Tweet
September 14, 1:35 PMNY Boxing ExaminerMichael Marley
http://www.examiner.com/x-5699-NY-Bo...Martial-Aryans
"For me, I look at the UFC audience and the boxing audience as being two different audiences entirely. Our audience in boxing is ethnic. Hispanic, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Mexican and the hardcore boxing fan who can't watch ... like me ... can't watch UFC. UFC are (sic) a bunch of skinhead white guys watching people in the ring who also look like skinhead white guys."—Bob Arum to AOL Fanhouse.
“You can’t take my shoes off, and take my shirt off and throw me in a cage. You do that with animals, you don’t do that with humans. It takes true skills to be in the sport of boxing. In boxing, we know who's dominating. Black fighters and Hispanic fighters is dominating in this sport. ”Andnd this is not a racial statement but there's no white fighters in boxing that's dominating, so they had to go to something else and start something new."—Floyd Mayweather.
At the risk of being accused of Old Fogeysim and worse, I don’t understand all the hate these two adversaries have engendered by telling the truth.
Floyd Mayweather is right about the lack of artistry (where’s MMA’s Mayweather, let alone its Sugar Ray Robinson?) and how the pool of MMA fighters is decidedly white.
And Arum is right about how boxing is buoyed, as it has been historically, by the most downtrodden and denied minority groups, ergo today’s domination of the sport by Latinos and Asians.
What’s the difference between a photo or video of a large crowd at an MMA event and a photo or video from a well attended Klu Klux Klan meeting?
That’s easy, the KKK group convenes al fresco and uses fiery crosses. And I haven’t seen guys at MMA events wearing white sheets over their heads.
…Not yet.
Now just to show you how confused some people are, I just read an absurd column by Mike Freeman on CBS Sports in which his main point is that MMA is popular to its young, male (Caucasian) demographic because it’s viewed as sort of an outlaw, anti-Establishment sport.
Are you kidding me, Freeman?
What could be more buttoned up and corporate than the monolithic UFC which pays most of the athletes peanuts and brooks no dissent within its ranks? That’s like saying the NFL is outlaw.
Let’s just leave the White Aryan Nation types with their MMA.
Yes, MMA draws a representative female crowd, all white. The only black or Hispanic females you will find at a typical MMA event are dishing out hot dogs or popcorn. Or beer. They're called concession workers.
Boxing is a white supremacist nightmare unless you consider dominant super middleweight Mikkel Kessler.
The Klitschko Bros. don’t count as they rule over a toxic waste dump called the heavyweight division.
But here’s the real kicker as to Freeman’s nonsensical column.
Judging by his column head shot, he is a black man.
No wonder that, while praising Mayweather as a magnetic albeit negative personality, he ignores Pretty Boy’s remarks about not wanting to be “an animal” thrown into a cage.
Arum is an easy target but again Freeman misses the mark in suggesting that Arum should focus on promoting his own product.
Does he really think Arum’s blasting of MMA at Yankee Stadium during a five city tour for the red hot Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto promotion was happenstance and not well thought out.
Arum’s cheeky tirade put him on Deadpsin and other media outlets which would otherwise ignore a boxing news conference. He threw a match on what was already a Pacquiao-Cotto bonfire.
Arum’s rant also drowned out the rival Marquez-Mayweather promotion. Arum could care less about tangling with the UFC because he’s on solid ground in saying these are two different markets.
Mayweather gets it. Nobody's going to telling their grandchildren, "Wow, I saw Chuck Lidell or Rampage Jackson fight. I saw Kimbo Slice tap out. Or I saw Victor Belfort fight..."
Not the way people reminisce about the magic of Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali or Sugar Ray Leonard.
Arum gets it.
It’s confused commentators such as Mike Freeman who are clueless.
But--get this--Freeman confesses to this because he also writes that he can't understand the appeal of the sport.
It's a fad.
Go Google "Hula Hoop" and you will know what I mean. Or read up on how backgammon was the rage in the disco era.
Arum and Mayweather, an odd couple yes.
But, on this subject, a pair of truth tellers.
http://www.examiner.com/x-5699-NY-Bo...Martial-Aryans
"For me, I look at the UFC audience and the boxing audience as being two different audiences entirely. Our audience in boxing is ethnic. Hispanic, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Mexican and the hardcore boxing fan who can't watch ... like me ... can't watch UFC. UFC are (sic) a bunch of skinhead white guys watching people in the ring who also look like skinhead white guys."—Bob Arum to AOL Fanhouse.
“You can’t take my shoes off, and take my shirt off and throw me in a cage. You do that with animals, you don’t do that with humans. It takes true skills to be in the sport of boxing. In boxing, we know who's dominating. Black fighters and Hispanic fighters is dominating in this sport. ”Andnd this is not a racial statement but there's no white fighters in boxing that's dominating, so they had to go to something else and start something new."—Floyd Mayweather.
At the risk of being accused of Old Fogeysim and worse, I don’t understand all the hate these two adversaries have engendered by telling the truth.
Floyd Mayweather is right about the lack of artistry (where’s MMA’s Mayweather, let alone its Sugar Ray Robinson?) and how the pool of MMA fighters is decidedly white.
And Arum is right about how boxing is buoyed, as it has been historically, by the most downtrodden and denied minority groups, ergo today’s domination of the sport by Latinos and Asians.
What’s the difference between a photo or video of a large crowd at an MMA event and a photo or video from a well attended Klu Klux Klan meeting?
That’s easy, the KKK group convenes al fresco and uses fiery crosses. And I haven’t seen guys at MMA events wearing white sheets over their heads.
…Not yet.
Now just to show you how confused some people are, I just read an absurd column by Mike Freeman on CBS Sports in which his main point is that MMA is popular to its young, male (Caucasian) demographic because it’s viewed as sort of an outlaw, anti-Establishment sport.
Are you kidding me, Freeman?
What could be more buttoned up and corporate than the monolithic UFC which pays most of the athletes peanuts and brooks no dissent within its ranks? That’s like saying the NFL is outlaw.
Let’s just leave the White Aryan Nation types with their MMA.
Yes, MMA draws a representative female crowd, all white. The only black or Hispanic females you will find at a typical MMA event are dishing out hot dogs or popcorn. Or beer. They're called concession workers.
Boxing is a white supremacist nightmare unless you consider dominant super middleweight Mikkel Kessler.
The Klitschko Bros. don’t count as they rule over a toxic waste dump called the heavyweight division.
But here’s the real kicker as to Freeman’s nonsensical column.
Judging by his column head shot, he is a black man.
No wonder that, while praising Mayweather as a magnetic albeit negative personality, he ignores Pretty Boy’s remarks about not wanting to be “an animal” thrown into a cage.
Arum is an easy target but again Freeman misses the mark in suggesting that Arum should focus on promoting his own product.
Does he really think Arum’s blasting of MMA at Yankee Stadium during a five city tour for the red hot Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto promotion was happenstance and not well thought out.
Arum’s cheeky tirade put him on Deadpsin and other media outlets which would otherwise ignore a boxing news conference. He threw a match on what was already a Pacquiao-Cotto bonfire.
Arum’s rant also drowned out the rival Marquez-Mayweather promotion. Arum could care less about tangling with the UFC because he’s on solid ground in saying these are two different markets.
Mayweather gets it. Nobody's going to telling their grandchildren, "Wow, I saw Chuck Lidell or Rampage Jackson fight. I saw Kimbo Slice tap out. Or I saw Victor Belfort fight..."
Not the way people reminisce about the magic of Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali or Sugar Ray Leonard.
Arum gets it.
It’s confused commentators such as Mike Freeman who are clueless.
But--get this--Freeman confesses to this because he also writes that he can't understand the appeal of the sport.
It's a fad.
Go Google "Hula Hoop" and you will know what I mean. Or read up on how backgammon was the rage in the disco era.
Arum and Mayweather, an odd couple yes.
But, on this subject, a pair of truth tellers.