Don King Feels That "Boxing Needs Heroes"

[TheManchine]

im sure he said all these things in his interview with GYGB

youtube is a good place to get quotes

[TKO Tom]

Don is the man...

[roundingace]

Yeah I don't like Don as much as the next guy, but that's real talk.

[TheManchine]

Don is a murdering scumbag

[snake]

There are elbows in Muay Thai, kicks in Kickboxing, yet Don King never spat on those sports as much, because they were not popular in the U.S. If they had become very popular, you'd hear the same rhetoric from boxing promoters as we got from King about mma.

Promoters in boxing can whine over the UFC all they want, but I've said it many times - boxing can't point the finger at other combat sports for problems boxing has created itself. Boxing needs to look in the mirror and stop pointing fingers at everything else.

The UFC last weekend did one of the largest live gates in Las Vegas history, and they put on many ppv's every year and they all land in the high hundreds of thousands of buys. Someone is certainly doing something right.

My point is, boxing needs Wladimir vs. Haye for a huge end of the year show with a strong undercard. That is the fight people want to see. We do not want Wlad vs. Rahman, for god's sake. We do not want Haye to have "a couple more fights" so that he can get knocked out and the superfight ruined. How soon before Wladimir gets KO'd again and the Haye fight ruined? That fight needs to happen next, now, immediately. It could have been a huge end of the year bash. The UFC was very smart in pushing their new star, Brock Lesnar, into the title fight with only 3 previous fights because they knew if they waited, he'd lose again the the star power would be gone. You have to strike while the iron is hot.

That highlights just one difference in why mma (the UFC in particular) attracted fans - the fights people want to see actually get made. We don't have to listen to two adult men arguing over how to split up $7 million between them as we do in boxing, especially in these economic times. More often than not, in the UFC, the best fight the best. While a Wlad vs. Rahman-type fight occasionally happens in the UFC, on the opposite end, that is par for the course in boxing. When everyone wanted to see Calzaghe vs. Pavlik, instead we got a one sided beatdown against Jones Jr., and a one sided beatdown against Hopkins, destroying that megafight before it could even happen. When everyone wanted to see a Taylor-Wright rematch, we got nothing, and the list can go on and on. You generally do not see that in the UFC. If you don't think that makes a huge difference in how fans view their sports, it does. When one organization has the best fighting the best on a regular basis, and the other overprotects their fighters and avoids the best, it really stands out.

[Scary]

Calzaghe is the hero over here in Europe.

[Flawless 2]

Damn Don King is smart as

[brently1979]

Boxing can return back to it's glory days, but there needs to be some major changes. 1st and foremost, PPV fights, have to be scrapped and thrown out of the window. You cannot have 14 to 16 PPV fights throughout the year, because the reality is they will not all sell. If you keep it to 4 to 5, it's more realistic. Anytime you have JMM vs. Casamayor, on PPV, you got problems. I would bet the fight didn't do 50,000 buys! 2nd, HBO has a monopoly for the networks, and they have too many fights, that are not competitive. Fights, they put on free HBO, to build up for a PPV telecast later down the road. There are several great fights that could happen, if we throw out all the BS, and make them happen. Example, Calzaghe vs Dawson, Margarito vs.Berto, Arroyo vs. klitschko. As a fan, we have more power than we realize, because all we have to do, is stop ordering the PPV fights, until they put the best fights together. Starting with DLH vs.Pacman. Do not order this crap. it's a money fight, and not the best fight out there! I have ordered only 1 PPV this year. Cotto/Margarito, by far the best fight of the year!

That was a good action packed PPV. One of the better ones this year.

[bigflip55]

king is right, they (the media) need to stop searching for the drama in the game and start supporting it with positive attention, evertime i hear something about boxing its bad, the only reason i know whats really going on is cuz im hardcore, but there are not enough hardcore fans to bring boxing back to its glory days, and if the regular boxing fans always hear negative s**t then it turns them away from the game, its the media who needs to get there head out of their a*s,

[Shadow boxer 3]

There are elbows in Muay Thai, kicks in Kickboxing, yet Don King never spat on those sports as much, because they were not popular in the U.S. If they had become very popular, you'd hear the same rhetoric from boxing promoters as we got from King about mma.

Promoters in boxing can whine over the UFC all they want, but I've said it many times - boxing can't point the finger at other combat sports for problems boxing has created itself. Boxing needs to look in the mirror and stop pointing fingers at everything else.

The UFC last weekend did one of the largest live gates in Las Vegas history, and they put on many ppv's every year and they all land in the high hundreds of thousands of buys. Someone is certainly doing something right.

My point is, boxing needs Wladimir vs. Haye for a huge end of the year show with a strong undercard. That is the fight people want to see. We do not want Wlad vs. Rahman, for god's sake. We do not want Haye to have "a couple more fights" so that he can get knocked out and the superfight ruined. How soon before Wladimir gets KO'd again and the Haye fight ruined? That fight needs to happen next, now, immediately. It could have been a huge end of the year bash. The UFC was very smart in pushing their new star, Brock Lesnar, into the title fight with only 3 previous fights because they knew if they waited, he'd lose again the the star power would be gone. You have to strike while the iron is hot.

That highlights just one difference in why mma (the UFC in particular) attracted fans - the fights people want to see actually get made. We don't have to listen to two adult men arguing over how to split up $7 million between them as we do in boxing, especially in these economic times. More often than not, in the UFC, the best fight the best. While a Wlad vs. Rahman-type fight occasionally happens in the UFC, on the opposite end, that is par for the course in boxing. When everyone wanted to see Calzaghe vs. Pavlik, instead we got a one sided beatdown against Jones Jr., and a one sided beatdown against Hopkins, destroying that megafight before it could even happen. When everyone wanted to see a Taylor-Wright rematch, we got nothing, and the list can go on and on. You generally do not see that in the UFC. If you don't think that makes a huge difference in how fans view their sports, it does. When one organization has the best fighting the best on a regular basis, and the other overprotects their fighters and avoids the best, it really stands out.

you make some good points. but most UFC fans are cross over WWE fans, thats why they hav brock lesnar as the heavy champ after 3 fights. what u said about boxing not making the fights people want to see, i agree with that for the most part.