Why is MMA a threat to boxing?

[generalbulldog]

I think someone in here said it best. It was mentioned that MMA hasn't overtaken boxing in the UK, but it is very popular amongst a young demographic. And I agree it's just a matter of time before MMA overtakes boxing in that country just like the US.

Boxing not being on network tv severely limits it's exposure, yes we have the internet, but you also must have it on network tv to reach a massive audience and interest potential fans, especially the young which will become your hardcore fanbase in the future.

In simple terms, boxing fucked up by going to HBO and Showtime primarily in the US, and now someone in this thread said it's not on network tv in the UK. Which really why boxing has fallen off the mainstream.

[CFH]

I think someone in here said it best. It was mentioned that MMA hasn't overtaken boxing in the UK, but it is very popular amongst a young demographic. And I agree it's just a matter of time before MMA overtakes boxing in that country just like the US.

Boxing not being on network tv severely limits it's exposure, yes we have the internet, but you also must have it on network tv to reach a massive audience and interest potential fans, especially the young which will become your hardcore fanbase in the future.

In simple terms, boxing fucked up by going to HBO and Showtime primarily in the US, and now someone in this thread said it's not on network tv in the UK. Which really why boxing has fallen off the mainstream.

Agreed. Promoters are fucking themselves and the sport by taking short-sighted and exclusionary approaches to distribution for quick financial gains.

[Mar]

Mma is no threat to boxing at all. No more than the ping pong people are worried about tennis. This whole mma vs boxing thing is simply retarded and a bunch of crap dana white and mma fans started to stir up buisness for themselves. Than being said ....boxings problem is that no matter what they do, how bad they screw us, how dumb they make us look as fans they rely on the true fans sticking with them no matter what. And sadley they are absolutly right. Mma is making an effort to gain new fans on top of the ones they already have while boxing says screw the fans yall ain't goin no where anyway. Look at all the catchweights, stupid belts, margo cheat supporters etc.....boxing can do no wrong and people will always dump thier money into thier pockets. In mma i doubt you would even see such garbage as jones/hopkins, chavez jr on ppv, margo/pac, haye/harrison etc.....and if you did it would be on free spike tv if anything. I don't see the dislike between the two sports really. I don't like mma but i definatly can see why those that do, do. (mma do do ? lol) ok bad joke. But do baseball fans constantly downgrade softball ? Football fans soccer ? Breakdancers talk shit about ballet ? So on and so forth.

[Kev]

]Mma is no threat to boxing at all. No more than the ping pong people are worried about tennis.[/B] This whole mma vs boxing thing is simply retarded and a bunch of crap dana white and mma fans started to stir up buisness for themselves. Than being said ....boxings problem is that no matter what they do, how bad they screw us, how dumb they make us look as fans they rely on the true fans sticking with them no matter what. And sadley they are absolutly right. Mma is making an effort to gain new fans on top of the ones they already have while boxing says screw the fans yall ain't goin no where anyway. Look at all the catchweights, stupid belts, margo cheat supporters etc.....boxing can do no wrong and people will always dump thier money into thier pockets. In mma i doubt you would even see such garbage as jones/hopkins, chavez jr on ppv, margo/pac, haye/harrison etc.....and if you did it would be on free spike tv if anything. I don't see the dislike between the two sports really. I don't like mma but i definatly can see why those that do, do. (mma do do ? lol) ok bad joke. But do baseball fans constantly downgrade softball ? Football fans soccer ? Breakdancers talk shit about ballet ? So on and so forth.

I think this is completely wrong. Boxing IS at risk of losing something significant to MMA and that is the bragging rights of its fighters. If you ask the average American who is the baddest man on the planet, I would suggest more might now mention Brock Lesnar's name than either of the Klitschko's, that is a HUGE momentum shift in a few years when you consider boxing has always enjoyed the status of its best fighters being regarded as the baddest man.


That is simply no longer the case. Whether it is true or not, it is far easier for people to see guys like Anderson Silva, Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin etc as unstoppable monsters as it is guys like Wlad, Vitali or even Floyd Mayweather imo.

Virtually everyone is now in agreement that in a real fight with no rules, a top MMA simply has more skills and too much against a top boxer. That is a HUGE factor working in their advantage in the long term.

It's still a developing sport but the potential for MMA is much greater. More varied action, a wider skill set, a more effective and well rounded fighting style. It really is analagous to chess vs draughts, pool vs snooker, Nascar vs Formula 1, where MMA is the most advanced of the two.


I'm not suggesting they are right now at that stage, but the potential is far greater. There is simply so much more going on in MMA. Nowadays a young kid wanting to learn to fight is probably as likely to want to learn mixed martial arts as they are boxing. In the future it could well overtake boxing. Why would you just want to use your fists and be a great boxer, when you could throw people, slam them, choke them out, break their arms and legs etc?

Kids will flock to this sport over the next 10-20 years and by around 2020 the best fighters will be mixed martial artists imo.

It's a huge threat to boxing in the longterm, even now the UFC has more stars than boxing, and that is alarming.

Chuck Liddel, Randy Coutoure, Rampage Jackson, Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva, maybe even Forest Griffin are simply bigger household names than all but a handful of boxers.

Take away Floyd and Manny and who is bigger in boxing than Rampage Jackson and Brock?


Thats in just 10 years!

The big names in boxing are all gone, or are in their 40's, Jones Jr, Hopkins etc.

It's hard to see where the next boxing superstar is coming from, I certainly see nobody on the horizon.

[luvfightgame]

To echo a few other posters.

1. Organization- MMA is more like a league with organization than boxing. The separate promoters and separate belts are ridiculous.

2. Skill set- if you have ever trained in boxing and mma you would clearly know you have a lot more to worry about learning in mma. Just try playing the video games of each. You have all the same ability to punch in mma as boxing, but then you still have to go to the ground, and kicks. No question which is more difficult.

3. Over promise under deliver- PBF is the king of shit talking without even trying to deliver what he says. He hypes by lying. ODH and PBF the whole time he was saying he was gonna ko ODH and he never took a risk or had it anywhere in his game plan. He flat out lied to get you to buy, when he clearly intended to box not brawl.

4. Advertising money- who is a regular boxing sponsor? Beer companies. The rest of the companies pretty much capatilize on a big event but nothing regular. UFC is a different story. They have lots of regulars and have even created their own industry of products related.

5. Younger generation- i'm a fan of both. When my daughters friends come around they don't even know who boxers are, but are familiar with UFC fighters.

As far as class. Are you serious? Boxing is classy? Sorry, im a fan but that's ridiculous. The promoter that made a million dollars from a hug fest is wearing a suit and that makes it classy? The announcing team for HBO wears suits so their classy? They have classy people that know nothing about their sport announcing so that rubs off on a sport where most of the high profile stars are known for being arrested?

Sorry that's a dumb argument.

[El Kabong]

As a boxing fan I will say I am very envious of the job Dana White has done marketing the UFC....granted he's scraped the bottom of the barrell with a couple of their sponsors, but he's pulled UFC out from the obscure into the mainstream and as far as "mainstream" goes it's hurting boxing just by making boxing look exclusive rather than inclusive.

Boxing left: NBC, USA, and hell these days the only place you can find it without ordering movie channels is ESPN.

Boxing is going to get humbled, but eventually someone will bring it back around for the masses, whether it's the Pac-Mayweather Mega Fight or a special exciting fighter, or what have you, the deal is boxing isn't going anywhere because of UFC/MMA it just looks bad in comparison. Right now I think boxing is just for more sophisticated fight fans (this is due partly to the UFC's broad marketing bringing in people who know fuck all about any fighting)

[luvfightgame]

As a boxing fan I will say I am very envious of the job Dana White has done marketing the UFC....granted he's scraped the bottom of the barrell with a couple of their sponsors, but he's pulled UFC out from the obscure into the mainstream and as far as "mainstream" goes it's hurting boxing just by making boxing look exclusive rather than inclusive.

Boxing left: NBC, USA, and hell these days the only place you can find it without ordering movie channels is ESPN.

Boxing is going to get humbled, but eventually someone will bring it back around for the masses, whether it's the Pac-Mayweather Mega Fight or a special exciting fighter, or what have you, the deal is boxing isn't going anywhere because of UFC/MMA it just looks bad in comparison. Right now I think boxing is just for more sophisticated fight fans (this is due partly to the UFC's broad marketing bringing in people who know fuck all about any fighting)

I agree boxing isn't going anywhere. And I mean that both ways. It's not going away and it's not getting bigger. Mega fights will come and go and boxing has a wider audience for that, but a mega fight brings casual fans that don't stick around. There are hardcore boxing fans which most of us on here are, and there's casual mega fight fans. You have to go out of your way to try to find boxing to watch, even with all the premium cable channels its on once or twice a month and the excitement level in the broadcasting for lower level fights is akin to watching golf.

It's not about whether mma is cause boxing to go extinct. Never happen. But mma is going to be more popular than boxing in the near future and just because of their organization they can keep what they develop. Boxing would have to completely be restructured to approach any sense of being mainstream. And that will not happen.

[Drago]

Mma is no threat to boxing at all. No more than the ping pong people are worried about tennis. This whole mma vs boxing thing is simply retarded and a bunch of crap dana white and mma fans started to stir up buisness for themselves. Than being said ....boxings problem is that no matter what they do, how bad they screw us, how dumb they make us look as fans they rely on the true fans sticking with them no matter what. And sadley they are absolutly right. Mma is making an effort to gain new fans on top of the ones they already have while boxing says screw the fans yall ain't goin no where anyway. Look at all the catchweights, stupid belts, margo cheat supporters etc.....boxing can do no wrong and people will always dump thier money into thier pockets. In mma i doubt you would even see such garbage as jones/hopkins, chavez jr on ppv, margo/pac, haye/harrison etc.....and if you did it would be on free spike tv if anything. I don't see the dislike between the two sports really. I don't like mma but i definatly can see why those that do, do. (mma do do ? lol) ok bad joke. But do baseball fans constantly downgrade softball ? Football fans soccer ? Breakdancers talk shit about ballet ? So on and so forth.

if mma is no threat then why are boxing fans on this thread already saying they prefer it

[Drago]

if mma is for the younger audience than it stands to reason that boxing will lose out, as i have already stated its easier for a boxing fan to turn to mma than vice versa.

check this out for value for money!

just watched UFC 92

rampage jackson vs wandelirli silva
frank mir vs antonio rodrigo nogueira
Rashad evans vs forrest griffin

i mean what would that card be equivilant to in boxing terms?

[El Kabong]

....you can go back in history and find great boxing cards, hell Manny Pacquiao fought on the Lewis-Tyson undercard.

MMA will have big success early and begin to fade a bit, it won't go away but it's peaked right now IMO and it's going to have to use more gimmicks, expand their stable of fighters, pay their fighters more money....eventually the economy of the sport will end up hurting the product given to the fans....more will be at stake for the fighters, they may be less likely to engage, they'll have more fights in Texas (which means shitty decisions and poorly run shows) and the product is not always going to be perfect.

Boxing can still rely on 1 big match to sell a card right now....maybe the economy of our sport gets gut checked to where we're able to put some big time cards together and maybe Don King dies or retires or something and better matches start getting made.

Boxing won't go away...it's hibernating right now in the divisions north of 168 but it'll come back with a vengence.

[generalbulldog]

GBP is the new King and Arum combined. There will always be a new King or Arum on the horizon.

What boxing needs to do is go back to network tv to reach a massive audience, for this massive audience will have young kids wanting to participate in the sport or new fans that are drawn to the sport. As I've said before, HBO and Showtime killed boxing as a mainstream sport in America.

[Drago]

....you can go back in history and find great boxing cards, hell Manny Pacquiao fought on the Lewis-Tyson undercard.

MMA will have big success early and begin to fade a bit, it won't go away but it's peaked right now IMO and it's going to have to use more gimmicks, expand their stable of fighters, pay their fighters more money....eventually the economy of the sport will end up hurting the product given to the fans....more will be at stake for the fighters, they may be less likely to engage, they'll have more fights in Texas (which means shitty decisions and poorly run shows) and the product is not always going to be perfect.

Boxing can still rely on 1 big match to sell a card right now....maybe the economy of our sport gets gut checked to where we're able to put some big time cards together and maybe Don King dies or retires or something and better matches start getting made.

Boxing won't go away...it's hibernating right now in the divisions north of 168 but it'll come back with a vengence.

i hope your right man cos i am pretty low on boxing @ the moment, man not one of my friends knows anything abt boxing & if i am @ the pub fkin know one knows abt boxing, if it was on uk free tv it could be big once again!

[rjj tszyu]

....you can go back in history and find great boxing cards, hell Manny Pacquiao fought on the Lewis-Tyson undercard.

MMA will have big success early and begin to fade a bit, it won't go away but it's peaked right now IMO and it's going to have to use more gimmicks, expand their stable of fighters, pay their fighters more money....eventually the economy of the sport will end up hurting the product given to the fans....more will be at stake for the fighters, they may be less likely to engage, they'll have more fights in Texas (which means shitty decisions and poorly run shows) and the product is not always going to be perfect.

Boxing can still rely on 1 big match to sell a card right now....maybe the economy of our sport gets gut checked to where we're able to put some big time cards together and maybe Don King dies or retires or something and better matches start getting made.

Boxing won't go away...it's hibernating right now in the divisions north of 168 but it'll come back with a vengence.

I totally agree with you here Lyle. If all of a sudden you Americans had a young 20 year old IN SHAPE HW who had a record of something like 15-0 (15 KO's), was exciting to watch and was well handled and promoted (something like Tyson in the early days) then boxing would fly up the popularity ladder. And then if you add an inevitable Mayweather-Pacquiao fight It would totally sky rocket again. To me these two things are only are matter of time off coming around. Boxing has had numerous quiet patches before but has always recovered. How will MMA react when they have a quiet patch??

At the end of the day if I was a young athletic kid and I had the choice of chasing either MMA and earning $250,000 a fight or Boxing and having the potential of earning $40,000,000 a fight. I know which way I would go.

[Beanflicker]

In simple terms, boxing fucked up by going to HBO and Showtime primarily in the US, and now someone in this thread said it's not on network tv in the UK. Which really why boxing has fallen off the mainstream.

Great poitn and agreed 100%.

People don't know who today's boxers are outside of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio. Its much easier to talk about MMA with people than it is to talk about boxing, because just about every male, whether they follow the sport religiously or have only seen a show or two, have fighters they like, dislike, ect. They have a certain emotional attachment to the different fighters.

And its not like MMA has better personalities. You have your standard "working class hero's", your flashy trash-talkers, your humble nice guys, your villains, ect, that you have in boxing. Just no exposure on the boxing side. If people have some level of emotional attachment to the characters in boxing, I believe the sport would be doing a lot better.

I'm sure everyone here can attest to the fact that your average male would have trouble naming a Heavyweight champion, or a boxing champion besides Floyd Mayweather.

Everyone has heard of Georges St. Pierre, Brock Lesnar and Anderson Silva.