Is Boxing Dying?? MMA taking over??

[J.R.]

Kind of unfair to compare an unorganized sport liike boxing to a league generated sport like MMA. Compare all these leagues dying off to football. Football has a long history of leagues dying off, merging, or simply being suspended for a while (Arena football is thinking of suspending it's upcoming season) and yet one league still rises above it all in this country, the NFL, and that's really all we really need. Football is alive and well and will seemingly stay king in America for a long, long time to come.

I mean I don't necessarily believe all the crap that the mainstream media slings around that the sport is absolutely dead because that very same media hardly ever pays attention to the sport and it's biggest and best fights which still generate much cash in revenues. All while MMA enthuisiasm is dying down slowily like any other fad that skyrockets very quickly, eventually, that kind of hardcore enthusiasm dies down and sits at it's regular level.

Still, it's hard to see the silver lining in the sport of boxing. It's still highly unorganized and untamed in this and every other country in the world, it's biggesst and only star is likely to retire with no real replacement in site, not too many seem to want to try different things in promoting the sport, and the athletes themselves are stearing clear from the sport as the sport dies in popularity (checkout the heavyweight division for example).

I'm not saying either sport is ever going to completely die off anytime soon, but it's really hard to get a good gauge on the whole scene and predict where either sport will be in the years to come.



On a sidenote, I once had an illegal satellite hookup. Shhh, don't tell nobody... hahaha.. and it showed me how accessible boxing really is. With all the channels I had and all the boxing on TV, I could literally watch boxing about 22 hours a day. It was great!

[JL FightFan]

Nice. I feel enlightened.

[MANGLER]

Mother**** MMA. Boxing ain't dyin, no matter what dumbass Calzaghe says.

[3_Hooks]

boxing isn't dying, but it does need to fix a couple of things. way too many weightclasses and way too many belts. gone are the days of champions being tested to the fullest extent. i mean ali had 3 fights with norton, 3 with frazier, 2 with liston, 2 with quarry, 1 with foreman, 1 with patterson, 3 with bugner, etc.

now with all the weightclasses a fighter isn't really tested and if he is it's considered a superfight. without the junior's and supers for instance; pacquaoui, hatton, jmm cambell, bradley, diaz, torres, , holt, witter, hopkins, etc. would all be in one weightclass. there'd be the tests that champs took in the old days.

also without all those belts, there'd be a champion in each division without gimmies or temporary champs there are now and it'd be easier to follow the sport.

[Sttuddahboy619]

Comparing the HBO PPV numbers to the UFC PPV numbers is the wrong formula on judging how healthy each sport is, people look at these numbers and automatically assume "Boxing is Dying" "We need to fix Boxing" "OMG"

Lets break this down just to show how healthy the sports really are.

One sport is MMA

One sport Boxing

MMA has had 3 major organizations die the past 2 years and that's not counting Bodogfights,
Hardcore Championship Fighting soon to be Dream.

IFL -

The IFL was a MMA org that was founded March, 2005, in a very short time they were able to secure a deal with Fox Sports. Corporate sponsors such as Microsoft, Suzuki and Coca-Cola sign on, in November 2006 The company goes public. December 2007 "60 Minutes" prominently features IFL. Shortly after, its stock peaks at $17. March of 2007 MyNetworkTV begins screening IFL fights, June 2007 IFL shares fall to $1.

December 2007 IFL's contract with MyNetworkTV ends. June 2008 IFL cancels an August event at the Izod Center, saying the company can't afford to stage it. The CEO says the league is looking for a buyer or partner.

Oct 2008 the IFL sells for $650,000 - IFL DEAD

PrideFC -

PRIDE Fighting Championships was formed in 1997,they held more than sixty mixed martial arts events. During its ten years of operation, Pride was broadcast in 41 countries worldwide. Pride still holds the record for largest crowd for a MMA event at Tokyo National Stadium 91,107 in attendance.

On June 5, 2006, Fuji Network announced that they were terminating their television contract with PRIDE Fighting Championships effective immediately due to a breach of contract, According to Fightopinion.com and a Japanese magazine called Shukan Gendai, Pride has been run and owned by the Yakuza(Japanese Mob) for some time.

The owners of the UFC bought pride in March 2007 for a reported $70 million with the intentions of having another MMA brand in Japan, after failing to secure a TV deal in Japan, the new pride owner(Lorenzo Fertitta) was forced to shut down the company in October 2007. They fired the remaining 20 employees in Japan and closed it's offices. The UFC owners ended up paying $70 million for fighter contracts and a video library. - Pride Dead

Elite XC -

Elite Xtreme Combat was founded as a partnership between Showtime Networks Inc. and ProElite, Inc. Their first major event was in February, 2007, 1 year later it was reported that EliteXC had reached an agreement with CBS to broadcast EliteXC shows on prime time. The first show May 31, 2008 on CBS drew the highest ratings in the history of MMA in north america, it peaked at 6.5 million viewers watching the main event with Kimbo Slice against James Thompson. That week they ended up second in most watched sport shows on Television, the second Elite XC show on CBS on July, 26 was not what CBS was expecting. The ratings were down 40% from the first show, rumor were rampant that the company was hemorrhaging money but they still had Kimbo Slice so the next show had to be a blockbuster. October 4 was the next show and they scheduled Kimbo against well known 44 year old 1 - 7 in his last 8 fights Ken Shamrock, the plan an easy win for Kimbo huge ratings, sounds great. The day of the fight Shamrock pulls out with a cut and isn't allowed to fight, Kimbo has to face late sub and subsequently gets ko'd in 10 seconds. The ratings ended up being great but after the fight there were allegations of pay offs to keep the fight standing, The Florida state athletic commission starts an investigation to look into fight fixing. On October 21 it was reported that Elite XC would close it's doors by the end of the week, it was reported that in it's 2 years of existence the company had lost $55million . -Elite XC Dead

Boxing

The claims of boxing's death are greatly exaggerated, you will not be able to find a time when there has been this much boxing accessible to the general public.

Network TV

Telefutura(soon to be shifted to Azteca America)
Telemundo

Basic Cable

ESPN Friday night fights (9 months out of the year)
Versus - Fight Night
Fox Sports Net- will begin airing notable overseas title bouts on a tape-delay basis about once per month as part of "Best Damn Sports Show Period."
ESPN Classic - Boxing every night
Golden Boy Promotions is working on a deal for a monthly boxing program on basic cable to feature prospects.

Premium Cable

HBO Has a Boxing budget of $60 million a year, they had 20 shows this year not counting PPV.
Showtime has a Boxing budget of $20 million a year, they had 24 cards this year non on PPV.

All these different channels are pumping money into the Boxing economy, here in the US not counting PPV buys or live gate.

Non Us Boxing networks


UK Setanta
UK Nuts.tv
UK ITV
UK Sky Sports
UK BBC
Germany ARD
Germany ZDF
Mexico TV Azteca
Canada Super Channel
Canada TSN

Live Gate

The Top grossing gate in the history of MMA

CHUCK LIDDELL vs. TITO ORTIZ II
12/30/06 $5,397,300

Top Boxing gates of the last 2 years

FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR vs. OSCAR DE LA HOYA
05/05/07 $18,419,200

Oscar De La Hoya vs Pacquiao
12/6/08 $14,380,300

Ricky Hatton vs Juan Lazcano
5/24/08 $12,000,000

JOE CALZAGHE vs. BERNARD HOPKINS
04/19/08 $ 11,636,400

FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR vs. RICKY HATTON
12/08/07 $10,393,950


Biggest one fight purse for each sport in 2008

MMA

Tim Sylvia - $800,000
Andre Arlovski -$749,690
Chuck Liddel l - $500,000
Kimbo Slice - $500,000
Brock Lesnar - $450,000
Forrest Griffin - $310,000
BJ Penn - $250,000
Randy Couture - $250,000
Anderson Silva - $200,000

Boxing

Oscar Delahoya - $24,000,000
Felix Trinidad - $14,000,000
Wladimir Klitschko - $12,000,000
Manny Pacquiao - $11,000,000
Joe Calzaghe - $10,000,000
Roy Jones - $10,000,000
Bernard Hopkins - $8,000,000
Miguel Cotto - $7,000,000
Kelly Pavlik - $3,000,000

Which sport is dying again?? Boxing ain't going nowhere.

Great ****en post!!!

[KantotSilog]

what's the biggest MMA forum so i can post this ****! Good job bro. LONG LIVE BOXING!!!

[Sin City]

also, on the ppv numbers.. MMA stacks their cards, boxing doesn't. Even then we still get good numbers. Great post Mr. Pain.. Like always! very nicely researched as well!

[Mersey]

Best post I read today.

[hammerhiem]

While To a certain extent I agree with everything you wrote, I think it's a MASSIVE mistake to think that Boxing is running along nicely and everything is fine.

**** MMA, Boxing has to sort out some issues before you totally lose the next generation of fan to any other sport.

Too many belt holders.
Too many matches not being made.
No obvious progression structure for upcoming fighters so you have no idea what level people are at unless you REALLY know the sport.
Way to many PPV with awful undercards

If anyone think boxing is as strong now as it was in the 80's you are dreaming, and that has exactly Zero to do with MMA.

Do you think MMA aside from that idiot looking for press from teh UFC give a toss about boxing? I've been listening to a bunch of friends talk MMA in one form or other for 10 years, not one cares one Iota what boxing fans or pro think of their sport.

[Check]

Good post and some great points. MMA fighters have smaller salaries because the sport is only 10+ years old. When boxing was that young, guys weren't making what they're making now..

I love the post by Pain btw. I don't agree with your point that MMA is to young and thats why the pay their fighters junk. MMA is a league, like MLB or the NBA and Dana White writes the checks and can pay whatever he wishes. When boxing was young(not talking about 1600s) in the late 1890s-1910s fighters did make a ton of money. Jack Johnson, Jim Jefferies, Fittsimmons, Obrien etc all got paid a lot of gold/dollars. Boxers have always been paid pretty well. I really don't think its about MMA being young. Its more about Dana being a buisness man, pay the fighters less, make them fight lots on tv, build a fanbase for these fighters, and be able to afford big promotions. Not to know MMA but it is a company ran like WWE(which might not be a bad thing).