Bilbo I don't got much time right here, but it doesn't have to be Boxing versus MMA and I'll explain a bit here. It's going to sound absurd in hindsight when you think of wrestling in it's current state, but it's true.

Around the TV sporting revolution, the first two sports shown on TV were boxing and wrestling, as in WWF back when it wasn't known that it was fake and was treated as a sport, don't believe me check out the old issues of Sports Illustrated or the old writings of Bert Sugar.

Wrestling underwent a HUGE surge when it got off radio, and there was never talk of wrestling versus boxing even though both were combat sports. Even as late as the days of Andre the Giant, boxing and wrestling coexisted at basically the top of the United States sports spectrum, and sports like professional basketball, football, even with the star power of Wilt, Russell and Unitas were just finding their way. The point is, for a period of a good 30 years and several generations, boxing and wrestling shared the top of the mountain. Talk to an old boxing fan, and he'll always want to tell you about wrestling to. My grandpa first did it, then as I started going to boxing events more and more, I heard about old wrestlers more and more.

Then, back to the beginning, I started reading a lot of Bert Sugar's stuff prior to what he did with the Ring and Boxing Monthly, and most of it was talking about wrestling. I read old San Francisco examiner articles a lot, and if you go back to the 50's, wrestling was right there. In fact, when the light of how heavy the mob's influence on boxing was in the 50's, many found refuge in wrestling.

Honestly, it's not something you would think about now, but the notion that boxing and MMA can not coexist isn't proven. If anything, it's been proven the opposite. I'll try to provide some links if you're interested later, maybe over PM?


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As for what happened today on Sportscenter.

I watched this, and honestly I was fairly excited for it because I am a fan of both sports, boxing more so then MMA but I certainly appreciate it's art, and it's good to see both of them headlining Sportscenter.

Then when I saw they had Joe Rogan, who makes his points very well going up "against" Lou Dibella, I cringed. I've seen Lou's views on MMA before, and I've seen Ross Greenburg's views. Two peas in a pod. Lou is about as ignorant as Lyle (I only say you Lyle because I know you won't take offense to that) to MMA. He is right that it is apples and oranges, but then to say MMA is like human cockfighting and a sideshow act is the very ignorance that makes the UFC seem to want to eliminate boxing in America because maybe it will rid views like that of Lou's and Lyle's.

I thought Rogan argued very well. But I did take exception to a couple of his points. One in particular.

Firstly, Joe said that boxing was a "limited" form of fighting. But boxing isn't fighting, boxing is boxing. No one has ever called boxing "fighting" or "punching" because, well it's boxing. It's not limited, it is what it is. Compared to MMA it is not a more complete form of combat, but I don't think anyone is saying it is. Basically, saying boxing is limited is the equivalent of saying that football is "limited" because they don't stab each other to get the ball. Or that baseball is "limited" because the ball is not live at all times. On that front, Joe was wrong.

In Joe's defense, he probably hears far worse things trying to sell MMA as a fraud every day, things like what Lou was saying. And I truly believe Rogan is calling boxing limited just as a response to Lou. He called boxing an aspect of MMA. Sorry Joe, but MMA has some boxing aspects, not the other way around. But like I said, that probably is due to the crap he has to hear every day.

Secondly, and this is more important really and blatantly wrong I do think. About the only thing Rogan was wrong about in that five minutes on Sportscenter. When talking about the starpower in boxing, Rogan said this.

"The stars boxing has today; Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather Jr., are the last of the stars boxing will ever have. All of those stars came before the resurgence of the UFC and boxing is now unable to create new ones"

Now this is just completely wrong. To start off, if he is going to say this, he is going to be speaking in the context of America. Because the UFC and MMA does not have anywhere near the influence globally that boxing does.

Miguel Cotto has a giant following in Puerto Rico. The whole damn country is behind him. They may not be to savvy on boxing, but they know who Miguel Cotto is. Acelino Freitas' wedding was one of the biggest events in Brazilian TV history.

Kassim Ouma, a marginal name in boxing, got greeted by nearly the whole damn country at the Ugandan airport on his last visit, they actually had to have a whole police force on hand at the airport and that wasn't enough as Ouma was still trounced with thousands of fans within breathing space.

I might be mistaken on this next one. But didn't either Joe Calzaghe or Ricky Hatton win British Sportsman of the Year recently in a country known worldwide for soccer fanaticism? Either could pack a soccer stadium there. Mikkell Kessler could pack a whole soccer stadium in Denmark. We had an Australian guy named Mick over for De La Hoya - Mayweather at a friend's house, he had no idea who Mayweather was. But he was a big Tony Mundine fan. And before Mundine it was Fenech. He didn't like Tszyu for some reason.

You see the point I am getting at. If those don't count for stars, then nothing does. There is an argument to be made that boxing is in competition with soccer as being the most globalized sport on the planet. I did not even mention Manny Pacquiao who is bigger then any MMA artist in MMA's backyard of Asia.

Boxing is far from dead. Though it's easy for us in America to think so, it's not. It's in a lull in America right now because boxing brass in America hasn't recovered from Hearns, Hagler and Leonard's retirement. MMA was flatlining in America, but the sport stayed afloat and thrived in Asia, then UFC came back and took America by storm. That was all in a course of 10 years. There is no reason to think boxing, the most resilient sport of all time, couldn't do the same thing. And even if it did, it would be far from dead because of how globalized it is.

Calm down boxing fans, boxing isn't going anywhere. If you want to start the search for America's next stars, well the Peterson brothers fight in 20 minutes. Who couldn't get behind two homeless adolescents finding a way out through boxing and making it big together? Who couldn't get behind that?

Boxing will make a comeback in America and I hope that when it does, it can enjoy a healthy relationship with MMA atop the combat sports for a long time to come. I wouldn't mind some mixed boxing/MMA cards just to see how that goes.