Boxing and MMA

[nakeddrunkpunch]

Even though ufc is tough competition for boxing as far as ppv numbers and popularity goes, I think it puts pressure on boxing promoters to make more interesting match ups that people want to see instead of fighters with padded records fighting tomatoe cans just to maintain a respectable record. What do you guys/gals think?

[jamiebhoy]

I tend to agree that boxers are more interested in keeping their records padded out and maintaining the 0 . MMA guys don't put the same emphasis on it and there are a lot of good grudge match type scenarios which are good to promote.

The problem wih boxing is the alphabet soup where promotors can't and won't agree to fight each others fighters and the different organisations have people ranked differently with too much riding on a loss.

Sadly the current scene of catch weights semms to be prvoing the way forward for giving the publice some of the exciting fightes they need, but at what expense, it will only be a matter of time before someone is badly hurt doing this.

More needs to be done to get boxing back to the mainstream and start showing it on terestrial television again, even at lower level to generate interest.

With the news that the UFC have completed a TV deal in the UK the pressure will be on the promotors to get their act together.

No one wants to lose their 0 record though, second place is first loser!

[nakeddrunkpunch]

I tend to agree that boxers are more interested in keeping their records padded out and maintaining the 0 . MMA guys don't put the same emphasis on it and there are a lot of good grudge match type scenarios which are good to promote.

The problem wih boxing is the alphabet soup where promotors can't and won't agree to fight each others fighters and the different organisations have people ranked differently with too much riding on a loss.

Sadly the current scene of catch weights semms to be prvoing the way forward for giving the publice some of the exciting fightes they need, but at what expense, it will only be a matter of time before someone is badly hurt doing this.

More needs to be done to get boxing back to the mainstream and start showing it on terestrial television again, even at lower level to generate interest.

With the news that the UFC have completed a TV deal in the UK the pressure will be on the promotors to get their act together.

No one wants to lose their 0 record though, second place is first loser!

Valid points and well articulated. You're right promoters do need to get their act together. Boxing is dying but not dead yet. There could be more done to bring it back into the mainstream like airing fights for free on tv and showing fight footage on sports networks instead of press conferences. I remember greg leon from boxingtalk bitching about that.

[jamiebhoy]

Another point worth mentioning which was covered very recently here is that it's difficult to get agreement on the rights to fights in terms of releasing DVD's etc, I presume the same would be said for showing older fights on TV.
As I see it from a personal view, what's the loss in releasing say a box set of fights from each major promotor each year, even if it doesn't pull in a lot of $$ something is better than nothing.

Yet another contentious area where managers and fighters probably price themselves out of making these deal viable.

[superboxer]

I think boxing should go back to the early to mid 20th century in terms of gloves, like the flyweights and such should use 4oz gloves.

[Youngblood]

I think boxing should go back to the early to mid 20th century in terms of gloves, like the flyweights and such should use 4oz gloves.

ahhh, no.

[JazMerkin]

I think boxing should go back to the early to mid 20th century in terms of gloves, like the flyweights and such should use 4oz gloves.

I don't think you go far enough. Perhaps instead of gloves fighters should wear solid steel knuckledusters. Meanwhile gumshields should be outlawed from the sport. The loser gets fed to the lions at the end if the crowd sees fit

[Nameless]

I think boxing should go back to the early to mid 20th century in terms of gloves, like the flyweights and such should use 4oz gloves.

I don't think you go far enough. Perhaps instead of gloves fighters should wear solid steel knuckledusters. Meanwhile gumshields should be outlawed from the sport. The loser gets fed to the lions at the end if the crowd sees fit

Maybe not the knuckledusters, they would fall instantly, we want more durable fights with excitement and blood. You want to make it better? I would go VinceMacmahon style: I say 15 rounds matches with 4 oz gloves with abrasive leather to scratch easily the skin, aluminium foil underneath, no possibilities to stop the fight because of a bad cut, use of vaseline or adrenalin would be forbidden, no gumshields allowed and each fighters would come to the ring with nothing less than fireworks and special effects. Oh, also, there would be 2 voluntary head butts allowed per fighter per fight.

[superboxer]

Lighter gloves do not cause deaths or injuries. They changed it from 6oz for below featherweight to 8oz in 1991 as a knee-jerk response to a head injury and coma 'Akeem Anifowoshe' got. I remember seeing Cho Hi vs Daichi Sakoda(200, they were landing full force at some times and neither went down. Cho Hi died from the fight. Changing the gloves to 8oz didn't save anyone. You could even say if the gloves were smaller, one of them might have been knocked out earlier and Cho Hi would not have taken all the punishment that killed him.

You could also say that that is only speculation, but so is the theory that smaller gloves are dangerous. It's all speculation. So instead of basing the glove size on complete guesswork about which one is safe or not, base it on entertainment. Smaller gloves = faster, harder punching = more entertaining.

I also watched video of "Masaki Sawanaga" dying in the ring. Again they were using 8oz gloves. Again it didn't save him.

[JazMerkin]

Lighter gloves do not cause deaths or injuries. They changed it from 6oz for below featherweight to 8oz in 1991 as a knee-jerk response to a head injury and coma 'Akeem Anifowoshe' got. I remember seeing Cho Hi vs Daichi Sakoda(200, they were landing full force at some times and neither went down. Cho Hi died from the fight. Changing the gloves to 8oz didn't save anyone. You could even say if the gloves were smaller, one of them might have been knocked out earlier and Cho Hi would not have taken all the punishment that killed him.

You could also say that that is only speculation, but so is the theory that smaller gloves are dangerous. It's all speculation. So instead of basing the glove size on complete guesswork about which one is safe or not, base it on entertainment. Smaller gloves = faster, harder punching = more entertaining.

I also watched video of "Masaki Sawanaga" dying in the ring. Again they were using 8oz gloves. Again it didn't save him.

You lost any credibility you might ever have had on this forum with those two sentences right there.

[superboxer]

Lighter gloves do not cause deaths or injuries. They changed it from 6oz for below featherweight to 8oz in 1991 as a knee-jerk response to a head injury and coma 'Akeem Anifowoshe' got. I remember seeing Cho Hi vs Daichi Sakoda(200, they were landing full force at some times and neither went down. Cho Hi died from the fight. Changing the gloves to 8oz didn't save anyone. You could even say if the gloves were smaller, one of them might have been knocked out earlier and Cho Hi would not have taken all the punishment that killed him.

You could also say that that is only speculation, but so is the theory that smaller gloves are dangerous. It's all speculation. So instead of basing the glove size on complete guesswork about which one is safe or not, base it on entertainment. Smaller gloves = faster, harder punching = more entertaining.

I also watched video of "Masaki Sawanaga" dying in the ring. Again they were using 8oz gloves. Again it didn't save him.

You lost any credibility you might ever have had on this forum with those two sentences right there.

Why? Explain.

[JazMerkin]

Lighter gloves do not cause deaths or injuries. They changed it from 6oz for below featherweight to 8oz in 1991 as a knee-jerk response to a head injury and coma 'Akeem Anifowoshe' got. I remember seeing Cho Hi vs Daichi Sakoda(200, they were landing full force at some times and neither went down. Cho Hi died from the fight. Changing the gloves to 8oz didn't save anyone. You could even say if the gloves were smaller, one of them might have been knocked out earlier and Cho Hi would not have taken all the punishment that killed him.

You could also say that that is only speculation, but so is the theory that smaller gloves are dangerous. It's all speculation. So instead of basing the glove size on complete guesswork about which one is safe or not, base it on entertainment. Smaller gloves = faster, harder punching = more entertaining.

I also watched video of "Masaki Sawanaga" dying in the ring. Again they were using 8oz gloves. Again it didn't save him.

You lost any credibility you might ever have had on this forum with those two sentences right there.

Why? Explain.

You're basing the glove size on entertainment. Have you ever been in a ring? Being hit by a 14oz glove is vastly less painful than being hit by a 10oz glove worn by the same fighter. Yes, people still die with 8oz, but a hell of a lot more fighters were dying in the ring in the early part of the 20th century. But obviously you want to return to that for 'entertainment'

[superboxer]

You lost any credibility you might ever have had on this forum with those two sentences right there.

Why? Explain.

You're basing the glove size on entertainment. Have you ever been in a ring? Being hit by a 14oz glove is vastly less painful than being hit by a 10oz glove worn by the same fighter. Yes, people still die with 8oz, but a hell of a lot more fighters were dying in the ring in the early part of the 20th century. But obviously you want to return to that for 'entertainment'

Nothing you said there is new to me. Yes I have been in the ring, I have sparred using the tiring, burdening 16oz sparring gloves and fought using much better 10oz gloves. The 10oz gloves were a lot easier to fight with, but 6oz would be much better and 4oz better still. Did I receive more damage from an individual shot from a 10oz than a 16oz? Of course. It's boxing, and damage is an integral part of the game. Otherwise why not wear those helmets American football players use?

Pain itself does not cause head injury and death, repeat damage to the brain does. I already made the point about some of the deaths and how hypothetically if the fights had been finished earlier with more powerful punches the deaths might not have occurred, but due to the reduced impact, the fighters received a lot more blows and the overall punishment was greater than if that had happened.

Which fighter has received more punishment? The fighter knocked out with a punch that is 10 on the power scale, or a fighter TKO'd with 20 shots over the course of his demise that rate 5.

10 x 1 = 10
5 x 20 = 100

Yes you could come up with your own speculation but it's pretty pointless. There was no solid reason to change the glove size so much, and it reduced entertainment.

Yes, people still die with 8oz, but a hell of a lot more fighters were dying in the ring in the early part of the 20th century. But obviously you want to return to that for 'entertainment'

As for a lot more people dying, that could be due to a lot of factors. Better refereeing / quicker stoppages, less rounds, better doctor presence etc. Correlation does not automatically mean causation. They used to have blank canvases rather than advertisements on them. I guess all the deaths in boxing have been due to that then, since the deaths are lower now than they were when the canvases. The fighters had different hairstyles, maybe that caused it...

[Youngblood]

Dude you're off your tree. We are building fighters bodies, stronger, faster, more explosive every day. If you can't see how it would be a bad idea to all of a sudden throw on 4 oz gloves and have at it, then there is really no point in speaking with you on the issue.

Boxing isn't MMA, with a combination of various techniques and less rounds and time spent. We try to hurt the other opponent, largely by causing them brain damage by consistantly attacking their head. And succeeding fairly well without the help of less protection.

[superboxer]

Dude you're off your tree. We are building fighters bodies, stronger, faster, more explosive every day. If you can't see how it would be a bad idea to all of a sudden throw on 4 oz gloves and have at it, then there is really no point in speaking with you on the issue.

I can see how it would be a bad idea and I look at it from how it would be a good idea too and compare the advantages and disadvantages. The safety issue is more hypothetical than anything, but I think we can all agree that a more sensible(i.e. lighter) glove for the lower weights would stop the slowing and watering down of punches and add more entertainment and excitement to the fights.

Boxing isn't MMA, with a combination of various techniques and less rounds and time spent. We try to hurt the other opponent, largely by causing them brain damage by consistantly attacking their head. And succeeding fairly well without the help of less protection.

Not well enough in the lower weights in my opinion. The lower weights are handicapped by the glove size and it is evident in the fights. There are exceptions, like Roman Gonzalez(who would be more of a monster without the handicap) but for the most part the fights are lacking in damage, impact and entertainment. I remember Ruben Olivares remarked in one of his fights(I cannot remember which one) that if they had been using 6oz instead of 8oz he would have lost, and sure enough I watched the fight and after only a round or two it was like they were both punching underwater with their slow weighed down punches. Jimmy Wilde complained about 8oz gloves as opposed to the usual 4oz too when he was in America.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hqlATnKsfE