Off Topic Thread too point uh

.ak

awec wrote: »

I really don't care at all about UFC or MMA in general. I'd watch the fight if it were on at a reasonable hour (like now), but not arsed staying up all night to see it.

Anyone who isn't a big mma fan I would say watch the main card from last night. Every fight was epic and had everything.

.ak

Wang King wrote: »

Is that the one down from the Kingfisher, across from Peats?

No the other end, opposite the booze to go

Wang King

Teferi wrote: »

Not a chance. It's more like boxing when it was at it's biggest in the 90's.

Not even close in fanbase, popularity or money, its still not even close today!

Teferi

Wang King wrote: »

Not even close in fanbase, popularity or money, its still not even close today!

Last night broke all MMA records for attendance, viewings, ppv etc. It's reached a new level. To compare it to WWE is nonsense.

stephen_n

That looks fairly knock out tbh!

Wang King

But anyway, back to real sport.. C'mon Fed!!

Stheno

Wang King wrote: »

But anyway, back to real sport.. C'mon Fed!!

Yeah I'd love to see him do it

Wang King

Teferi wrote: »

Last night broke all MMA records for attendance, viewings, ppv etc. It's reached a new level. To compare it to WWE is nonsense.

Ah Im not comparing it as in choreographed moves, but the whole pantomime element is very reminiscent of wwe to me

Zzippy

Teferi wrote: »

Last night broke all MMA records for attendance, viewings, ppv etc. It's reached a new level. To compare it to WWE is nonsense.

To be fair, that means nothing without absolute figures put in comparison with WWE figures. Breaking MMA records is fine, but what are the WWE records? I'm not a fan of either sport/form of entertainment, and have no idea about the relative popularity of either, but making sweeping statements like that is not statistically unsound.

Swiwi.

Djokovich is playing really well. I'm
rooting for federer of course but if I actually had to root, djokovichs girlfriend ain't half bad.

Count the Hollywood stars again I see.

irishbucsfan

Wang King wrote: »

Not even close in fanbase, popularity or money, its still not even close today!

Well yes and no. That was a multi-million dollar fight. There were multi-million dollar fights in boxing in the 90s but they weren't exactly ubiquitous within the sport. The very "biggest" fights in boxing history, the Mayweather fights and the Tyson fights, are another level up again but that card last night was big even by boxing's standards. They expected to take $7million at the gate for that fight last night, and expected 1 million viewers.

Wang King

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Well yes and no. That was a multi-million dollar fight. There were multi-million dollar fights in boxing in the 90s but they weren't exactly ubiquitous within the sport. The very "biggest" fights in boxing history, the Mayweather fights and the Tyson fights, are another level up again but that card last night was big even by boxing's standards. They expected to take $7million at the gate for that fight last night, and expected 1 million viewers.

If you compare it to the biggest boxing fight this year, of Mayweather v Pacman its prob a 5th or a 6th of the ppv viewers if those projections are to be considered accurate.

Its a bit ridiculous that McGregor was looking to the ref to get them off the ground in 2nd round when Mendes was doing tons of damage with his elbows.

Tox56

Wang King wrote: »

If you compare it to the biggest boxing fight this year, of Mayweather v Pacman its prob a 5th or a 6th of the ppv viewers if those projections are to be considered accurate.

Even the rest of boxing pales in comparison to the May Pac fight, that sold twice as many PPVs as any other boxing fight in history

irishbucsfan

Wang King wrote: »

If you compare it to the biggest boxing fight this year, of Mayweather v Pacman its prob a 5th or a 6th of the ppv viewers if those projections are to be considered accurate.

Yeah, fights like that are on another level again, as I said.

But that fight was years in the making and there aren't any other fights like that around the corner for boxing, unlike mixed martial arts. Maybe boxing will get lucky and McGregor will make good on his promise to switch across for a fight with Mayweather.

Wang King

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Yeah, fights like that are on another level again, as I said.

But that fight was years in the making and there aren't any other fights like that around the corner for boxing, unlike mixed martial arts. Maybe boxing will get lucky and McGregor will make good on his promise to switch across for a fight with Mayweather.

You'll always get good matchups in boxing, every weight level has a good payday, even going back to Lewis v Tyson, when Mike was a busted flush, the purse would have dwarfed last night

Wang King

Tox56 wrote: »

Even the rest of boxing pales in comparison to the May Pac fight, that sold twice as many PPVs as any other boxing fight in history

But does that not show that boxing still is the big draw, I've seen mma fans say boxing is on the wane, its had its day, and clearly, if you give the fans what they want, you get the viewing figures and you get the payday

irishbucsfan

Wang King wrote: »

You'll always get good matchups in boxing, every weight level has a good payday, even going back to Lewis v Tyson, when Mike was a busted flush, the purse would have dwarfed last night

So who are the next big paydays then? Wilder-Molina last month passed with barely a murmur, back in the 90s a heavyweight title fight would have turned a few heads at least, but that fight's popularity paled in comparison to the MMA last night.

Wang King

irishbucsfan wrote: »

So who are the next big paydays then? Wilder-Molina last month passed with barely a murmur, back in the 90s a heavyweight title fight would have turned a few heads at least, but that fight's popularity paled in comparison to the MMA last night.

But there are always times when the heavyweight division isn't the be all and end all.
The lightweight divisions make huge money in the Japanese and Asian markets, the super middleweights dominated during the mid 90's into the 00's. If you look at the heavyweight division now, V Klitschko is a huge draw and commands the big purses. His fight against Fury in 3 months or so will be huge. Look to guys like Deontay Wilder in America to push on , its cyclical I suppose, 1 weight rises, another falls, but the draw remains the same, the money and interest doesn't really wane

irishbucsfan

Wang King wrote: »

But there are always times when the heavyweight division isn't the be all and end all.
The lightweight divisions make huge money in the Japanese and Asian markets, the super middleweights dominated during the mid 90's into the 00's. If you look at the heavyweight division now, V Klitschko is a huge draw and commands the big purses. His fight against Fury in 3 months or so will be huge. Look to guys like Deontay Wilder in America to push on , its cyclical I suppose, 1 weight rises, another falls, but the draw remains the same, the money and interest doesn't really wane

If Deontay Wilder can't pull people to a title fight in the heavyweight division now then I'm not sure why you think he'll be able to do so in future?

It's Wladimir Klitschko who is fighting Furey, not Vitali, and his last fight was roughly equivalent to the fight last night. I don't disagree that boxing is cyclical or that there will be good boxing matches in future. I just completley disagree with your claim that the other sport is "not even close" when all evidence is showing that it is close and one is growing while the other is falling away.

Teferi

Zzippy wrote: »

To be fair, that means nothing without absolute figures put in comparison with WWE figures. Breaking MMA records is fine, but what are the WWE records? I'm not a fan of either sport/form of entertainment, and have no idea about the relative popularity of either, but making sweeping statements like that is not statistically unsound.

You dont understand me. I was not comparing wwe and mma ratings, I was saying that one is a scripted entertainment show and the other is an actual combat sport.

Wang King

irishbucsfan wrote: »

If Deontay Wilder can't pull people to a title fight in the heavyweight division now then I'm not sure why you think he'll be able to do so in future?

It's Wladimir Klitschko who is fighting Furey, not Vitali, and his last fight was roughly equivalent to the fight last night. I don't disagree that boxing is cyclical or that there will be good boxing matches in future. I just completley disagree with your claim that the other sport is "not even close" when all evidence is showing that it is close and one is growing while the other is falling away.

Wilder is a relative novice at this level, he's fought very little of note so far, but over the next 2-3 years he will be involved in bigger and better fights. His purses will increase as his level of opponent does.
As for mma being close and boxing falling away, sorry but that is ludicrous, boxing has the money, the viewers and the attraction, always will. Mma is enjoying a purple patch right now, but nothing suggests it can overtake boxing in any way. Just do a quick little look at purses in boxing and it dwarves mma purses, not even within an asses roar of it

Swiwi.

And we take a wee break from the pugilists to congratulate the Serb. He was pretty awesome I must say.

Stheno

Swiwi. wrote: »

And we take a wee break from the pugilists to congratulate the Serb. He was pretty awesome I must say.

He was

Tox56

Wang King wrote: »

Wilder is a relative novice at this level, he's fought very little of note so far, but over the next 2-3 years he will be involved in bigger and better fights. His purses will increase as his level of opponent does.
As for mma being close and boxing falling away, sorry but that is ludicrous, boxing has the money, the viewers and the attraction, always will. Mma is enjoying a purple patch right now, but nothing suggests it can overtake boxing in any way. Just do a quick little look at purses in boxing and it dwarves mma purses, not even within an asses roar of it

MMA has only been around for 20 years, it's not so much a purple patch as part of the continuing growth and evolution of the sport. It doesn't rival boxing yet in many respects because boxing has been around way way longer, W Klitschko has been fighting almost as long as MMA, or at least what we now know as MMA, has existed. McGregor is the first of his kind as a huge mainstream European draw, but his emergence is just another milestone in the growth of the sport, and it's done incredible things for MMA in Ireland. Next is for the UK (and other countries) to find their own McGregor

irishbucsfan

Wang King wrote: »

Wilder is a relative novice at this level, he's fought very little of note so far, but over the next 2-3 years he will be involved in bigger and better fights. His purses will increase as his level of opponent does.
As for mma being close and boxing falling away, sorry but that is ludicrous, boxing has the money, the viewers and the attraction, always will. Mma is enjoying a purple patch right now, but nothing suggests it can overtake boxing in any way. Just do a quick little look at purses in boxing and it dwarves mma purses, not even within an asses roar of it

670,000 people watched Wilder's last fight in the States. 1.2 million people watched Klitschko's last fight. The McGregor-Mendes figures aren't out but 2.7 million watched the night McGregor fought Siver and that wasn't even a title fight. Almost the same number (2.745m) watched UFC 188, the previous main event. The reality of the situation just doesn't match up with what you're claiming.

Statements like 'boxing will always have the viewers and attraction' are just silly and already quite demonstrably untrue. If current trends (in terms of both viewership and youth participation) continue the money will very quickly move away from boxing. Certainly in English-speaking countries everything is trending in that direction currently.

Saying that, the main thing that boxing has going for it is the history, and that will keep it going for a very long time, the sport isn't going to die off or disappear, amateur boxing will always be a massive sport internationally, but the money will go where the viewers go and there's not much keeping them currently.

Hagz

Wang King wrote: »

I'm not a fan of ufc, I'll admit that, but is it starting to look like this generations wwe, just with a few proper slaps thrown?

Interestingly enough I'd say we'll see a fair amount of cross-over between the two sports in the future. It's already happened/happening in a small way.

Teferi

You'd feel a little sympathy for Federer, it's perhaps beyond him to win it now. Still, he has plenty to look back on.

Zzippy

Teferi wrote: »

You dont understand me. I was not comparing wwe and mma ratings, I was saying that one is a scripted entertainment show and the other is an actual combat sport.

I agree with you there, but that was not how your first post came across. Crossed wires!

mfceiling

I think boxing has become fairly meh...mainly due to the politics and vast array of belts available at each weight.

Fighters are being kept apart and I can't think of too many boxers who people are on edge to watch their next fight.

Frampton is a great talent for us in Ireland but even then he probably isn't as well known or recognisable as McGregor.

MMA will grow stronger and last night certainly helped their cause.