One of my favorite things to read are various Boxing forums, especially those concerning undefeated Welter Weight Champion Floyd “Money” Mayweather and Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao. After reading through line by line of fans’ comments (some intelligent, but most ignorant and vulgar) I realize that many have come to a consensus that Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA, will soon overtake the sport of Boxing. Since I never take the time to respond to someone on the other side of a computer screen, I will take my opportunity to express my own thinking. In the words of the great Philosopher, Pink, “NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAA-I WANNA START A FIGHT!” I know my argument won’t get much agreement or popularity, but I can also back it up with facts.
BOXING vs. MMA: In my Couch Sports Expert opinion, BOXING is the superior sport. I’m not saying that I like it better, or that the future doesn’t hold the potential for MMA to eclipse the sport. I’m just judging by what I see now. Trust me, ever since I saw Brad Pitt and Ed Norton in “FIGHT CLUB”, I, like most men, have fantasized about being a part of such a club. Imagine getting off work, ripping off the suit and tie, driving down to some underground garage, and getting paid to break someone’s jaw. That movie made us all love MMA before it became what it is today, but I still think Boxing is in a class of its own.
Here are 3 reasons why Boxing still holds more interest over Mixed Martial Arts….
1. POTENTIAL
Most people who say that MMA is taking over the reigns of Boxing have that opinion for one reason alone: the Mayweather-Pacquiao saga. I’ve heard a million times that MMA makes the fights that their fans want to see. I tend to disagree. I too want to see a mega fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, but I also recognize that I haven’t seen a match-up of that magnitude from the MMA ranks either. In my opinion, Andersen Silva, Jon “Bones” Jones, and George St. Pierre are on top of the “Pound 4 Pound” list in MMA. Any combination of match-ups with these three fighting one another would be perfect……but I don’t see it happening. I don’t care how many casual fans claim they are done with the May-Pac drama, the mere mention of a possible match-up brings them all flocking back. The potential of that bout is enough to keep the sport of boxing afloat. And if it ever happens, a potential rematch will trump anything MMA can put on the table. Boxing seems to always come out with young, hungry, fighters who could potentially be the next “P4P King”, or potentially be the one to take down Mayweather or Pacquiao. That POTENTIAL is enough to keep us all very interested.
2. NUMBERS
I was once told, “Men lie….and women lie….but numbers don’t lie”. When you compare the two sports, the numbers don’t lie. In the few times that MMA has gone head-to-head with Boxing with a Pay-Per-View event, Boxing has clearly won. The first incident was the 2009 match-up between Floyd Mayweather (there goes that name again) and Juan Manual Marquez. Floyd was coming off a 21-month retirement, and if there was any time for MMA to out-shine the sports’ largest figure, it would’ve been that night, after a long lay-off, and against an opponent that the public was not calling for. UFC 103 recorded a buy rate of 375,000, while Mayweather-Marquez achieved 1,050,000 buys. (and UFC 103 was a cheaper event to purchase) If you need more NUMBERS facts, just look at the earnings of the top fighters from each sport. So far, Tito Ortiz has been the top earning UFC fighter in 2011, earning $1,045,000. I don’t think I need to even continue on this point when Sugar Shane Mosley made $5 million for the beating he took against Manny Pacquaio. These numbers clearly show a greater interest in one sport over the other. The NUMBERS don’t lie.
3. EXPOSURE
In the sports industry, it is proven that too much of anything is bad. A perfect example is the fact that the NFL is worth more than the NBA and MLB together. This really makes no sense on paper, because the numbers don’t seem to add up. In football, you have 32 teams, playing 16 games each. That’s a total of 512 games. Major League Baseball has 30 teams, who play 162 games each. That’s a total of 4,860 games. That equals 4,348 more chances to bring in more revenue. If you add in the NBA’s games as well, it is crazy to think that the NFL outweighs them both. The reasoning is simple. When you give the fans too much, they get complacent. You’re not worried about missing one baseball game in the middle of the season, because that single game is probably irrelevant, and you have a million chances to catch them on a different night. I can’t remember the last time I watched a full baseball game that wasn’t in the postseason, or that didn’t have postseason implications. MMA is to BOXING, as the MLB is to the NFL. You can turn on the TV any day of the week and find a mixed martial arts program. Not only that, you can usually find a replay of a fight between UFC’s elite fighters any day of the week. With that much exposure, you lose some of the hype around your sport. Are you really dead set on paying $45 on a Jon Jones fight, when you can see him fight at least 3 days a week, and you know he will be involved in at least two more Pay-Per-View events in the same year? Maybe. But, in boxing, you get to see the “ELITE” about twice a year. (If you’re a Mayweather fan, once every two years) You get one shot, unless you have HBO, and can catch a replay a few weeks later. Those rare moments will always keep fans salivating for the next big event.
couch sports expert 