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For the third year in a row, boxing only has two PPV events in the top ten bought PPV's for the year. MMA(UFC) had 7 out of the 10 and the WWE had one, wrestlemania.
The two fights for boxing were oscar/pac and tito/RJ. Three out of four those guys will retiring soon if not already retired. When Oscar retires, there will be a HUGE dropoff cause nobody (not floyd, pac or hatton) can draw PPV buys like oscar.
I dont think boxing will die, but IT IS dwindling and will be in serious trouble when oscar bids farewell.
The problems as I see it are:
- lack of exposure for up and coming fighters and boxing in general. back in the day you had boxing on USA tuesday night fights, ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC. Today its still on ESPN but also on other networks that alot of people dont see like Versus, Fox sports, etc.
- top fighters "ducking" each other. i'm not gonna mention names cause I dont wanna turn this thread into a nuthugger/hater fight, but some of the top fighters are avoiding their biggest threats to take on easier opponents. Lack of fights that people want to see and are willing to buy on PPV is one cause of the poor buyrates.
- the fans themselves. The UFC turned the corner with their hit reality show The Ultimate Fighter. It got big ratings and drew millions of new fans to the UFC . When Boxing got the Contender on NBC, boxing fans and writers bitched and moaned and didnt support it. Although it made stars out of Mora, Manfredo and Gomez, the lack of support form boxing fans made it go from a MAJOR network(NBC) to ESPN and now Versus, where even less people can watch it. Has there been ANY boxing on a major network since?
The two fights for boxing were oscar/pac and tito/RJ. Three out of four those guys will retiring soon if not already retired. When Oscar retires, there will be a HUGE dropoff cause nobody (not floyd, pac or hatton) can draw PPV buys like oscar.
I dont think boxing will die, but IT IS dwindling and will be in serious trouble when oscar bids farewell.
The problems as I see it are:
- lack of exposure for up and coming fighters and boxing in general. back in the day you had boxing on USA tuesday night fights, ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC. Today its still on ESPN but also on other networks that alot of people dont see like Versus, Fox sports, etc.
- top fighters "ducking" each other. i'm not gonna mention names cause I dont wanna turn this thread into a nuthugger/hater fight, but some of the top fighters are avoiding their biggest threats to take on easier opponents. Lack of fights that people want to see and are willing to buy on PPV is one cause of the poor buyrates.
- the fans themselves. The UFC turned the corner with their hit reality show The Ultimate Fighter. It got big ratings and drew millions of new fans to the UFC . When Boxing got the Contender on NBC, boxing fans and writers bitched and moaned and didnt support it. Although it made stars out of Mora, Manfredo and Gomez, the lack of support form boxing fans made it go from a MAJOR network(NBC) to ESPN and now Versus, where even less people can watch it. Has there been ANY boxing on a major network since?
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