The key to beating the UFC

When a big fight or a big name fight happens in boxing then the undercard are usually shit, The big-name takes priority and they get most of the budget money on the table so promoter have to found lesser known fighters who would take peanuts for the undercard. UFC pays their fighter peanuts so its easier to fit 4 to 5 great matchups in one card While I do agreed that fighters do deserve a bit more money (Dana pays starters 10K while Shaw paid 1k), the volume of fights are due more to their unpredictable nature. You got a nine fight card, you're at least hoping one or two will go the distance. And most the guys on the prelims and undercards are either accomplished talent or up and coming prospects out of the amateur or semi-pro ranks.

sad to say.....i look forward to couture lesnar I'll try to catch both, good thing for DVRs. You can usually catch UFC cards at one of the local bars. That's the other thing that's helping the UFC. I remember when Boxing used to be shown at the bars; that's not so common anymore.

So which fight will everyone be looking forward to this weekend? Taylor vs Lacy or Couture vs Lesnar ??? sad to say.....i look forward to couture lesnar

So which fight will everyone be looking forward to this weekend? Taylor vs Lacy or Couture vs Lesnar ??? I wanna watch both but will probaly lean towards the UFC with the whole stroy behind Couture coming back. plus UFC have few good fights on that night with Florian v Stevenson, Maia v Quarry and Amir Sadollah and Gonzaga are on same card. I don't think the Lacy v Taylor fight is been shown in the UK either but the UFC is on live.

So which fight will everyone be looking forward to this weekend? Taylor vs Lacy or Couture vs Lesnar ???

honestly, you dont even have to have BIG names on the undercards to make them interesting and help the purchaser feel like they are getting their money's worth. as long as you assemble fighters who will put on a GOOD fight and spend SOME of the budget advertising the undercard as PART of the package you will be purchasing, people will be more willing to spend money on the whole card. doing small interviews or backstories on the undercard fighters will help sell the card as an EVENT rather than just one main headlining fight you have to sit through shit cards to get to. when it all comes down to it, its a how you promote what you sell. right now, major fights are promoted and marketed just by headliners alone. market the WHOLE card with DECENT fighters who will put on good fights and PPV buys will increase. I agree completely. UFC does this. A little advertising and background of the undercard fighters would create interest and draw the attention of regular fans.

When a big fight or a big name fight happens in boxing then the undercard are usually shit, The big-name takes priority and they get most of the budget money on the table so promoter have to found lesser known fighters who would take peanuts for the undercard. UFC pays their fighter peanuts so its easier to fit 4 to 5 great matchups in one card honestly, you dont even have to have BIG names on the undercards to make them interesting and help the purchaser feel like they are getting their money's worth. as long as you assemble fighters who will put on a GOOD fight and spend SOME of the budget advertising the undercard as PART of the package you will be purchasing, people will be more willing to spend money on the whole card. doing small interviews or backstories on the undercard fighters will help sell the card as an EVENT rather than just one main headlining fight you have to sit through shit cards to get to. when it all comes down to it, its a how you promote what you sell. right now, major fights are promoted and marketed just by headliners alone. market the WHOLE card with DECENT fighters who will put on good fights and PPV buys will increase.

VERSUS has 3 events in December. That's a good step... Winky Wright fight, Adamek-Cunningham, Toney-Thompson... VERSUS is comparable to ****e TV in its number of homes, and those three fights all have guys 'with names' Thanks for the update. It's a step in the right direction. Promoters should spend a little more on advertising. I didn't know Winky was fighting.

Definelty the undercards on these pay per view need to be better. Also they to bring some fights to network television again. Try putting on a decent card every three to four months. UFC does pretty good with the fight nights and that what boxing needs. Put together a card with some really exciting up and comers and against some solid veterans or against other up and comers. That the only way the average person going to learn about boxing again. It just not on tv enough. With ****e tv every time I turn on that channel there a show or commercial hyping up UFC. That what boxing needs, it just needs a face lift. VERSUS has 3 events in December. That's a good step... Winky Wright fight, Adamek-Cunningham, Toney-Thompson... VERSUS is comparable to ****e TV in its number of homes, and those three fights all have guys 'with names'

I'm a bit skeptical that the UFC has been 'stealing' boxing fans. A lot of UFC fans are not big fans of boxing and never were. Boxing's decline has been its own doing.

Definelty the undercards on these pay per view need to be better. Also they to bring some fights to network television again. Try putting on a decent card every three to four months. UFC does pretty good with the fight nights and that what boxing needs. Put together a card with some really exciting up and comers and against some solid veterans or against other up and comers. That the only way the average person going to learn about boxing again. It just not on tv enough. With ****e tv every time I turn on that channel there a show or commercial hyping up UFC. That what boxing needs, it just needs a face lift.

dana has such a monopoly in mma its so easy for him to put together intriguing fight cards. he has no other real competition. he tells the fighters who there going to fight, when and how much they're going to get paid. i do agree for boxing to regain a lot of their lost fan base the promoters have to rebuild by putting together fight cards that people want to see and are willing to pay for, more co-main events, stop with all the mismatches and create intriguing fights that actually mean something. less sanctioning bodies and all the confusion with the alphabet soup etc. etc. in the end it may cut into the profits, but if they do not rebuild they are in jeopardy of loosing a lot more in the future. if they do not set the stage in big events for there young prospects to show themselves then how are people going to care about them in future when all the big names left in boxing retire. as an avid boxing fan i am worried for the state of things . . . i know for myself living in canada true boxing fans are few in far between and i really hope that that changes in the future and improves. its a shame that boxing with all its history as a sport and being such a great sport should find itself in a situation of it is in now. There are guys with good records and fan-pleasing styles fighting for a few thousand a fight. It's not hard to put together an undercard with decent talent; a lot of promoters want to use their undercards to showcase their up and coming guys with unthreatening opponents, and it makes for very bad TV...or it helps them disguise they're "non" up and comers that they want to pass off as contenders by putting them in against hasbeens or never-weres. If you guys think that Shobox is breaking the bank putting their shows on from places like South Dakota or Rising Sun Indiana, you guys are being a tad ridiculous. MMA cards are more loaded so that you'll buy the card even if you're not a big fan of the main event competitors. It's working. People like to revert to the same 4 and 5 excuses about MMA, but it's not fair to let greedy boxing promoters off the hook. Roy could have gotten a live opponent for Zab if Zab had wanted one and Roy had wanted him to have been challenged.

dana has such a monopoly in mma its so easy for him to put together intriguing fight cards. he has no other real competition. he tells the fighters who there going to fight, when and how much they're going to get paid. i do agree for boxing to regain a lot of their lost fan base the promoters have to rebuild by putting together fight cards that people want to see and are willing to pay for, more co-main events, stop with all the mismatches and create intriguing fights that actually mean something. less sanctioning bodies and all the confusion with the alphabet soup etc. etc. in the end it may cut into the profits, but if they do not rebuild they are in jeopardy of loosing a lot more in the future. if they do not set the stage in big events for there young prospects to show themselves then how are people going to care about them in future when all the big names left in boxing retire. as an avid boxing fan i am worried for the state of things . . . i know for myself living in canada true boxing fans are few in far between and i really hope that that changes in the future and improves. its a shame that boxing with all its history as a sport and being such a great sport should find itself in a situation of it is in now.

unfortunately this guy here is right on the money and the rest of you really don't know shit about how promotion works in the fight game whether it be boxing or the UFC. You see when you have 10 million dollars total for a card and 8 million of that is going to pay Calzaghe and Jones and you have 2 million left to pay about 10 other fighters for 5 other fights or more, then that means you don't have money to pay for big named fights because that goes way over your budget so you have to get cheap fights like Zab Judah vs. Ernest Johnson or whatever because Judah will take a couple hundred thou and Ernest Johnson will take maybe 60k to 120k or so at the most if not much less. But in the UFC, they are making millions of dollars from each card in revenue yet even their world CHAMPIONS are getting only 100 to 200k at the most per fight, equivalent to what a no named bum like Ernest Johnson gets in boxing so obviously with that kind of money, UFC has money enough to stage 5 big named guys to fight in the same card because they can pay them all 100k and still have money left over for the production of the card. Ok, but when you put better fights on the card, there will be more interest and therefore more money generated to pay out. And the main event UFC fighters are now raking in a couple mil per fight.

as much as it sucks,i think the cancellation of solo boxeo will help with this,especially the golden boy ppv's, now if they want to show off they can put their fighters on ppv,like jhonny gonzalez,abner mares,mercedes,jesus chavez, and i'm sure hbo will make them pick somewhat more competitive fights

I agree with you 100% and i've even made threads about this topic. HBO makes you pay $50 for a fight ($55 if its a mayweather fight) and you get to sit through 3-4 of the most BORING fights you ever thought possible with fighters that you either NEVER heard of or you may have seen once or twice on ESPN's FNF but they are fighting a guy who has 10 wins and 7 losses who no one knows who gets knocked out within 3. I honestly believe they need to be QUALITY matchups with at least names that are realitively KNOWN... i mean we all know better than to expect mayweather to headline a card and miguel cotto to be on the undercard... but i mean come on... give us SOMETHING worth seeing. just like the hopkins v. pavlik fight...that card was garbage...the first undercard was a first round KO...then the rubio fight was entertaining but the dib fight was garbage to the point where i decieded to get drunk and was pretty ****ed up around the 8th round of the fight that would never end (or at least it seemed that way). I say if HBO wants to show garbage undercards on their FREE (well you pay for HBO but you know what i mean) fights with a good main event then fine...if ESPN wants to show medicore fights then fine... but when you pay $50 (or in some cases $55) then you should get at LEAST good undercards...not just be paying $50 for the main event... thats what it feels like 99% of the time...they just show some boring undercards to make it seem like they are giving you something spectacular... HBO needs better fights on PPV. haha people were paying more attention to the fights in the crowd then they were that dib fight

They don't have to be major names, they could be competitively matched though. I'd never heard of Jorge Arce until his first fight with Hussein Hussein on the Pacquiao/Morales I undercard. I bet most of this board hadn't either. First time I saw Michael Katsidis was on an undercard. Putting on a fantastic scrap on a major event can put a fighter on the map. But this weekend, Zab and Salita fought bums and people were finding Emmanual Augustus on a card they PAID FOR? come on.... Showtime is good at putting together good matchups for TV, whether you've heard of the fighters that come up on Shobox or not. And yes, you can get many of these guys for "peanuts" Very good post!

When a big fight or a big name fight happens in boxing then the undercard are usually shit, The big-name takes priority and they get most of the budget money on the table so promoter have to found lesser known fighters who would take peanuts for the undercard. UFC pays their fighter peanuts so its easier to fit 4 to 5 great matchups in one card They don't have to be major names, they could be competitively matched though. I'd never heard of Jorge Arce until his first fight with Hussein Hussein on the Pacquiao/Morales I undercard. I bet most of this board hadn't either. First time I saw Michael Katsidis was on an undercard. Putting on a fantastic scrap on a major event can put a fighter on the map. But this weekend, Zab and Salita fought bums and people were finding Emmanual Augustus on a card they PAID FOR? come on.... Showtime is good at putting together good matchups for TV, whether you've heard of the fighters that come up on Shobox or not. And yes, you can get many of these guys for "peanuts"

Roy was promoting himself so he had to throw some money at some inflated records and put them in showcases. Some of the recent Golden Boy events have had embarassingly bad undercards too...and limited in number as well... That's what I'm saying, the promoter's are to blame.

In order for Boxing to stay ahead of the UFC, boxing promoters must put together meaningful and intriguing undercard fights on PPVs. This weekend's PPV undercard was weak! I was damn near falling asleep prior to the Jones - Calzaghe fight. I watched a show on NBC tonight. Dana White was claiming that Boxing had given him the blueprint for what not to do with his company. He said that everytime a fan buys a Boxing PPV, we're like "Damn, they got me again" "I can't believe I paid for this shit". This is somewhat true, evident in all the stream threads that come up in this very forum. In order for Boxing to reign surpreme over the UFC, the promoters must give us better undercards on these expensive PPV events. Times are rough. We deserve quality for what we pay for. If Boxing can deliver HBO World Championship Boxing quality undercard fights on major PPV events, the UFC won't stand a chance. Here's an example for what the Jones - Calzaghe undercard should have been like: Zab vs Ricardo Torres Augustus vs Randall Bailey Salita vs Jose Luis Castillo This is just an example of the types of fights that should be on a PPV undercard. They would sure be more exciting that the crap we had to endure last night. Roy was promoting himself so he had to throw some money at some inflated records and put them in showcases. Some of the recent Golden Boy events have had embarassingly bad undercards too...and limited in number as well...