Boxing seems to be overtaking MMA again now

Good, mostly accurate and respectful dialog IMO. I do still follow the scene, but I miss the 1994 - 2010 K-1 peak. Better heavyweight Muay Thai/FC Karate/Kickboxing in that era than any time before or since (an understatement). Though I do give Rico Vorhoeven full standing as one of the greats. Yeah Rico would be able to hang in any era, Rigters is solid too. But 90s/00s K-1 HW was consistently stacked not just in talent but also star power. Hoost, Aerts, Le Banner, Sefo, Hug, Cro Cop, Branko then later on Remy, Badr, Spong, Hunt, Manhoef etc with a fair bit of MMA crossover bringing in names like Semmy, Reem, Kharitanov, Sapp, Goodridge etc too. K-1 really deserved to be the biggest thing going in combat sports in those days.

Dagestanis have taken over a lot of the UFC. And the stythein general has taken over about 50% of the UFC. How is one Dagestani champion out of 12 "taking over"? not to mention a lot of those Dagi fighters dont even fit the mould of what you're saying they are either. Islam has great wrestling but he strikes too and is an exciting all round fighter. Umar is pretty fun to watch, Shara Bullet and Said are flashy strikers, Ankalaev is a heavy hitter. Khamzat (Chechen not Dagi but close enough) is very exciting too. Wrestling is not 50% of the UFC lol. I'm not sure its even 25% at this point tbh. Go look at the belt holders, theres two of any nationality who would be considered lay 'n' pray decision wrestlers. Why is Alex Peirera the most loved UFC fighter? Because he is a stand up warrior. Also because hes very active and beat Izzy. Why are you acting like stand up warriors are thin on the ground in the UFC though? for a start two guys Alex has fought this year in Khalil and Jiri. Literally this weekends UFC main event has a Pereira not named Alex who is one of the craziest wildest strikers on the planet. Could be that the writing will be on the wall and Kickboxing will start coming to the fore more and more. I predict in about 5/10 years the UFC will start showing pure kickboxing on their cards and many Thai, Dutch, Surinamese, Brazilian and European stars will show up overnight. Highly doubt the UFC is gonna start putting other ruleset fights on their cards after 30+ years, if they do it will turn a lot of people off the product tbh. The only reason One FC has moved in the direction of mostly doing Muay Thai is as a cost cutting measure because they're losing money constantly and are having to run most of their shows out of Thailand now and can pay those fighters less money than MMA names. MMA isnt exactly lacking in Brazillian, European and Dutch stars is it? Kickboxing is global and very very exciting. Won't be long before wrestle humping is selected against i think. Kickboxing is much smaller than MMA just about everywhere on the planet now, very small number of exceptions. Also if whats popular was governed purely by whats most exciting boxing would be a fringe top 5 combat sport right now, theres more to it than that.

Not a chance. 20 or so years ago K-1 was still bigger than the UFC but they failed to really make noise in the US when they potentially could have, and didnt produce an American star (Bob Sapp if he had been good might have been the one) and then a lot of the stars started getting old while simultaneously the UFC started TUF and brought in Brock (who ironically was gonna fight in K-1 initially and even turned up on one of their shows), rest is history. The gap is insurmountable at this point. As for the dry humping thing, I thought you actually watched MMA to be making these comments about the current state of it? if you did you'd know that grappling accounts for like 1/4 of all fight time in the UFC nowadays, for better or worse. Also lets be honest here, for all the "dry humping" criticism boxing fans like to aim at MMA, anyone being objective knows that MMA is more entertaining ON AVERAGE than boxing and its not really close either. The top end of boxing matches a la Hagler/Hearns, Ward/Gatti, Corrales/Castillo etc are better than the best MMA fights, but the average MMA card is a lot more entertaining than the average boxing card. The ratio of exciting **** happening per minute of viewing time, exciting fights etc is heavily in favour of MMA. But yeah, kickboxing is more exciting than both. What happened in the past won't necessarily repeat in future. Dagestanis have taken over a lot of the UFC. And the stythein general has taken over about 50% of the UFC. It's very unaesthetic. Why is Alex Peirera the most loved UFC fighter? Because he is a stand up warrior. Could be that the writing will be on the wall and Kickboxing will start coming to the fore more and more. I predict in about 5/10 years the UFC will start showing pure kickboxing on their cards and many Thai, Dutch, Surinamese, Brazilian and European stars will show up overnight. Kickboxing is global and very very exciting. Won't be long before wrestle humping is selected against i think. we shall see.

Good, mostly accurate and respectful dialog IMO. I do still follow the scene, but I miss the 1994 - 2010 K-1 peak. Better heavyweight Muay Thai/FC Karate/Kickboxing in that era than any time before or since (an understatement). Though I do give Rico Vorhoeven full standing as one of the greats.

I've never thought that there was a competition. They're both combat sports but they're very different. To me it's like comparing badminton and tennis because they are both played with a racket.I could be wrong but I don't think that boxing fans and MMA fans are the same people even though some watch both. I think theres a sizeable crossover audience tbh, although when it comes to hardcore fans it seems to be a much higher ratio of MMA fans who watch other forms of combat whereas theres a lot more boxing fans who only stick to boxing. If you go on MMA forums theres plenty of boxing discussion and awareness. And casuals will watch the big fights/names from either sport at this point.

Kickboxing will overtake MMA soon i think. Ufc will be forced to pivot and show Kickboxing fights. Nobody wants to see dry humping bull**** Not a chance. 20 or so years ago K-1 was still bigger than the UFC but they failed to really make noise in the US when they potentially could have, and didnt produce an American star (Bob Sapp if he had been good might have been the one) and then a lot of the stars started getting old while simultaneously the UFC started TUF and brought in Brock (who ironically was gonna fight in K-1 initially and even turned up on one of their shows), rest is history. The gap is insurmountable at this point. As for the dry humping thing, I thought you actually watched MMA to be making these comments about the current state of it? if you did you'd know that grappling accounts for like 1/4 of all fight time in the UFC nowadays, for better or worse. Also lets be honest here, for all the "dry humping" criticism boxing fans like to aim at MMA, anyone being objective knows that MMA is more entertaining ON AVERAGE than boxing and its not really close either. The top end of boxing matches a la Hagler/Hearns, Ward/Gatti, Corrales/Castillo etc are better than the best MMA fights, but the average MMA card is a lot more entertaining than the average boxing card. The ratio of exciting shit happening per minute of viewing time, exciting fights etc is heavily in favour of MMA. But yeah, kickboxing is more exciting than both.

Kickboxing will overtake MMA soon i think. Ufc will be forced to pivot and show Kickboxing fights. Nobody wants to see dry humping bull**** Kickboxing has been around forever and in the U.S. has never achieved any popularity. I don't know why, it's a fun sport to watch. I used to spar with a middleweight kickboxing, World Champion when I was a teenager. Outside of the martial arts world the guy was anonymous.

MMA is only popular in the US and mainly among the inb_red white tr@sh supporters of Cheeto Mussolini. The cards are garbage with few actual draws. Extra points for the description of Cheetolinni and his Cult.

I've never thought that there was a competition. They're both combat sports but they're very different. To me it's like comparing badminton and tennis because they are both played with a racket.I could be wrong but I don't think that boxing fans and MMA fans are the same people even though some watch both.

Its such a shame that kickboxing isnt bigger. Its probably the most consistently exciting ruleset of the three and strikes a good balance between not being as limited as boxing but not being as sloppy and ugly as MMA. Also has always had a big focus on HWs. K-1 in the 90s and 00s was incredible. They're trying to restore its international profile recently and even had Le Banner at 51 fighting on a card a few days ago, but it just isnt the same. For one Glory has most of the top HWs now, and the HW scene in general is not what it was in the old school K-1 days. Theres a lot of good Japanese talent in the lower weight classes, but its just not the same as having a strong international HW scene like they used to. Kickboxing will overtake MMA soon i think. Ufc will be forced to pivot and show Kickboxing fights. Nobody wants to see dry humping bullshit

I like them both. Throw Kickboxing in there as well. Its such a shame that kickboxing isnt bigger. Its probably the most consistently exciting ruleset of the three and strikes a good balance between not being as limited as boxing but not being as sloppy and ugly as MMA. Also has always had a big focus on HWs. K-1 in the 90s and 00s was incredible. They're trying to restore its international profile recently and even had Le Banner at 51 fighting on a card a few days ago, but it just isnt the same. For one Glory has most of the top HWs now, and the HW scene in general is not what it was in the old school K-1 days. Theres a lot of good Japanese talent in the lower weight classes, but its just not the same as having a strong international HW scene like they used to.

I like them both. Throw Kickboxing in there as well. When you move the techniques-allowed line around, you create a unique Aesthetic. Plenty of room on the stage for all of the combat sports to flourish. I actually think that they assist each other by keeping sport fighting in the public eye. In terms of which sport is "bigger"; there are a variety of ways to measure. Recent polls do tend to show clearly that boxing is the more followed sport, both inside the U.S. and outside. What the Boxing rules permutation DOES have that the others can't match is it's very old, well documented, international history. Revenue, viewership and ticket sales draw in the component of business architecture and competency. Worldwide fame measures, I'll leave up to you. Which list contains the more widely known athletes? Mixed Martial Arts 30 greatest: 1. George St. Pierre, Quebec. 26-2-0 2. Fedor Emelianenko, Russia 40-7-0 3. Anderson Silva, Brazil. 34-11-0 4. Jon Jones, USA. 27-1-0 5. Matt Hughes, USA. 45-9-0 6. Khabib Nurmagomedov, Russia. 29-0-0 7. B.J. Penn, USA. 16-14-2 8. Dan Henderson, USA. 32-15-0 9. Demetrius Johnson, USA. 25-4-1 10. Royce Gracie, Brazil. 15-2-3 11. Jose Aldo, Brazil. 32-9-0 12. Alexander Volkanovski, Russia. 26-4-0 13. Francis Ngannou, Cameroon. 17-3-0 14. Randy Couture, USA. 19-11-0 15. Wanderlei Silva, Brazil. 35-14-1 16. Conor McGregor, Ireland. 22-6-0 17. Max Holloway, USA. 26-7-0 18. Kamaru Usman, Nigeria. 20-4-0 19. Stipe Miocic, USA. 20-4-0 20. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Brazil. 34-10-1 21. Kazushi Sakuaba, Japan. 26-17-1 22. Israel Adesanya, Brazil. 24-4-0 23. Daniel Cormier, USA. 22-3-0 24. Frankie Edgar, USA. 24-11-1 25. Lyoto Machida, Brazil. 26-12-0 26. Urijah Faber, USA 35-11-0 27. Chris Weidman, USA. 16-7-0 28. Islam Makhechev, Russia. 26-1-0 29. Chuck Liddell, USA. 21-9-0 29. Frank Shamrock, USA. 23-10-0 30. Tyron Woodley, USA. 19-7-1 Modern Boxing 30 Greatest: 1. Sugar Ray Robinson. 175-19-8 2. Henry Armstrong. 151-21-9 3. Wille Pep. 230-11-1 4. Muhammad Ali. 56-5-0 5. Harry Greb. 105-8-126 6. Joe Louis 68-3-0 7. Sam Langford. 167-38-88 8. Benny Leonard. 85-5-122 9. Roberto Duran. 103-16-0 10. Jack Dempsey. 61-6-14 11. Jack Johnson. 77-13-33 12. Mickey Walker. 93-19-51 13. Tony Canzoneri. 137-24-13 14. Gene Tunney. 61-1-22 15. Rocky Marciano. 49-0-0 16. Joe Gans. 120-8-27 17. Sugar Ray Leonard. 36-3-1 18. Barney Ross 72-4-5 19. Floyd Mayweather Jr. 50-0-0 20. Jimmy McLarnin. 62-11-4 21. Marvin Hagler. 62-3-2 22. Julio Cesar Chavez. 107-6-2 23. Ezzard Charles. 89-25-1 24. Archie Moore. 184-24-11 25. Manny Pacquiao. 62-8-2 26. Carlos Monzon. 87-3-10 27. Marcel Cerdan. 106-4-0 28. Barbados Joe Walcott. 92-25-47 29. Jimmy Wilde. 131-3-15 30. Jose Napoles. 77-7-0 ​

I'm gonna put it simple for you. MMA's been pretty consistent for years, with or without oil sheiks helping them. Yep. Its always been built on a different model, namely PPV. Granted as the amount of events grew into oversaturation level it has strayed closer to how boxing works, but even now MMA is still built around promotions and entire cards as much as individual stars. That tends to lead to a more consistent product and also allows them to weather the storm and keep on rolling along fine even when they dont have a Conor level star around. The fact they are obligated to do 12 PPVs a year means every few weeks they have to put out a card that can move the needle a bit. Case in point - Boxing probably has more star power right now but for the rest of the year the UFC has THREE different cards booked that are bigger overall nights of fights than any boxing event coming up including Fury/Usyk, it isnt just based around one fight or star. Even outside of the UFC theres that Ngannou PFL card next weekend, KSW 100 next month and a stadium show in December, a pretty big ACA show etc. Good cards regularly > a handful of "mega fights" a year. And lets face it most of the reason fights like Bivol/Beterbiev, Fury/Usyk and Spence/Crawford are considered mega fights in the first place is because they get marinated for years so it feels borderline surprising when it finally happens.

Despite the irregularly of fights, the Saudi take over and the UFC's stagnation seems to be causing boxing to overtake mma again. The UFC have totally gone back on their "best fight the best" ethos, and allowed semi-retired crocked champions and ex champions like Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic to hold up entire divisions for years. all the UFC have now is Alex Pierera The rest of it is a bunch of dagestani wrestlers dominating that is not fan friendly and no one wants to watch. The UFC cards are watered down while boxing's cards, though fairly infrequent, have many ****er fights. Boxing is on a serious upswing lads. We just had a top tier contest between two Russians and EVERYONE is talking about it now. The quality of boxing is really top tier atm. Not really many real stars but the match ups are great. I think boxing has been ahead in terms of mainstream buzz and the biggest fights the last couple of years, mainly due to the Saudis pushing big fights to happen more often than they usually do and making cards that are more stacked than boxing cards typically are, but its still fairly infrequent. In terms of overall consistency and entertainment value I dont know how anyone could honestly say boxing is a better product to follow week in, week out. The cards are watered down yeah, relative to old 00s UFC cards, not relative to boxing. The last UFC PPV and the next 3 coming between now and December are better than any cards boxing is serving up including even the Saudi big money cards. Dont really get the Dagestani comment either considering theres one Dagi champ out of 12 belt holders and not a single Dagi booked in a main event for the rest of the year. That one Dagi champ is exciting to watch and a decent draw too.

MMA is only popular in the US and mainly among the inb_red white tr@sh supporters of Cheeto Mussolini. The cards are garbage with few actual draws. Lol literally last night there was a none- UFC MMA promotion drawing a crowd of 60k in Germany. Your narrative is straight from 2005.

MMA is only popular in the US and mainly among the inb_red white tr@sh supporters of Cheeto Mussolini. The cards are garbage with few actual draws. Soon to be President Cheeto Mussolini lol

MMA is only popular in the US and mainly among the inb_red white tr@sh supporters of Cheeto Mussolini. The cards are garbage with few actual draws.

MMA was only ever ahead in certain regions for certain periods of time. On the global scale boxing never lost its lead.

You're a little over-excited from tonight. Might wanna dial that in pal. I'm gonna put it simple for you. MMA's been pretty consistent for years, with or without oil sheiks helping them. Boxing has been a steamy turd-fest without the oil sheikhs putting big relevant fights together like Bivol-Betervbiev and Fury-Usyk. I think it's pretty funny how Boxing fans used to contest which place was the Mecca of boxing. Now Mecca is the Mecca of boxing.