Boxing Must Learn From UFC

[soul_survivor]

I don't want this to turn into a flame war or some casual nonsense from idiots, but I'd like the few on here who are actual boxing fans, with genuine intellect to respond. This is why I am posting in the history section (although I have just seen some threads here for the first time in a while and oh boy, looks like we're infected).

Anyway, here is my piece:

The whole world in in the grip of a pandemic, regardless of one's opinions on this crisis, sporting service has been terribly affected. Football is just returning to normal, cricket has "bio-secure bubbles" and other team sports around the world are finding ways around it and yet, MMA's flagship brand, the UFC just hasn't seemed to stop. From May of this year, they have held events, everywhere from Florida to the UAE by way of Las Vegas. Health concerns aside, this is impressive enough but the fact that they have built on a bumper 3 year stretch of excellent matches and new stars, in a time like this, is to be admired.

Their first fight in these dark times? Tony Ferguson v Justin Gaethje, 2 of the 3 best lightweights on the planet. That was a huge fight to come back with and it meant something to the division (the idea of meaning will be raised again). Since then, we have had both Nagannou and Overeem stake a claim in the heavyweight division again, Poirier got back into the flow at lightweight, Miocic and Cormier capped off their trilogy....and this is all just a bit of what UFC have done so far. Heck, they just put on Adesanya v Costa, a blockbuster rivalry and another fight which means something.

The biggest card is still up UFC's sleeve, Khabib Nurmegameddov, the biggest star in the MMA business today will be facing off against the number 1 contender in his division, no nonsense, no pay offs, no mandatories, just straight up, best v best. This is a stellar year for MMA where the pandemic hasn ot been used as an excuse to make the very best possible fights happen.

But let us turn to boxing, Joshua v Fury is still a pipe dream, Fury himself can't even get the third fight with Wilder rolling and we're now at the end of September. The biggest stars are either unwilling to fight, or unwilling to have meaningful fights. The first and possibly last meaningful fight in the sport will be Lomachenko v Lopez. A whole year wasted with top boxers and promoters using the pandemic as an excuse.

Either the sport learns now or it is forever lost apart from the odd big PPV clash.

[Get em up]

I agree wholeheartedly with this post. Boxing is slowly fading into a past tense conversation because of promoters not working together, fighters that have a sense of entitlement (whether they earned it or not) and fans that are willing to justify easy fights. The difference between the 2 sports is pay scale though. How many UFC stars are breaking the millions per fight mark in comparison to boxers? It's easier for Dana White to force the best vs the best because he controls all the money. I feel like boxers need to push the envelope and desire to be great instead of just settling for rich.

[Willie Pep 229]

I don't want this to turn into a flame war or some casual nonsense from idiots, but I'd like the few on here who are actual boxing fans, with genuine intellect to respond. This is why I am posting in the history section (although I have just seen some threads here for the first time in a while and oh boy, looks like we're infected).

Anyway, here is my piece:

The whole world in in the grip of a pandemic, regardless of one's opinions on this crisis, sporting service has been terribly affected. Football is just returning to normal, cricket has "bio-secure bubbles" and other team sports around the world are finding ways around it and yet, MMA's flagship brand, the UFC just hasn't seemed to stop. From May of this year, they have held events, everywhere from Florida to the UAE by way of Las Vegas. Health concerns aside, this is impressive enough but the fact that they have built on a bumper 3 year stretch of excellent matches and new stars, in a time like this, is to be admired.

Their first fight in these dark times? Tony Ferguson v Justin Gaethje, 2 of the 3 best lightweights on the planet. That was a huge fight to come back with and it meant something to the division (the idea of meaning will be raised again). Since then, we have had both Nagannou and Overeem stake a claim in the heavyweight division again, Poirier got back into the flow at lightweight, Miocic and Cormier capped off their trilogy....and this is all just a bit of what UFC have done so far. Heck, they just put on Adesanya v Costa, a blockbuster rivalry and another fight which means something.

The biggest card is still up UFC's sleeve, Khabib Nurmegameddov, the biggest star in the MMA business today will be facing off against the number 1 contender in his division, no nonsense, no pay offs, no mandatories, just straight up, best v best. This is a stellar year for MMA where the pandemic hasn ot been used as an excuse to make the very best possible fights happen.

But let us turn to boxing, Joshua v Fury is still a pipe dream, Fury himself can't even get the third fight with Wilder rolling and we're now at the end of September. The biggest stars are either unwilling to fight, or unwilling to have meaningful fights. The first and possibly last meaningful fight in the sport will be Lomachenko v Lopez. A whole year wasted with top boxers and promoters using the pandemic as an excuse.

Either the sport learns now or it is forever lost apart from the odd big PPV clash.

First you tell us if anyone disagrees with you they must be an idiot. (I have it from a good source that I am merely a 'half-wit," will I do?) Then you advise us we better agree with you or remain silent.

You proceed to bore us to tears with an MMA news update we couldn't care less about . . .

and finally you a announce that the thing we love is garbage and dead . . . but you want us to be nice to you (or else we must be idiots.)

OK here comes what you didn't want to hear . . .

A grown man (especially not a fighter) should never lay on his back, wrap his legs around another man's waist like a ***** waiting to be fooked. It is so disconcerting to watch them do that.

Your sport, your participants have no skills, (that's why you have to called it the very ****** name "mixed" martial arts); it is filled with amateurs; they are poorly conditioned, Oh! and let me repeat they wrap their legs around each other like *****es waiting to be fooked.

Now please by all means reply telling us this is exactly the type of reply your superior self was hoping to avoid; it will be the first correct statement you pulled out of your ass all day.

You back stabbing, trader, condescending, self righteous. know-it-all, twit!

There will lways be the martial art of boxing, there will always be other men you punch each other in the back of the head, kick each other in the balls, and choke each other. That second group is your guys. Enjoy!

[billeau2]

I don't want this to turn into a flame war or some casual nonsense from idiots, but I'd like the few on here who are actual boxing fans, with genuine intellect to respond. This is why I am posting in the history section (although I have just seen some threads here for the first time in a while and oh boy, looks like we're infected).

Anyway, here is my piece:

The whole world in in the grip of a pandemic, regardless of one's opinions on this crisis, sporting service has been terribly affected. Football is just returning to normal, cricket has "bio-secure bubbles" and other team sports around the world are finding ways around it and yet, MMA's flagship brand, the UFC just hasn't seemed to stop. From May of this year, they have held events, everywhere from Florida to the UAE by way of Las Vegas. Health concerns aside, this is impressive enough but the fact that they have built on a bumper 3 year stretch of excellent matches and new stars, in a time like this, is to be admired.

Their first fight in these dark times? Tony Ferguson v Justin Gaethje, 2 of the 3 best lightweights on the planet. That was a huge fight to come back with and it meant something to the division (the idea of meaning will be raised again). Since then, we have had both Nagannou and Overeem stake a claim in the heavyweight division again, Poirier got back into the flow at lightweight, Miocic and Cormier capped off their trilogy....and this is all just a bit of what UFC have done so far. Heck, they just put on Adesanya v Costa, a blockbuster rivalry and another fight which means something.

The biggest card is still up UFC's sleeve, Khabib Nurmegameddov, the biggest star in the MMA business today will be facing off against the number 1 contender in his division, no nonsense, no pay offs, no mandatories, just straight up, best v best. This is a stellar year for MMA where the pandemic hasn ot been used as an excuse to make the very best possible fights happen.

But let us turn to boxing, Joshua v Fury is still a pipe dream, Fury himself can't even get the third fight with Wilder rolling and we're now at the end of September. The biggest stars are either unwilling to fight, or unwilling to have meaningful fights. The first and possibly last meaningful fight in the sport will be Lomachenko v Lopez. A whole year wasted with top boxers and promoters using the pandemic as an excuse.

Either the sport learns now or it is forever lost apart from the odd big PPV clash.

Let me give an analogy here regarding boxing: "China Town" is a movie about the water wars in Los Angeles. A bunch of different interests fighting over building a megapolis that at one time was projected to become the largest city in this nation...

The whole interplay of these "interests", the governments, local, federal, all struggling to control water... I will go one step further: Frank Herbert's "Dune" series (one of the best ever written in the Sci Fi genre Imo) gives us worlds shaped by the resources that are scarce...

In Boxing the resource, the prize has always been the fighter that can draw the dollars...Chasing this fighter, finding him (it has never yet been a her), has been a staple of Ameri-Continental folklore, since the 1920's when sports promoters saw the potential for a sports superstar to become a mega-dollar commodity. Ruth was a better pitcher... But people got excited at the home runs... Dempsey fought opponents, but not as "the heavyweight champ who can lick any guy out there," rather, as the guy who would fight the guy promoters thought was strong enough an opponent, and that people would pay to see.

Chasing the dollar.... like chasing water itself, has defined boxing. Promoters pushing the boundaries, regulation commissions trying to inch in... and all the while fighters being treated like cattle, sometimes expensive cattle, but cattle.

If you want to understand what some people call institutional racism... just look at sports. Football has a slave auction every year, it is called the draft. Basketball players earn the highest wage in America for any team sport, and the IRS has a system that makes sure the n-----s remain in their place, vis a vis, most basketball players wind up broke... look at how much they pay in taxes to know why... Please understand my own distaste for these systems...When I use the N word here

So what is it that makes MMA a little different? Ironickly it has to do with a few things. First, the sport as a whole is a bit more egalitarian, there are truly fewer superstars, and unlike boxing, there are not so many protections for the King of the Hill. Also, the athletes do not make as much, there is less money at the top to chase, and less diversified promotion efforts.

Is MMA a good model compared to boxing? I do think it has grown up a bit... It is no longer the new thing so to speak. MMA has a much stronger international presence. brazil has a history of combatives and promotions involving such that is older, and much more robust than America... Japan has a hungry fan base for combatives, and these are two factors, as examples, that make MMA a more international effort.

Because it is international, MMA has less of the stigma that boxing has regarding the sins of a nation... Dana White has attempted to make MMA UFC centric, but the fact remains that many professional fighters have eaten off of fighting in Japan, and in other areas, and do not need any one organisation to make a living.

In conclusion... Los Angeles is a uniquely American city... a place that had one of the best mass transit system in the world at one time(look it up, I lost a bet to a gay waiter at the marriot on this very point!) was dismantled so the car people could make freeways and sell you cars... A place where water resources are still stolen, where no sense of logic is used to determine use... California, with chronic water shortages is the number one grower of rice in the nation... a very water intensive crop.

And so it is with boxing: The fighters are exploited, in the hopes of being that one percent... promoters interests, the interests of the regulators to inch in, and just pure capitalistic impulses to sell a mega event, are all chased... I do not believe this will ever change. Until we get rid of lobbyists, lawyers and criminals at least!

MMA is a much more international sport, with roots in places that were more egalitarian, with more balanced power dynamics for the fighters... brazil has a history of catch Can wrestling, Lute Livre, Lankinshire wrestling, Jiu Jutsu, Karate, and occasional Vale Tudo (anything goes) matches... that were put on via carneys, with/without "works (choreographed)". Japan is as much a combatives vampire, as LA was a water vampire... with so many programs for fighters: shoot wrestling, kick boxing, exotic matches, boxing, etc.

Two different animals entirely. P.S. Should say that when I say boxing is Continental/American I mean the business end, not the talent pool. The way the sport functions economically, so to speak.

[QueensburyRules]

Let me give an analogy here regarding boxing: "China Town" is a movie about the water wars in Los Angeles. A bunch of different interests fighting over building a megapolis that at one time was projected to become the largest city in this nation...

The whole interplay of these "interests", the governments, local, federal, all struggling to control water... I will go one step further: Frank Herbert's "Dune" series (one of the best ever written in the Sci Fi genre Imo) gives us worlds shaped by the resources that are scarce...

In Boxing the resource, the prize has always been the fighter that can draw the dollars...Chasing this fighter, finding him (it has never yet been a her), has been a staple of Ameri-Continental folklore, since the 1920's when sports promoters saw the potential for a sports superstar to become a mega-dollar commodity. Ruth was a better pitcher... But people got excited at the home runs... Dempsey fought opponents, but not as "the heavyweight champ who can lick any guy out there," rather, as the guy who would fight the guy promoters thought was strong enough an opponent, and that people would pay to see.

Chasing the dollar.... like chasing water itself, has defined boxing. Promoters pushing the boundaries, regulation commissions trying to inch in... and all the while fighters being treated like cattle, sometimes expensive cattle, but cattle.

If you want to understand what some people call institutional racism... just look at sports. Football has a slave auction every year, it is called the draft. Basketball players earn the highest wage in America for any team sport, and the IRS has a system that makes sure the n-----s remain in their place, vis a vis, most basketball players wind up broke... look at how much they pay in taxes to know why... Please understand my own distaste for these systems...When I use the N word here

So what is it that makes MMA a little different? Ironickly it has to do with a few things. First, the sport as a whole is a bit more egalitarian, there are truly fewer superstars, and unlike boxing, there are not so many protections for the King of the Hill. Also, the athletes do not make as much, there is less money at the top to chase, and less diversified promotion efforts.

Is MMA a good model compared to boxing? I do think it has grown up a bit... It is no longer the new thing so to speak. MMA has a much stronger international presence. brazil has a history of combatives and promotions involving such that is older, and much more robust than America... Japan has a hungry fan base for combatives, and these are two factors, as examples, that make MMA a more international effort.

Because it is international, MMA has less of the stigma that boxing has regarding the sins of a nation... Dana White has attempted to make MMA UFC centric, but the fact remains that many professional fighters have eaten off of fighting in Japan, and in other areas, and do not need any one organisation to make a living.

In conclusion... Los Angeles is a uniquely American city... a place that had one of the best mass transit system in the world at one time(look it up, I lost a bet to a gay waiter at the marriot on this very point!) was dismantled so the car people could make freeways and sell you cars... A place where water resources are still stolen, where no sense of logic is used to determine use... California, with chronic water shortages is the number one grower of rice in the nation... a very water intensive crop.

And so it is with boxing: The fighters are exploited, in the hopes of being that one percent... promoters interests, the interests of the regulators to inch in, and just pure capitalistic impulses to sell a mega event, are all chased... I do not believe this will ever change. Until we get rid of lobbyists, lawyers and criminals at least!

MMA is a much more international sport, with roots in places that were more egalitarian, with more balanced power dynamics for the fighters... brazil has a history of catch Can wrestling, Lute Livre, Lankinshire wrestling, Jiu Jutsu, Karate, and occasional Vale Tudo (anything goes) matches... that were put on via carneys, with/without "works (choreographed)". Japan is as much a combatives vampire, as LA was a water vampire... with so many programs for fighters: shoot wrestling, kick boxing, exotic matches, boxing, etc.

Two different animals entirely. P.S. Should say that when I say boxing is Continental/American I mean the business end, not the talent pool. The way the sport functions economically, so to speak.

- -Comparing Multimillion$ basketball and by extension baseball and football players to ****** would be asinine if U weren't so mentally enfeebled as to generate genuine pity and concerned for U loved ones.

Albert Pujols a poor Dominican boy growing up with an option that has netted him near 1/3rd a billion bucks.

And all the rest, even boxing.

Get help!

[billeau2]

- -Comparing Multimillion$ basketball and by extension baseball and football players to ****** would be asinine if U weren't so mentally enfeebled as to generate genuine pity and concerned for U loved ones.

Albert Pujols a poor Dominican boy growing up with an option that has netted him near 1/3rd a billion bucks.

And all the rest, even boxing.

Get help!

Asinine is what you see in the mirror... And the reason for the comparison went over your pin of a head... Its not about the money it is about the power... Making a lot of money is not wealth if you cannot hang on to it, cannot make the next generation set up with it... Your a simpleton I don't expect you to even attempt to look at a complex issue seriously.

Read the stats on how many pro athletes are broke... and using one example, is another strategic move of a simpleton.

Anyway, your an a s s... and back on ignore where you belong.

When you learn to argue a point with points instead of insults...when you can string together a sentence, or two, maybe we can try again you half witted, demented, alcohol addled idiot.

[The Old LefHook]

These posts could make a man renounce reading altogether.

[CombatCan]

In MMA there is a clear leader, and therefore the UFC manages to sign most of the elite fighters. The UFC has done a great job, but boxing can't really emulate that unless they have real dominant promoter. I mean like PBC, Top Rank, Eddie Hearn, and Goldenboy combined huge.

Boxing has major problems in it's culture too. Fighters like Floyd Mayweather have been bad for boxing overall. Why is it so important to protect their undefeated records? I am sick of elite fighters facing tomato cans time and time again. Promoters and Managers in this sport have massive ego problems, and don't work together enough.

With a clear and dominant number one promotion in the sport; boxing would be better off. Can't see that ever happening though. Even the fans in the sport talk as much about the promoters as they do about the fights.

[Marchegiano]

I blame the promoters. They suck at their jobs.

Regardless of the pandemic, I can't tell you the last time I caught a boxing advertisement by mistake. Like walking through the living room while the old lady watches shameless or some such. Nothing on the radio either.

Only time I see boxing advertisements is when I've kind of gone out of my way for them, like here.

Nextly, the classic beat an old name to make your name has always had obvious flaws. It's self serving. No one gives a **** if a young QB never plays against an older and more well known LB as long as he wins super bowls.

Honestly, our whole industry sucks. You have the talent, who is greedy as hell. Then you have trainers whose influence is usually unnoticeable. Promoters who can only make good looking, flamboyant, charismatic types look good, and television networks who demand exclusivity but can't get the eyes that should go with.

[QueensburyRules]

Asinine is what you see in the mirror... And the reason for the comparison went over your pin of a head... Its not about the money it is about the power... Making a lot of money is not wealth if you cannot hang on to it, cannot make the next generation set up with it... Your a simpleton I don't expect you to even attempt to look at a complex issue seriously.

Read the stats on how many pro athletes are broke... and using one example, is another strategic move of a simpleton.

Anyway, your an a s s... and back on ignore where you belong.

When you learn to argue a point with points instead of insults...when you can string together a sentence, or two, maybe we can try again you half witted, demented, alcohol addled idiot.

Not pro sports responsibility to protect the players from leeches that make their living off them. My bro made a lot more than me to spend every bit on the his fun lifestyle. It wasn't slavery.

Seriously, U too toopid to knowingly be racist, but a conniver like DKing lives a sumptuous life by the bilking of young men.

I apologize in that I tend to be tough on people who should know better, but clearly U can't know better by being limited slave masters from beyond their graves and all that.