Rant: UFC will slowly take fans away from boxing

[Tony Trick-Pony]

It's called a comparison. 2 combat sports, one doing multiple million plus PPV per year, matching top contender against champion on a almost consistent basis and one where the so called face of the sport draws 250,000-300,000 PPV and the other gets anywhere from 97-150k and instead of seeing the top guys fight we get these ducks running away from big fights and then complaining why theyre not more well known.


For every Ward-Kovalev we get the UFC puts on 5 shows just like it or better.
I'll never give up on boxing but I'm a 40 year old guy and have been following before the UFC existed in the mainstream, guys I work with that are 20 couldn't care less about boxing and it's all about the UFC. So good luck bringing new fans in when we get older and fade away putting on garbage fights all the time that nobody gives a fk about while your competition is destroying you with quality fights.

So true. I prefer boxing over UFC but it's shooting itself in the foot all the time while UFC has top fighter vs top fighter. I'm just saying follow the model. It works. Boxing knows this but just casts it aside. It's okay though. The money's starting to dry up and time will tell.

[Tony Trick-Pony]

Mentioned at start of 2016, and Natas mentioned earlier, that with the retirement of Floyd and Pac (yes he's back but...) cotto, Wlad, JMM, and others at the end that boxing was going to go through a "build" period and thats what this was IMO.
-WW seems to be getting hot with Porter, Brook if he's stays, Broner if he can stay "healthy", Garcia, Thurman, Spence and others. Bradley has Arum working with Haymon, possible Crawford....
-154 Charlos, Lara, Hurd, Jrock, etc...
-160 is much more difficult but can have a jacobs, saunders, GGG, canelo round robin if they figure out how to play together
-175 having a fight to determine P4P 1 IMO going into 2017
-HW joshua, wilder, winner of sterv/pov or both depending on show and wlad still a player.

A majority of those mentioned werent as big last year. Fights or boxers. Exposure this year helped some

2017 we will see a resurgence......

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

That dying light is pretty blinding at this point. If I had not followed this sport for so long, I can say that I really wouldn't care. But when I first started following it, much better fights were being put on and the best were fighting each other. I hope you are right.

[Jsmooth9876]

1 umbrella

True but it doesn't change anything I said into lies.
Haymon has 200+ fighters in his stable and we geta handful of high caliber match ups? That's just terrible. Every decent HBO fight has to go to fking PPV now? Terrible...

[i got the keys]

I watch the UFC, have been watching for a long time...at least the late 90s I don't think the UFC will get any bigger than it is right now.They'll occasionlly have a big show once or twice a year....

We can speculate on boxing fans going to UFC, but no one knows....

I seldom find anyone who is 100% up to speed with boxing and MMA because casuals don't consistently watch either sport....

Ultimately, Boxing is the sport I love and I can't force anyone to watch....but everyone always knows who the best 4 or 5 boxers are....the same can't be said about MMA...

[WesternChamp]

actually ufc has been on a down fall. i was a huge fan of it 5-6 years ago and follow it closely but its been slowly going down the drain. i find myself more interested in boxing now where as before i didnt really care much about boxing.

[i got the keys]

Also....I bet if you ask a random person who's the best MMA fighter they'll say Conor McGregor....

[Scipio2009]

They have new owners. This happens at literally every company that's been bought. Nice try though.

The TS is right. I love them both but the UFC absolutely destroyed boxing this year. McGregor put the UFC on his back and is making them millions upon millions. Multiple PPVs with over a million buys already.

Haymon is killing boxing making fighters spoiled b**** so the big fights aren't happening.

McGregor, as far as attractions, is all that the UFC has at the moment, with no one else really coming along the way. The UFC name is a brand, but that only goes so far.

Say what you want about Haymon, he's got a pipeline chock full of talent (with a lot of guys having good buzzes in their local/regional markets), and there are tons of bouts on collision courses.

[Tony Trick-Pony]

McGregor, as far as attractions, is all that the UFC has at the moment, with no one else really coming along the way. The UFC name is a brand, but that only goes so far.

Say what you want about Haymon, he's got a pipeline chock full of talent (with a lot of guys having good buzzes in their local/regional markets), and there are tons of bouts on collision courses.

I've seen him showcase a lot of talent but that ain't getting it. I give him credit for Thurman-Porter but he's put together a lot of BS match-ups no one cares about and paid his fighters a lot to take easy fights. Something fishy there.

[pacmanis1]

No one even has to defend boxing right now, just call it how it is - a down year in a transitional period (Mayweather/Pacquiao era recently came to a close).

A part of me agrees with you but the problem is the guys we should be transitioning to don't seem to care to take on big challenges unless they get an unreasonable payday.

[-Hyperion-]

Boxing is dead in the US, but ultimately, who gives a s#it. Football(the one you play with your feet) is the biggest sport in the world with 0 need of the US market...some boxers will have to come back down to reality while us boxing fans pay attention to the big fights that happen elsewhere in multiple divisions. Hopefully the fans who are only going to follow what's available on american airwaves will enjoy the UFC.