Last UFC card outsold Canelo PPV numbers.

[Elroy The Great]

britney spears, justin beiber and kesha sell out concerts too.

and ?

[KLockard23]

The point clearly went over your head. I'm referring to the surge in MMA and Pride being part of that - irrespective of existing today, they were a part of creating a viable alternative to boxing. Pride is one organization in a sport, not the sport itself.

What we do see today - is MMA having a massive chunk of the pie. To the tune of 5 events in the last 12 months alone with PPV numbers of over 1 million.

I've never said boxing is dead - I've doubted their ability to bounce back. What is incredibly short sighted, is not looking at the trends - and coming to the conclusion that boxing isn't in serious trouble.

Your "trends" are a perfect example of correlation not equaling causation. MMA is more popular at the moment but it's largely a matter of circumstance - Mayweather and Pacquiao's careers happened to come to an end just as McGregor and Rousey bursted onto the scene, but you can't just create megastars out of thin air. Give it some more time. If in three to five years, boxing is in the same state or worse while MMA/UFC has done nothing but grow stronger, then I'd agree.

[ostinato]

UFC hypes fighters like WWE. I was at the press conference for McGregor-Diaz 1 in March. Every fight had a quick video segment that promoted each fighter as the "best" at doing a particular thing. They called every fighter "the best grappler" or "one of the best strikers" in the world. They hyped EVERYBODY.
.

And it works because of all the different styles. You have Jujitsu, boxing, judo, karate, wrestling, Muay Thai, etc. Usually the top guys excel in one or two of those styles, so it's interesting to see different types of styles mesh. For example, in UFC 205, Wonderboy Thompson is highly decorated Kickboxer with a karate style, going up against Tyron Woodley, who is more of a wrestler/power puncher.