Quote Originally Posted by miles View Post
Quote Originally Posted by generalbulldog View Post
I think this whole MMA thing is growing worldwide is really exaggerated. Where is it growing? The North American continent specifically countries like America and Canada? How popular is it in Latin American countries besides Brazil? And is it really more popular than boxing in like say Western Europe? From what I gather from the posters here and places like Boxingscene it isn't.

Hell even in Japan the land where they love their combat sports and where Pride once existed it's not even the number 1 combat sport, it's still Sumo wrestling followed by boxing. Don't believe me? The Kameda-Naito WBC flyweight championship in '09 average a 43.1% rating in Japan and peaking at 52%. The most watched combat sporting event since 1963 in that country according to 1 poster in the comment section. Naito-Kameda fight does ridiculous TV ratings in Japan - Bad Left Hook

How about other Asian countries like Thailand or the Phillipines? Or how about China since a few of their boxers won gold at the '08 olympics and the Duvas are training some of their fighters to turn pro? It's kind of funny for a martial art organization like the UFC it doesn't attract the same zealous fans worldwide that it does in the US.

Again MMA is growing indeed but not worldwide like Dana and it's UFC fans are saying and only in a few select countries like the US and Canada for example. You can forget about MMA having a significant impact in Latin American countries like Mexico or Puerto Rico or Argentina and many Latin American countries since boxing is the main combat sport there, with the exception of probably Brazil.

BTW I would love to see the real numbers on their PPV buys since Dana really doesn't release them like HBO is mandated to do since HBO is a public company, for I think the UFC numbers are really fudge up like the so called 1.5 million buys here or the 2.0 million buys there.
They used to show PPV boxing regularly for free out here, but that has stopped and hasn't been around for ages. Maybe as far back as Pac/Cotto. And yet there was UFC and James Toney live on my TV this last weekend. Of course, I had to watch the freak show, but only that one bout mind. I can only speak for here, but it seems that K1 and MMA is getting far more commercial coverage and boxing barely exists anymore. I can't speak for other Asian regions, but that's how it now is here. It sucks, I hate this MMA stuff.
Was Marquez-Diaz not an HBO PPV fight? To be fair Sky do give us quite a lot of big PPV fights from the U.S. but it has to involve at least one real big name. I was quite shocked that they didn't show Cotto's last fight but then again they showed us that debacle between Cintron and Williams. I'm sure that fight can't have helped things as far as Sky paying to show big fights over here.