Comments Thread For: Arum Explains Why "Whites" Are Abandoning Boxing For UFC

[Boxing Logic]

they only love the pacman when it fits their agenda. their the first to throw pac out once they feel he's nothing special to them anymore. this is actually proven facts.

So ignorant. What "agenda" did white fans have when they were rooting for Pac in great fights against Morales, Barrera, Marquez, Cotto? You have no idea what you're talking about. And when has he been "thrown out"? You mean like black boxing fans root for Ward now instead of Sugar Ray Leonard? I guess that means they threw out Leonard! He's nothing special to them anymore!

No lmao. It means when fighters get old, boxing fans move on to the next great fighters who are in their primes. It doesn't mean they lose respect for what Pacquiao or others have achieved in the ring. Pacquiao's legacy will never be forgotten by boxing history because he literally made boxing history and was one of the top 50 best, and most entertaining, fighters of all time, who also fought absolutely everyone put in front of him. It's very hard to find that combination. Floyd on the other hand will go down in boxing history as a businessman, not a boxer, who didn't believe in fighting to prove who the best was, and who admitted to hand-picking his opponents and even tried to defend it.

Pacquiao will be remembered as an all-time great boxer. Floyd will be remembered as a WWE type businessman who ducked his greatest rival until he got old, and then in what was supposed to be his moment of triumph, got caught taking a saline flush, the purpose of which according to medical experts is to mask PED use. Floyd will be remembered as the Lance Armstrong of boxing.

[Corelone]

The UK has no such problem. There has to be more to it, the flight is a symptom. The loss of ancestral identity in America, where all white people are one (privileged) group with respect to anybody else, might have an affect. If the German whites go, it's a sign for all the whites to go in America. If the Germans leave England, good GTFO!

[TheCell8]

Arum is way off here It's not that white people in particular don't watch the sport, it's that YOUNGER people of all races would rather watch UFC than Boxing. Older white people still watch boxing over MMA it's just that boxing hasn't been able to appeal to younger audiences.

White people predominantly watch NBA and NFL over MLB and those are black dominated leagues, that have a higher percentage of blacks than MLB does. Why? Those are more accessible sports.

Boxing is dying out and getting run over by the UFC in every conceivable because boxing is still stuck in the past. It's not accessible enough to younger audiences, regardless of race, because they're still following a 1950's model and are failing to adapt.

I'll give you an example of accessibility. As far as online media, boxing doesn't have anything remotely close to rival UFC's youtube channel. Which is magnificent, I actually visit the channel daily. What's on the channel? Interviews, free fights, trailers, they have these little mini-24/7 type segments that let you know about a certain fighter and they post on there daily. Not to mention they have fightpass which allows fans to stream the fights online, but it also has other great features like an archive to old fights, Pride, Strikeforce, also they have corner audio for every fight. You can't find an equivalent of this for boxing. HBOSports channel has little 30 second trailers once every two months before a fight, Showtime does the same. PBC's channel is more active, and they've got the right idea, but all they post are highlights and an occasional interview. People get most of their news and information nowadays online. The UFC has recognized this and adapted and boxing has failed miserably in this regard.

[KLockard23]

lol There have always been a very low number of white fighters in boxing. Its never mattered before.

[Boxing Logic]

White americans are just more educated to understand what kind of fraud you , bob arum and other promotores have turned boxing into .

I wouldn't say it like that but certainly whites have much less of a "white pride" culture to create a rooting interest in boring fights than many black boxing fans have a "black pride" culture that does create a rooting interest for them to be entertained by boring fights, so long they include black fighters who are winning.

Because whites don't have a "white pride" culture, they essentially have no "home team" to root for in boxing. This means they can only watch boxing like a neutral fan watches the NFL, and like the neutral fan, their entertainment is completely dependent on the game being competitive and aesthetically exciting.

However, because many blacks do believe in a "black pride" culture, they do have a "home team," a rooting interest, in boxing. This means they can watch boxing the way a Lakers fan watches the Lakers: no matter how bad the game is, so long as the Lakers are winning, the Lakers fan is entertained and happy. Or, even if the game is 50-48 in the 4th quarter, with the Lakers trailing, the Lakers fan can still watch on the edge of his seat, filled with suspense, because he has a rooting interest, a personal stake, in the outcome. Meanwhile the neutral fan has fallen asleep.

That's the real difference. Because whites don't have a "tribe pride" racial culture, they can't watch individual sports, like boxing or UFC, with a rooting interest most of the time. This means their entertainment rests completely on the entertainment quality of the product they are watching, as a neutral. Since UFC offers way more competitive match-ups, it's natural the neutral viewer, such as most white combat sports fans, would gravitate more towards UFC. But since many black fans do believe in a "tribe pride" racial culture, they do have natural rooting interests even in individual sports, so long as the matchups involve fighters from their "tribe," so their entertainment is not dependent on the entertainment quality of the product they are watching, it's simply dependent on on their racial rooting interest and seeing their "tribe" win, by any means necessary.

This is why no matter how much Floyd Mayweather ducked and admitted to hand-picking opponents, no matter how much Mayweather or Andre Ward held, measured, ducked below the waist, and otherwise fouled, broke boxing rules, and ruined the entertainment quality of the fights they were in, many black boxing fans have still supported them because from their "tribe pride" rooting interest point of view, they don't care about any of that, they just care that someone from their "tribe" is winning or they can say he's the best.

It's like Portugal at the recent Euros in soccer. Everyone who was neutral criticized their super defensive style of play, how it was terrible soccer to watch, but when they won, the Portuguese people didn't care about any of that. They didn't even care about it while they were watching the games before they ultimately won, because they still felt suspense and entertainment watching these defensive struggles simply because it was their own team, and they had a rooting interest. The same exact concept applies here. Many black boxing fans see every black boxer as part of their "tribe," their home team, so it doesn't really matter what strategies the fighters they see as "theirs" employ, or how entertaining the fights are to watch for a neutral fan, or a boxing purist. All that matters to them is that their "home team" wins, and that they can say their "home team" is the best. Even if that claim is not remotely accurate, they have such a rooting interest that they want to believe it's true, so they convince themselves. It is textbook bias but that's how it works. Just like many Houston Rockets fans tried to argue James Harden was better than Lebron James for the MVP two years ago, and so on. People with a bias will try to convince themselves, because it's what they want to believe.

So that is what is truly going on. "Tribe pride" within much of the black boxing fanbase, and obviously within Mexican boxing fanbases, Puerto Rican, and so forth. The one group that isn't taught to have "tribe pride" by our culture is white people, so they have no built-in rooting interest for individual sports, and as a result their entertainment rests completely on the quality of the matchups, not on any rooting interest. And UFC regularly has the more competitive matchups, so that's where more white fans of combat sports have been forced to gravitate in recent years.

It really is that simple. I have observed this phenomenon for years and everything adds up, everything checks out. I have no doubt at all after paying attention to this for awhile now that this is what is happening, the exact opposite of what Bob Arum believes. But then again his PPV sales are in free-fall, he barely has any good fighters left anymore within his own sport, and now there's a completely separate sport which is also putting his business to shame. It's natural that he's bitter and looking for a scapegoat, and it seems the one socially acceptable scapegoat for everything in 2016 is white people.

So I give credit to Bob Arum for promoting some of history's most important boxing matches, and no boxing fan alive today will ever forget the historic career of Manny Pacquiao which Bob Arum helped facilitate, but this attitude of his scapegoating a mostly neutral segment of boxing fans just because it's easy, or most politically correct these days, because of his own biases or bitterness about the combat sports business, is unfair, and either misguided or misinformed as to what the real situation is, take your pick.

[AndyShitHot]

Think it's more about it being a big flashy brand that is a lot easier to follow than boxing. I know PBC is trying to do the same kind of thing and might yet achieve it but they need to add a bit more flash and swagger, plus rather than shunning the belts, embrace them all (the top one for each organisation) until you have the monopoly and can then pick the one(s) that hold the most prestige and use them to almost symbolise your own PBC champ.

I know a lot of people won't like this idea but this is how to grow a brand and that's what the UFC is, that boxing isn't.

[Motorcity Cobra]

]NOPE.its not that complicated ufc is popular because in their sport the best fight the best.[/B]unlike boxing where fans have to deal bull**** like a side/b side and promoters who don't work together.al gaymon is also part of the problem even more than arum.he overpaid his fighters so much to the point where they wont fight another decent fighter unless they get a crazy high pay day all because gaymon paid them ridiculous purses to fight bums.

How do you know the best are fighting the best in the UFC? They tell you who the best fighters are. There is no independent ranking system. The UFC was saying the best were fighting the best while some of their best fighters today were fighting in strikeforce. If Diaz vs. McGregor was the best vs the best why was McGregor vs Dos Anjos called the best vs the best before he got hurt and replaced by Diaz? And you say promoters don't work together. When was the last time UFC worked with another promoter? And McGregor was pulled from UFC 200 for playing the A-side card and Nate pulled the A-side card for the rematch too.

[al-Xander]

NOPE.its not that complicated ufc is popular because in their sport the best fight the best.unlike boxing where fans have to deal bull**** like a side/b side and promoters who don't work together.al gaymon is also part of the problem even more than arum.he overpaid his fighters so much to the point where they wont fight another decent fighter unless they get a crazy high pay day all because gaymon paid them ridiculous purses to fight bums.

Haymon is having a hard time making his top fighters fight each other now. Everyone wants to get paid millions of dollars.

Boxing is dying.

[P.K Dionysus]

I think there's SOME sense in what Bob's saying.

For instance, here in South Africa, there is a clear divide in terms of boxing and MMA here. There is an MMA franchise called UFC Africa, in which mostly African fighters compete, and most of them are white. This results in a the arenas being packed with white people, each broadcast gets good ratings, etc.

Boxing predominantly features black fighters, so many events have a predominantly black viewer base, although when the events go to our "bigger" arenas like Emperor's Palace, all the white people come because the tickets are pricey, and its fashionable. That, and most of the white fighters fight on those cards.

Its not just boxing though. Most sporting codes experience the same divide. Soccer = black, rugby and cricket = white. Strides are being made in trying to do away with the divide, but still, that's the landscape.

[Boxing Logic]

How do you know the best are fighting the best in the UFC? They tell you who the best fighters are.

You have no idea what you're talking about. There are plenty of independent MMA sites that do their own rankings. Moreover, the UFC system is based on results. The promoter still looks to make the best matchups, and listen to the fans, but there is also a ranking system. The promoter may choose to make #2 vs #4 instead of #2 vs #3 because it makes the better fight, or works better for the card they are promoting in a certain part of the world (they would prefer a Brazilian fighter for a card in Rio, and so on), but #2 vs #4 is still much more "best vs best" than what we normally see in boxing. And then the #3 guy will get his shot at #1 instead of #5, and if he wins keep moving up.

So yeah you're misinformed on this. The UFC's rankings aren't perfect, none are, but their rankings, and the matchups they promote from them, are 1000000000% better and more consistent than what we see in boxing today.

As for Mcgregor-Dos Anjos and so on, Mcgregor-Aldo was champ vs #1 contender. When Aldo got injured the first time, they made #1 vs #2 Mandes instead. Then after Mcgregor beat Mendes and then Aldo after Aldo came back from injury, Mcgregor was the champ, and they made a champ vs champ fight at the next weight class with Dos Anjos. Then Dos Anjos got injured, so they found a last minute replacement to make a fan-friendly fight, Nate Diaz, someone who is considered very good, not elite, but who is naturally much bigger than Mcgregor.

So it's not very hard to understand. Mcgregor-Aldo, Mcgregor-Mendes, and Mcgregor-Dos Anjos were all "best vs best" matchups of the guys available at the times they were made. Then Mcgregor-Diaz was never claimed that Diaz was the best in his weight class, but the fact he was much bigger than Mcgregor made the competition level even more difficult for Mcgregor than a "best vs best" matchup would have been at his natural weight. Just like a middleweight fighting the 5th best guy at 175 in boxing would be harder than facing the #2 guy at middleweight, in many cases.

So is it really hard to understand? Mcgregor signed to fight the best available guy in his division two fights in a row, then the best guy the division above his, and then he challenged a good, not elite, fighter 25 pounds above his weight class. When is the last time anyone in boxing has signed to fight the two best guys in his own weight class one after the other, then immediately the best guy the weight class above with no tuneups first, and then gone up 25 pounds, no tuneups, to fight a very good fighter? That never, ever happens in boxing. In any case, that run of opponents is generally referred to as "best fighting best" because that was literally the case for three of the four matchups, and the fourth matchup was made just as difficult by the size difference even though Nate Diaz is not the best in his division. Overall, three out of four matchups, and then a difficult size matchup, is considered "best vs best." It's not hard to understand. And that never, never happens in boxing thee days except maybe what Manny Pacquiao did in his prime going from best guy to best guy.

But that was years ago. These days you only see that kind of thing in UFC. Really, only Mcgregor, but the UFC as a whole still does "best vs best" much more often on the whole. You can't even compare the regular competitive top level matchups in UFC to boxing these days. In few weeks they air multiple "champ vs #1" or "champ vs #2" matchups. Can't even compare.