Forty years after the introduction of civil rights, athletic ability is still an African American's best hope; the only thing that has changed is the sporting avenue he will most likely pursue.

In the last 20 years, basketball and American football have become the more popular routes for black athletes as the monetary gains related to these sports increased tenfold. As the iconic boxing pundit Bert Sugar remarked about two well-known linebackers: "The best American heavyweights are named Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher because they're over 250 pounds, and they can make more money. That's what happened to the heavyweight division in America".

Record protecting is one of modern boxing's biggest problems and it is one which has been completely self-inflicted. It can be difficult to tell what level a boxer is really at or how legitimate his record is nowadays. Fighters can be protected by their promoters, taking on only cans and fighters far past their prime to build an impressive record on paper that can lead to more lucrative fights.

Ricky Hatton is a prime example of this. Hatton was undefeated in 40 fights coming into his bout with Mayweather in 2008. The day before the fight Hatton was 6/5 in some places to win, but he could have been 10/1 and still would not have been a good bet, such was the gulf in quality between the fighters, despite the fact their records would suggest otherwise.

Mixed martial arts does not have this problem because about 70 per cent of the top competition fight in one major organisation, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The UFC organises fights, not the different managements, and the majority of the time it is only interested in setting up competitive fights rather than protecting reputations or records. Given that a pay-per-view event can cost up to $50, it is a far more attractive proposition to watch an MMA event where you can be almost guaranteed competitive fights between fighters at a relatively even level rather than a boxing event.

With mixed martial arts, and despite the fact that many of the fighters have huge profiles, the UFC itself is still the main draw and the fans know the organisation will put on the best card possible. With boxing, the big name is still the draw and these big names are getting thinner on the ground.

This has become especially relevant over the last 20 years as more and more boxers look to start off straight into pay per view without building up a profile first, which naturally makes them even harder to market. Again mixed martial arts doesn't have this problem because people will still buy the fight without knowing all the fighters because they trust the UFC to put on a good card.

Mixed martial arts struggled for years to be accepted into mainstream society. It was seen as a violent blood sport and even described as "human cockfighting". Ironically, its aesthetically violent nature has become one of its biggest advantages. With thinner gloves, use of elbows, knees and feet allowed, as well as striking on the ground, not too mention the fact that takedowns make many boxing defensive techniques redundant, it is far more violent than boxing.

With MMA it's fairly clear the majority of casual fans watch for the violence. When a fighter goes to the ground, the booing will begin quickly if his opponent does not quickly lay down a torrent of blows. The fighters may be in the middle of a tactical bout, attempting to gain position and posture through wrestling or working for submissions, but the fans just want too see them smash each other.

Boxing is on the canvas and it is questionable whether it can make a recovery. Its wounds are severe, some caused by outside influences, others self-inflicted.

It's doubtful whether it can ever come close to reaching the heights it once did. Mixed martial arts remains on the rise and the decline of boxing coupled with a change in attitude towards the violence involved means it will only continue growing.

Sunday Independent

siochain

I'm a fan of both, there are some very good points there

Mixed martial arts does not have this problem because about 70 per cent of the top competition fight in one major organisation, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The UFC organises fights, not the different managements, and the majority of the time it is only interested in setting up competitive fights rather than protecting reputations or records.

rovert

*Fedor* cough, cough :pac:

Yeah it is a pretty decent article Irish media is slowly catching up.

unknown13

Good article unlike the media MMA received in the run up to UFC 93.

Daniel2oo9

Boxing is really getting its ass kicked by MMA:)

unknown13

Daniel2oo9 wrote: »

Boxing is really getting its ass kicked by MMA:)

That is bullshít, I'm afraid.

Sid_Justice

skimmed it the other morning, fairly bland but good to see it in the sunday rag.

rovert

unknown13 wrote: »

That is bullshít, I'm afraid.

Yep Toney is going to kick Couture's ass.

unknown13

Last year in boxing: Cotto / Pacquiao and Mayweather / Marquez got over 1 million PPV buys. Hatton / Pacquiao got in around 850K PPV buys.

UFC 100 got the most by a mile with 1.6 million buys, then UFC 94 got 900K and UFC 101 got 850K.

The numbers speak for themselves.

calex71

Record protecting was the phrase that immediately jumped out and as far as pro boxing goes that is 99.99% accurate. Seems in boxing there is no / rarely a come back from a loss as champ, especially not these days.

Boxing seems to have less "events" worth watching / that are promoted than mma.

MMA is better bang for buck when paying to see it PPV guaranteed number of fights, no KO in the 1st round of the main event and thats it.

Amateur Boxing is also better value these days if paying to go to a fight than the pro game. Always was in my opinion but I have and will continue to go to amateur boxing events but there is very little about the pro game that interests me these days.

What surprises me if we are talking on capitalist terms, and with this boxing recession so to speak is the purses payed to these guys for a sub par product are incredible. If they followed the MMA model and defended a title at least twice a year or there abouts and didn't hand pick opponents and dodge legit contenders then I'd say they deserve the $.

Boxing needs to move on and it pains me to say this ............ " UFC don't do boxing but if they did, it would be the best boxing in the world." so to speak.

Pauleta

I agree with the article except

With MMA it's fairly clear the majority of casual fans watch for the violence. When a fighter goes to the ground, the booing will begin quickly if his opponent does not quickly lay down a torrent of blows. The fighters may be in the middle of a tactical bout, attempting to gain position and posture through wrestling or working for submissions, but the fans just want too see them smash each other.

I know this is what appeals to a lot of casual fans but to say when they go to the ground the crowd quickly boo is a bit OTT. The meat heads usually take a while to boo and even when it does happen its not as if its the whole crowd.

The main advantage of MMA not being as mainstream as boxing is here is that i can go the whole of Sunday without finding out the Lesnar-Carwin result how i can watch the replay (although i did have to avoid facebook) MMA will overtake boxing as the number 1 combat sport soon enough. I also think Brock Lesnar will be a major factor in it. The vast majority of my mates wouldnt even know if there was a UFC event on but everyone was talking about Lesnar-Carwin before the fight and the last time it was like that was UFC 100. I think its time RTE actually got serious about MMA but they seem to be very comfortable in bed with Brian Peters and his boxing promotions. Im a fan of boxing and i watch it anytime its on tv but if they wanna jump off the bridge they are standing on the edge of, im not gonna try and talk them down. The Pacquiao-Mayweather saga pretty much sums up the sport at the moment.

callaway92

sadly, you never see MMA on Text on Sky or anything like that, eg. Newspapers, whereas you do see boxing.

Bodhisopha

America is not the world.

I took this from a thread in the boxing section.

http://www.doghouseboxing.com/Benz/DHBenz032110.htm

pacman v clottey - 51k turned up in dallas. expected 800k plus ppv buys which is huge against a relative unknown like clottey.

51k turn for klitscho fight some american chump.

Over 12m germans watch it on TV.Exact figure 12.6 million viewers, 52.8% market share of viewship

May 1 - Mosley V Mayweather ...expected 1.5 - 2m ppvs

Vitali Klitschko-Sosnowski will sell out the 61k stadium

Kevin Mitchell V Katsidis in May which will be a cracker ...expected crowd at upton park is 30k plus as is Cotto V Foreman in Yankee stadium.

Haye V Ruiz is already sold out and his last fight in the UK alone did 1m ppvs.

Kameda has viewership figures of 50m in Japan alone !!!. Thats bigger than all the HBO and Showtime boxing cards shown in the US for 2009.

Boxing is on a high contary to what is read in certain media reports

Killme00

I got as far as the bit where "the black underclass" is mentioned and stopped. Horse**** of the highest order.

cowzerp

The article is not too bad but really jumping on what the UFC say about the contention to be no,1 with Boxing, Boxing outside of America is booming, Lot's of it has been stated above and as soon as another top American Heavyweight comes along it will be back to been the biggest in the American media's eyes who don't seem to realise that the rest of the world is much bigger than them.

To add my opinion, MMA is bigger in the teenage market and it's growth goes without saying as it's going from 0 to whatever it is now, now that it has a big following the % growth will obviously decline, that's simple maths the reason it got popular is down to it been much more accessible to people just like the WWE is and the teens have not grown up watching boxing and are happy with MMA as they should be-it's great

The thing is i feel Lot's of these will become Boxing fans as well in the future when they grow out of feeling that Boxing and MMA are enemy's and start watching some, it's great to be able to enjoy both without feeling like your cheating 1 or the other!!

As far as the press go, they'll be ripping MMA apart soon-there full of it.

John Ferguson

Should this not live in the news from other sites thread??

cowzerp

fightie wrote: »

Should this not live in the news from other sites thread??

The article is on this thread and is not news its just an opinion and not advertising for the OP's own site, you dont have to leave it to go and see it and there is an actual debate on it-stop shiit stirring john.

Jason McCabe

I was watching boxing recently on RTE and took a good look at the audience.

They were a lot of silver tops ringside. The demograph for MMA is much younger.

It bodes well for the sport moving forward

Killme00

Jason McCabe wrote: »

I was watching boxing recently on RTE and took a good look at the audience.

They were a lot of silver tops ringside. The demograph for MMA is much younger.

It bodes well for the sport moving forward

I disagree. I think MMA is in fashion at the moment and thats it. Its having it boom and that will continue until something new comes along...anyone for roller parcour?

MarkFairman

I really dont think its a "fashion" thing. MMA is simply giving people what they want to see. Competitve regular fights.

Boxing has been the western worlds number one combat sport for the past 100 years or so. But its talent pool has run dry, and management block fights.

MMA is simply more exciting for the adverage fan, a generation who grew up watching WWF-WWE and wishing it was real. MMA is the nearest thing to real combat. It has answered more martial arts questions in the past 15 years, than in the past 100 and cleared up alot of the BS around combat sports. MMA will continue to grow and become ever more main stream.

Its going to be around for a very long time. Maybe in a 100 years somthing else will come up. But the evolving nature of the sport will continue to make it exciting for generations to come.

Killme00

MarkFairman wrote: »

Boxing has been the western worlds number one combat sport for the past 100 years or so. But its talent pool has run dry, and management block fights..

Notice a similarity to whats currently happening in MMA then? Seems to be in a elevated cycle too, in that it took Boxing >100years to do what MMA is doing in <20

MarkFairman wrote: »

MMA is simply more exicitng for the adverage fan, a generation who grew up watching WWF-WWE and wishing it was real. MMA is the nearest thing to real combat. It has answered more martial arts questions in the past 15 years, than in the past 100 and cleared up alot of the BS around combat sports. MMA will continue to grow and become ever more main stream.

Its going to be around for a very long time. Maybe in a 100 years somthing else will come up. But the evolving nature of the sport will continue to make it exciting for generations to come.

I disagree. I think MMA is suceeding because of the general malaise in society towards what is acceptable and what is not. IMO it wont be long before society will try to become more civilised what is percieved as violence be effected.

Correct me if i'm worng but isnt amateur boxing stronger than ever and growing...little acorns . In a similar way, the MMA league and amatuer MMA could do well but i dont see MMA as having nearly the same talent pool as boxing to feed the professional game as it grows. I'm not saying MMA will die, i just dont think it will be as mainstream as boxing was in its prime.

On a seperate note, WWF style wrestling has suceeded for so long and will continue to suceed because parents view it as harmless, its pretty much a saop opera for boys.

cowzerp

MMA is big in certain demographs, But the truth is most people still dont know what MMA is, To explain what i do ya have to mention the dreaded "cage fighting" to get people to realise what MMA is and even then they dont really get it.

MMA on the whole is tiny, the UFC is quite large and can almost compete with the same level of Boxing which is testament to the good promotion job Dana white does, the problem is people think the UFC is MMA and then dont compare like for like-Bernard dunne alone was getting more fans into stadiums than all of the strikeforce events and was matching the UFC evenys too, that has to tell you something.

Also the fact that the UFC can sell there name rather than 1 individual boxers name is good as people like familiarity-another good example of how mma is, is look at MMA in Japan a few years ago, Huge! now it's quite small again-so the fad thing is definetly an issue, Boxing is still huge and growing in asia-MMA is here to stay nut when it's not a cool fad then the numbers will be more easy to read.. I'm pretty sure it wont go away but certainly wont get people to watch just because its in a cage when that becomes the norm.

MarkFairman

Not really sure how to quote properly so will just respond.

I agree, most people dont know what MMA is. They are much more likely to have heard of "the Ulitmate Fighting" or "cage fighting". However a hell of alot more people know about it now then when I started watching and training about 5-6 years ago.

To see the numbers of people training and involved in the sport in ireland alone is quite amazing. Its still a very small in ireland compared to other places but its growing rapidly.

With regards to Japan, Pride in its latter days was not run well. Especially after the Yakuza got involved, after this became public it left a bad public image around the sport. It will come back though, as Japan embraced shooto etc long before MMA.

Fromvert

Killme00 wrote: »

I disagree. I think MMA is in fashion at the moment and thats it. Its having it boom and that will continue until something new comes along...anyone for roller parcour?

Add roller to most sports and it gets better. Roller football, roller rugby etc. Thinking about it now I want to watch roller arm wrestling.

I read this article while at a BBQ on Sunday, thats says a lot about the BBQ I was at that I picked up the paper. I thought it was awful and probably wrote by somebody who has watched two/three UFC events and has no idea what is happening when the fight goes to ground.

MMA is not going to cripple boxing, boxing is always strong and will always be strong. I doubt MMA will ever be more mainstream then boxing.

sonic.trip

callaway92 wrote: »

sadly, you never see MMA on Text on Sky or anything like that, eg. Newspapers, whereas you do see boxing.

not yet, but as its growing so rapidly I bet there will be inclusion in Irish paers in the not so distant future. If I am correct a paper in the UK already does a column weekly i think.

Odats

IMO it's like apple and oranges. Boxing is just going through a rough patch at the moment too many Chiefs not enough Indians. However it should take a leaf out of the UFC's book marketing wise and that. No marquee US heavyweight also harms their chances as said in the article. UFC is more bang for your buck PPV wise at the moment.

Vince135792003

The growth UFC has gone through since 2005 is amazing.

The fact that it's even been debated on shows like Ryan Tubridys and Liveline is a big step in the right direction. It will never be a sport for everyone but education takes time.

One small little story. I am a teacher in a primary school. On Sports day I wore a UFC t-shirt thinking nothing of it. The amount of reaction I got off the children shocked me to the point I won't wear it next year! It occurred to me though at the time how well UFC have gotten their brand out their in such a short space of time.

rovert

Vince135792003 wrote: »

The growth UFC has gone through since 2005 is amazing.

The fact that it's even been debated on shows like Ryan Tubridys and Liveline is a big step in the right direction. It will never be a sport for everyone but education takes time.

One small little story. I am a teacher in a primary school. On Sports day I wore a UFC t-shirt thinking nothing of it. The amount of reaction I got off the children shocked me to the point I won't wear it next year! It occurred to me though at the time how well UFC have gotten their brand out their in such a short space of time.

What type of reaction? They thought you were a kickboxer or something or were they rhyming of fighters names?

You need to wear it every year and inform Dave Meltzer of fluctuations in interest. :pac:

Vince135792003

rovert wrote: »

What type of reaction? They thought you were a kickboxer or something or were they rhyming of fighters names?

You need to wear it every year and inform Dave Meltzer of fluctuations in interest. :pac:

The video game must have been the factor.

The general reaction was that they thought it was cool/odd that a teacher would wear a t-shirt with the initials UFC.. They didn't know any names but within 2 seconds walking into the room, the kids (well boys) recognised the initials. 2 kids asked me whether UFC was real or fake.

In 1 particular "boisterous" class a UFC chant broke out.

BoxingIrel.com

Daniel2oo9 wrote: »

Boxing is really getting its ass kicked by MMA:)

Boxing is getting its "ass kicked" whilst having on average 10 top level televised shows a day on the weekend and is selling out stadium shows across the world??

If boxing had one PPV event per month like UFC I am sure you would see the US PPV figures alter drastically.

Boxing enjoy massive grass roots support through the amateur game and the Olympics and feeding into the pro game - if anyone really thinks that MMA is going to become a larger or sport with more participation or support anytime soon they are deluded.

bret69

BoxingIrel.com wrote: »

Boxing is getting its "ass kicked" whilst having on average 10 top level televised shows a day on the weekend and is selling out stadium shows across the world??

If boxing had one PPV event per month like UFC I am sure you would see the US PPV figures alter drastically.

Boxing enjoy massive grass roots support through the amateur game and the Olympics and feeding into the pro game - if anyone really thinks that MMA is going to become a larger or sport with more participation or support anytime soon they are deluded.

I agree that saying boxing is getting its ass kicked by MMA is inaccurate when you look at everything worldwide, as you're saying.

I think anybody who is saying MMA is kicking boxing's ass is only talking about the top level i.e. world champion / ppv cards. In that sense, MMA is now selling more PPV's every year than boxing.

Worldwide, boxing is still much bigger than MMA but you must remember MMA isn't just the UFC. There's WEC, Strikeforce, Bellator, M1 to name but a few that all have tv deals and huge viewers. Addionally, grassroots MMA has never been as big with a huge amount of local shows all over the world including Ireland.

When you look at the numbers UFC are doing in ppv sales, the amount of MMA clubs opening and the sheer number of local shows being put on, it really is astonishing. On the other hand, boxing has seen the opposite happen, with much less huge fights and mainstream attention these days than 10 years ago.

It's also worth remembering that MMA is still a young sport and what it has accomplished so far is astonishing, in such a small amount of time.

Having said all of this, I love both sports and don't like bashing either.

seadnamac

BoxingIrel.com wrote: »

Boxing is getting its "ass kicked" whilst having on average 10 top level televised shows a day on the weekend and is selling out stadium shows across the world??

If boxing had one PPV event per month like UFC I am sure you would see the US PPV figures alter drastically.

Boxing enjoy massive grass roots support through the amateur game and the Olympics and feeding into the pro game - if anyone really thinks that MMA is going to become a larger or sport with more participation or support anytime soon they are deluded.

Could you expand on that a little? I'm a huge boxing fan aswell so not challenging it or anything just curious as to what these shows are that I'm missing??

BoxingIrel.com

seadnamac wrote: »

Could you expand on that a little? I'm a huge boxing fan aswell so not challenging it or anything just curious as to what these shows are that I'm missing??

Granted yesterday was a quite-ish night for boxing but internationally there were 14 sanctioned shows and Friday had 28 shows across 14 countries.

JohnMc1

Boxing is established that it will not die out. Anybody who thinks Boxing is going to die out completely is just listening too much to Dana White.

cowzerp

Well said John, Boxing at it's lowest is still massive and it has always had peaks and troughs, with the amount of boxing that is on the viewership will obviously be divided out, and like Boxing IRL said-If there was Only 1 Boxing event on a month that lots of people watched then it would be silly how big the figure would be, Brocks fight with Carwin was billed as the biggest heavyweight fight in UFC history and pulled 1.2 million ppv, good but not great considering Brock is like UFC's Tyson, imagine Tyson V Klitcsko now if Tyson was at peak-easily top 2 million ppv's..

Boxing is still the no.1 combat sport and the only difference is now there is another combat sport worth talking about, say's a lot for how big MMA is, But in reality it's more UFC that's big than MMA in fairness, As i've said before and will say again-Best of both worlds for me and im not complaining.

JohnMc1

Thanks cowzerp.