Dana White: "UFC Is Bigger Than Boxing And WWE Combined"

[Pullcounter]

he has some good points and some bad points.

but i doubt the ufc is bigger than both boxing and wwe. that's ridiculous.

[El Chicano]

Dana is doing something right. This next season of TUF will raise their status even further.

[MANGLER]

Fuck Dana White, fuck UFC, and fuck WWF.

[Shadows]

Fuck Dana White, fuck UFC, and fuck WWF.

You can't say WWF anymore Mang; they'll come after your ass.


But yeah, Dana White is more delusional than usual with this ****.

[Talisayen]

Dana White is a good businessman; he put fans always ahead of anything else which includes his own financial gain. By doing so, UFC is gaining more fans and credibility by putting exciting fights that consumer appreciates.

Boxing needs a Dana White to run the sport of boxing back to its glorious days.

**** GBP, Mayweather Promotions, and Arum.

and **** crackhead sr.

[THE NAMELESS]

Circus is bigger than sport????you're braking my balls

hahaha

[Stalaggh]

Note to Mayweather & Boxing: The Battle is Over, and You Lost
by Jason Probst (jprobst@sherdog.com)

As the first boxing writer I know of to warn the sport about everything mixed martial arts was doing right, all I can say is, “I told you so.”

Five years ago, while readily employed as a contributor to Maxboxing.com/ESPN, I had an up-close look at the stark difference in the direction boxing was going compared to the rising tide of MMA. In the unique position as Max’s round-by-round fight scorer, I ordered every boxing pay-per-view from 2003-2007 and saw the grim deterioration in quality offerings. All the while, MMA continued to build its market presence, make intuitive matchups to establish champions and viable contenders, and, in short, act a lot like boxing used to.

The blowback at times was highly entertaining. I received e-mails from all kinds of people, both fans and industry types, about how MMA was a sideshow and would never go legit. These are the same kinds of people who said the Internet would go the way of CB radio, too vested in their own bias to objectively analyze the facts.

The only person at Max who seemed to sense the coming storm -- the inevitable crossing of two divergent paths -- was my editor at the time, Tom Gerbasi (who now is site editor at UFC.com). All my other fellow boxing junkies at Max -- who were and remain an extremely talented bunch -- didn’t see the train coming down the tracks. In 2004, I even fired off a lengthy, detailed screed to a well-known sports site (you’d know the name) on the exploding demographics of MMA and how they needed to cover it, but I never heard back. If there’s anything entertaining about journalists, particularly those covering sports, it’s how they know everything until the Precise Moment They Don’t.

Nowadays, the tone has changed markedly when journalists and fans discuss both sports and their relative trajectories. Instead of exploring whether or not MMA is a threat to boxing’s fragile market share (that’s so 2006), the topic is whether or not boxing’s goose is permanently cooked.

With the consistency of MMA offerings and the month-by-month process of chipping away at a fan base that is trending toward buying good fights instead of strictly boxing fights, I’d still say that boxing isn’t quite dead yet and never will be. It will, however, remain in critical condition unless things change. Today’s MMA fan might follow boxing if the sport delivered like it did 10 years ago or in the 70s and 80s. You simply don’t get the same **** for your buck with boxing that you used to.

After covering the sport for 10 years, and following it readily for 30, that’s the best I can offer. But more importantly, I no longer have to care. It’s like a once-wonderful marriage that went south in the last decade, and I’ve left it for a better one.

Four years removed from the seminal Forrest Griffin-Stephan Bonnar classic on ****eTV, the verdict is in. And with the desperate bleating of boxing people -- from Bob Arum to Floyd Mayweather and everyone else with an opinion a day late and several pay-per-view sales short -- boxing people are reduced to taking desperate pot shots at MMA to continue deluding themselves.

The latest entry is the public perception that this Saturday’s Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Juan Manuel Marquez bout is competing with UFC 103. It’s perfectly fitting that Mayweather himself instigated this pseudo-showdown, asking the bout be rescheduled from July to Saturday night after his injury this summer; his career is emblematic of everything that’s wrong with boxing, a once-great sport that has given shrinking returns to fans in recent years.

Mayweather “retired” after his last bout, a December 2007 stoppage of Ricky Hatton. Rightfully hailed as the sport’s pound-for-pound king, and with a deep cast of potential opponents, including Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito, he decided there were no more challenges for him. Despite an $8-million offer from Top Rank to face Margarito, the sport’s pound-for-pound king deemed the cupboard bare and not worthy of contemplation.

The Mayweather-Hatton bout was a splendid example of what boxing can be when given a solid matchup. Mayweather was masterful in dispatching the unbeaten Hatton, and then disappeared, despite that win and a decision over Oscar De La Hoya earlier in the year.

Fittingly, that same night was a busy one for fans of both sports: “The Ultimate Fighter 6” finale was on. On a solid card, Roger Huerta scored a dramatic stoppage of Clay Guida. Since then, the UFC has put on 34 shows -- pay-per-views and cable TV cards, and assembled a list of champions in its five weight divisions that are probably the most marketable and talented in the sport’s history.

Meanwhile, boxing’s best continue to lurk in semi-annual bouts, as the sport’s lack of cohesive organizational structure hampers the public’s ability to see its finest talent on display.

Since that fight 21 months ago, the top five Ring Magazine pound-for-pound fighters have fought a total of 13 bouts -- Pacquiao (4), Marquez (3), Bernard Hopkins (2), Shane Mosley (2) and Israel Vasquez (1) -- and that’s counting Pacquiao-Marquez II twice because they’re both on the list. Boxing’s best talents are bottlenecked into a weird operational model where networks, pay-per-view, sanctioning bodies and belts form a messy series of conflicting interests. The UFC’s emerging grip on the sport elicits different opinions from different people, but the guy plunking down $44.95 for pay-per-views is really the last authority on the matter. And business just keeps getting better.

[Stalaggh]

Compare that to boxing, where the best guy in the division isn’t holding any of the four “major” belts in any of the 17 weight divisions. And with a twice-a-year schedule due to limited dates and the ever-changing “championships,” it can be downright confusing.

Sometimes I’ll check the schedule of upcoming boxing bouts and wonder “Wow! What if guys like Pacquiao, Cotto and Mosley fought four times a year? There would be some tough choices to make with pay-per-views.” And then I laugh myself to sleep.

With Mayweather taking on Marquez at a 144-pound catchweight, there is no discernible “belt” or “title” at stake, and Floyd fights a former featherweight titlist who has never competed above 135.

It would be a decent comeback fight for HBO’s Championship Boxing showcase, but as a pay-per-view, it’s just another example of the sucker fan getting rooked. Particularly in the era of the interwebs, where anyone with a mouse and a little know-how can watch fights for free that same night (yeah, I said it). On a related note that will further infuriate the Luddites, you can also place ads on Craigslist for free, instead of getting jacked-up rates through your local newspaper. If anything, the pay-per-view model might be doomed itself, but that’s another topic for another time.

Boxing fans can point to the quality undercard Saturday night in rebuttal, which has three compelling bouts (in my book that’s anything less than a 3-1 at the betting window). To which my answer is, “Congratulations! You just described pretty much every MMA undercard I’ve ever bought.”

Because with every Mayweather bout, the question isn’t just how much it sells. It’s who would want to buy it again. That is why mixed martial arts succeeds -- along with coherent storylines and contenders getting title shots.

Mayweather is a rare talent, despite his inflated opinion of himself. The man can fight, but he has dramatically squandered a once-in-a-decade skill set through inactivity and repeated run-ins with everyone from reporters to the law. To say nothing of fans.

The buildup to his bout to pay-per-view snoozers against Carlos Baldomir, Zab Judah and then De La Hoya were like hearing a snake oil salesman pitch an unsuspecting widow on buying a case of the new and improved stuff.

And the only reason Mayweather unretired is because the IRS reportedly slapped him with a $6-million tax lien (despite what he and his quasi-intelligible uncle said on HBO’s 24/7 show. Unlike fight publicity hacks, the IRS is not known for sending out meaningless pronouncements). For his sake, he’s lucky he’ll have a big-money foe available after the Miguel Cotto-Pacquiao bout Nov. 11. For fans, not so much, because you’ll have to wait another six months to see it. If it happens. Meanwhile, MMA will continue to flourish, and its flagship promotion, the UFC, will continue to make fights fans want.

Got a matchup fans don’t like, such as Dan Henderson-Rich Franklin II? Replace Henderson with Vitor Belfort.

Got an injured fighter in a main event card? Put in a top-flight substitute on short notice (if you need examples, click back to the boxing page you came from, where such efficiency is unknown).

Need to get Brock Lesnar in the cage again? Scrap Cain Velasquez-Shane Carwin and give Carwin a go at the biggest name in the sport.

And so on. And check your cable guide while you’re at it -- MMA is on everywhere. Where are the meaningful boxing bouts of years past?

Every time Lesnar fights, the “heavyweight champion” of the world question is more likely to be a guy in MMA rather than one of the three beltholders in boxing, none of whom can trace their lineage back to John L. Sullivan and haven’t been able to do so since Lennox Lewis retired in 2003. It’s been six years since the biggest title in sports lost the name associated with it, a massive break in continuity that MMA will invariably fill. Throw in this week’s debut of “The Ultimate Fighter 10,” complete with heavyweights, and that’s more nails in boxing’s coffin for this so-called “battle” that was won four years ago.

And while we’re at it, think about Strikeforce’s incremental growth and the signing of Fedor Emelianenko. The UFC was doing well without meaningful stateside competition. Imagine them with their feet to the fire (which is exactly why Lesnar-Carwin was made). Love them or hate them, they played a solid game when nobody was paying attention to them. Think about how they’ll play now with a potential emerging rival.

Very little of this type of thinking is going on in boxing, which is why Saturday night is anything but a showdown. Boxing has already been surpassed. Mayweather and Marquez might even have a decent fight, surprising the more hardened watchers of the sweet science.

But either way, by the time boxing’s best get back down to business again in matchups that truly define the best against the best, MMA will have outdone them five-to-one in those same kinds of fights.

I told you so.


http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles...You-Lost-19810

[Pecs]

I agree that UFC is doing well, BUT Dana white went overboard with his "UFC is bigger than Boxing and WWE combined".
WWE is actually going downhill as far as PPV sales goes. Boxing is still doing fine with the big fights (about 3 a year??)

[pacmanis1]

say what you want about the wwe but they did pack 70,000 people into a stadium for wrestlemania 25. all these buisnesses are cyclical. boxing doesnt have there tyson, wrestling doesnt have there stone cold, but ufc does have lesnar. they all need a star who can cross over to the mainstream and ufc has that right now. i dont watch much wrestling anymore but i tuned in the last week and saw some guy named john morrision who i can honestly say made me want to turn in next week. guys got a crazy finishin move, youtube it.