I Love Boxing But....

[GAME]

I agree this UFC is better value than recent boxing events . Oscar - Pac was a predictable farce and the undercard sucked. UFC could have made a couple of ppvs from these matches but theyve given the real xmas treat . I cant wait !

[the_PRODIGY]

This is mixed martial arts. I loved boxing. but it's just another discipline. Does a boxer beats an MMA fighter. If it's a standup without kicking fight..Yes. But do I think boxers are the better athletes. Hell no. ain't even close. It's safe to say they're the better conditioned athletes. on the PPV thing..yes the UFC is an organization that could make fights happen if they wanted to. they have fighters, with one promoter..Dana White. you shouldn't compare it to boxing. Boxing is a science. It should be compared to MMA. The UFC should be compared to Top Rank, or GBP. Now if that's what you're pointing out. I say it's because boxing promoters won't take the risks of damaging their prized fighters just to entertain fans often. If you're aware of the physical risks and danger in boxing you know what I'm talkin about. These guys takes a tremendous amount of punisment from 2 months of training to the 12rounds of actual fight. If they would face great competition from the get go they would have been 'shot' to early. So that's why these promoters see to it that they get the fight schedules in favor of them. The big names don't fight in the same card. Coz unlike in the UFC, you can't tap out in boxing. You have to finished not 3 or 5 but 12 rounds of hell even if you want to be respected. Quitting on a fight is almost admitting you have quitted fighting for the rest of your life. It's always a do or die,a make or break situation in boxing. Most of the times there ain't no second chance. Being in the main event is a 'sign of respect and recognition' for the hardwork an accomplished boxer has put in. That's why almost all of the time you can't put them on the same card.

[Lance Uppercut]

By Bill Dettlof of The Ring:

This dovetails nicely with the sense, held among many, that the sport is in real danger because its lone huge star, Oscar De La Hoya, is 35 years old and at the brink of retirement following his humbling loss to Manny Pacquiao.

Before we get to that, it’s worth noting the immense hypocrisy inherent in Calzaghe’s observation that there are “too many belts and too many champions, which dilutes real champions like myself.”

This is like Rod Blagojevich complaining that American politics is too corrupt. For 10 years, Calzaghe paraded around as the WBO “champion,” helping to publicize what had been at the beginning a mostly European, mostly unknown and entirely laughable sanctioning body.

He had help, though. A lazy American fight press and Calzaghe’s legions of European fans kept calling him a champion, and here we are, with four “champions” per division, which Calzaghe now, suddenly, thinks is too many.

At any rate, this sense of doom at the passing of a star is as old as the sport itself, as is the worry that boxing is on the brink of extinction. But don’t take my word for it. Take a cue from the ghosts of boxing past, who were gone long before De La Hoya had to “save” boxing again and again.

Writing in the April 1930 (!) issue of The Ring after the Max Schmeling-Jack Sharkey heavyweight title fight, Nat Fleischer said, “This is a drastic cure, but something will have to be done to save boxing. The public is tired.”

Twenty years later, Jersey Jones wrote in the February 1950 issue of The Ring: “As the Twentieth Century, Anno Domini, moves into its halfway mark, the American chapter of the fistic fraternity finds itself confronted by one of the most crucial periods it has known since the knuckle dusting trade became big business. Boxing is in a mighty precarious state of artistic and financial health at the moment.”

Almost 30 years on, Nat Loubet got it right when, commenting on Muhammad Ali’s retirement, he wrote in the April 1979 issue, “Boxing will survive, Ali or no Ali. A knight on a horse will gallop onto the stage, a new young face to capture the imagination of boxing buffs – and the heavyweight handicaps will be off and running again.”

After Dempsey left, there was Louis. After Louis there came Marciano. After Marciano there was Ali and after Ali, Ray Leonard. After Leonard came Tyson, and after Tyson there was De La Hoya.

So don’t pull the sheet over this old game yet. As Gene Tunney told Ring writer Al Buck in April 1950, “There is nothing the matter with boxing that another Jack Dempsey couldn’t cure.”