BoxRec

Again, who are you to tell people what they can and can't discuss?

The UFC is being discussed here in comparison to boxing - and the people here who are actually capable of having a discussion, are looking at what boxing can learn from a model which is undoubtedly successful and appealing to boxings main demographic.

If you are unwilling, or too naive, to see what boxing could learn from the UFC, that's fine - continue to bury your head in the sand and keep those fingers crossed that the fastest growing sport and promotion in the world goes bust next year.

As i've explained before you can't make a comparison between the two as one is a sport that includes so many different levels from Olympic Amateur Boxing right through to Professional Boxing and has many different promotional companies working within it wheras ufc is an entertainment company that is the sole promoter of its fighters

A better argument would have been Golden Boy vs ufc but again a pointless debate as Golden Boy has already implemented most of what the ufc is doing now and even more so in 2009

ufc is taking away from wrestling not boxing whose core audience has always been the over 30's and your figures just don't add up as since 2000, boxing ppv's have only been beaten by ufc once, probably twice now if you include this year but this is more due to a reduction of overall boxing ppv's plus the attendence of boxing has also increased each year since 2000!

OH and btw i said the ufc would be bust in 2011, not next year so you've still got a few years yet to get your ufc nuthugging in

exittored wrote:

Again, who are you to tell people what they can and can't discuss?

The UFC is being discussed here in comparison to boxing - and the people here who are actually capable of having a discussion, are looking at what boxing can learn from a model which is undoubtedly successful and appealing to boxings main demographic.

If you are unwilling, or too naive, to see what boxing could learn from the UFC, that's fine - continue to bury your head in the sand and keep those fingers crossed that the fastest growing sport and promotion in the world goes bust next year.

As i've explained before you can't make a comparison between the two as one is a sport that includes so many different levels from Olympic Amateur Boxing right through to Professional Boxing and has many different promotional companies working within it wheras ufc is an entertainment company that is the sole promoter of its fighters

A better argument would have been Golden Boy vs ufc but again a pointless argument as Golden Boy has already implemented most of what the ufc is doing

ufc is taking away from wrestling not boxing whose core audience has always been the over 30's and your figures just don't add up as since 2000, boxing ppv's have only been beaten by ufc once, probably twice now if you include this year but this is more due to a reduction of overall boxing ppv's plus the attendence of boxing has also increased each year since 2000!

OH and btw i said the ufc would be bust in 2011, not next year so you've still got a few years yet to get your ufc nuthugging in

Fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion, but there's little point in discussing this any further with you.

exittored wrote:The Valuation of 1 billion dosent actually mean jack to be honest as lots of companies in the past with those kind of valuations and have gone bust!

Reminds me of the type of people who say that smoking doesn't cause cancer because their granddad who smokes is still healthy at 82. Just because there are exceptions to the rule, doesn't mean that the valuation of Forbes is worth 'jack'. In percentage terms it's far more likely to be accurate than it is to be inaccurate.

exittored wrote: Ratners was not in a robust, profitable state before his appalling PR gaffe, that mearly put the final nail in the coffin for the company.

"...He got laughs and a standing ovation but the longer term outcome of his speech was a billion-pound turnover slashed overnight, £500 million knocked off the valuation of his company."

exittored wrote:Why will the ufc soon go bust? very easily as once the growth of the company stops which will happen in 2009 and increased overheads i.e fighters wages, marketing; come into effect, they'll start having to borrow to maintain their business and than fall short on those payments and declare bankruptcy which will will happen by 2011 for sure.

If the growth of the company stops why will the overheads go up? And given it's a privately owned company what evidence have you got for saying they'll have to borrow and then fall short??

exittored wrote:ufc is in its last years so i hope you enjoy it but dont worry there'll always be mma to watch in one form or another, just dont come to a boxing website to talk about it thank you very much

Now instead of uttering sweeping statements that merely highlight why a career in stand-up comedy beckons, instead just absorb this once and for all:
I am a boxing fan and love the sport, I far prefer boxing to UFC and have never bothered to attend a UFC or MMA show in my life. While i have the utmost respect for MMA fighters, I believe boxing is the superior product.
BUT... it is a product that is appallingly marketed whereas the UFC have done a great job in this regard.
My concern is that people are being 'laissez-faire' about the threat that UFC poses in the belief that boxing's position as the leading combat sport is safe, but that ignores the vital fact that the landscape is littered with superior products that were overcome by inferior products that were marketed better, whether that's in gaming consoles or trainers.
I am not categorically saying that UFC will overtake boxing, or cause boxing's demise. What I am saying is that you ignore its rise and the factors behind it at your peril, as it is a genuine threat. That attitude could result in boxing becoming the business equivalent of De La Hoya to the UFC's Pacman, with a sluggish, past-its-best approach allowing it to be toppled by a smaller but nimbler opponent.

Ok well i'm gonna leave things here than

I'm still pissed off big time about this title thread though, 'Boxing vs UFC - thoughts in the wake of Saturday night...'

Saturday was a great night for boxing and advertised everything that is right about the sport and why it's the most thrilling and exciting to watch

I saw 2 great cards on saturday night, an amazing fight between Pascal-Froch and the brilliant boxing exhibition by Manny Pacquio over Oscar in a PPV that generated 1.4 million ppv buys yet for some reason you chose the most negative aspect of saturday night i.e the warren card; that had already been universally slammed by the boxing fans and press and chose to start a boxing vs ufc thread when it wasn't even needed, just look at your opening line

So, now the euphoria over the Froch fight is starting to die down slightly, I do want to reignite an important debate.

that just wasnt right IMO!

Lets not reflect on the negatives of the sport as they've always been around in one way or another but rather Highlight what makes Boxing the truly thrilling and exciting spectacle that it is.

I'm looking at 2009 in a very positive light especially regarding British Boxing with the Olympic amateur's turning pro and the potential for the 100,000 people at wembly for the showdown between Hatton and Pacquio

EddieShredder wrote:

Datsue wrote:

Terry D wrote:Only one way to settle this. A unified rules, spandexed-up session of Greco-Roman wrestling, in a tub of KY Jelly, I suggest we send our women to fight this one for us.

I heartily agree, & would like to come forward to put forward my girlfriend for this, on the proviso that yours is in too.

Early rumours from my woman's training camp indicate that she may even be willing to ditch the spandex, if offered enough money.

In which case, I would like to nominate my mother as referree. She's kind of like Herb Dean, only white, and with less hair.

Think she'd be up for getting slippery with it, though?

exittored wrote:Ok well i'm gonna leave things here than

I'm still pissed off big time about this title thread though, 'Boxing vs UFC - thoughts in the wake of Saturday night...'

Saturday was a great night for boxing and advertised everything that is right about the sport and why it's the most thrilling and exciting to watch

I saw 2 great cards on saturday night, an amazing fight between Pascal-Froch and the brilliant boxing exhibition by Manny Pacquio over Oscar in a PPV that generated 1.4 million ppv buys yet for some reason you chose the most negative aspect of saturday night i.e the warren card; that had already been universally slammed by the boxing fans and press and chose to start a boxing vs ufc thread when it wasn't even needed, just look at your opening line

So, now the euphoria over the Froch fight is starting to die down slightly, I do want to reignite an important debate.

that just wasnt right IMO!

Fair enough fella, but can I just point out that as a boxing fan I paid £110 for my Froch ticket, I made a six-hour round trip from Somerset to Nottingham by myself and sat by myself for the duration of the undercard and the fight (though fortunately ended up with some good lads sitting next to me who I was able to shoot the breeze with), and then got through the door at 3am, so hopefully the fact I love the sport isn't in doubt.
And while the Froch fight reaffirmed why I love boxing so much, I also had to sit through crap like the Jack Perry vs Karl Taylor bout which was a sparring session masquerading as a fight (I wasn't aiming my guns purely at the Warren card in London) and the Tyson Fury mismatch.
It's the sense of frustration I experienced seeing the best and worst of boxing in one night that led me to post this thread - I want the sport to not just survive, but thrive, but the 'old school' approach to customer service/value-for-money and marketing has to change for this to happen. And we need to be open-minded enough to absorb lessons from elsewhere... such as a related combat sport using superior marketing techniques to win new audiences and new sponsors.
That's all I'm saying, nothing more, nothing less. And if I can't debate that issue here, then where can I, certainly not at home with the missus!

I'll nominate Paul Danan and Callum Best as commentators

ok dude, fair point

I personally enjoyed some of the undercard fights like Martin Gethin vs Scott Lawton but if you as the paying customer and hardcore fan felt letdown by it than that is something that promoters definately have to work on as you are the lifeblood of the sport.

I just think Boxing has the tools to fix itself rather than look elsewhere for solutions but it continually fecks itself up with the sanctioning bodies and promoters only thinking about now rather than the future

Rather than ufc, Boxing needs to follow football and have one world wide body like FIFA and than have organisations within it to correspond to different world zones like Uefa and the Premier league, they would be the sole match makers of the bouts to make sure they were matched right and be entertaining for the paying public and rankings would be based on actual acheivement rather than politics!

some good points on here and although i think this subject has just about had the arse kicked out of it, i just wanted to say a couple more things.

deserter's link highlights my main concern about the UFC - that the money doesn't go mainly to the fighters, it goes to the UFC cartel. Fighters have having to rely on sponsorship to make cash.
Imagine that in boxing - FW takes all the cash for a promotion, pays the boxers a nominal fee and then tells them to get some sponsorship.....worrying eh?

Now Ant Evans won't write about any of this in his ra ra ra articles praising his paymasters, but this should be a concern to fight fans. He highlights big PPV figures - BUT WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING? how's about someone calculates the total revenue generated by a UFC and boxing PPV and then works out the percentage that goes to the fighters.......

A sweeping statement was made about UFC being popular in Asia - it isn't. It's banned in Thailand and doesn't operate anywhere outside Japan. K1 rules in Korea, China is just getting into boxing and guess what they like in the Phillipines...? Nothing much going on in Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Laos, Burma apart from their own combat sports which are variants of kickboxing.

What about the Americas..Mexico, Panama, Venezuela seem to be boxing hotbeds.
As for Europe - what are the numbers in Spain, Germany, France and Holland?


Yes, UFC is successful to white, young males in the states - but they won't be young forever which is why i doubt UFC will remain popular over the long term. it''s a fad and something else will come along to lure that demographic (as deserter would say..).

a couple of years ago i did get into UFC for a while because it was new and it was a novelty to see people punching with such small gloves and the great knockouts. but it quickly became boring watching them roll on the floor. also the commentating of joe rogan ? was very annoying. everything was great and he was clearly a cheerleader hamming it up for his supper.

there is also the ''tapping out'' element which i dont like, because it is basically quitting. de la hoya got smashed from pillar to post in the seventh and eighth round last week but he was defiant and even though he lost, you have to respect the heart he showed for staying in there. same with roy jones junior against calzaghe. but in UFC, they say ''ooooh we are the toughest and this is as real as it gets'' but then start tapping the floor when their arm gets a bit sore from being bent around. that aspect of UFC is a big turn-off. fighters shouldnt quit.

yes boxing can learn from how UFC promotes itself, but that technique isnt just limited to UFC. Nascar also uses brilliant promotion to get the fans involved. the drivers are accessible, merchandise is great and it is all one big inclusive experience. at boxing you go to the stadium, have a drink watch the fights and then leave. more needs to be done on this aspect and it would be easy to do, as fighters are very approachable people (in the main).

boxing's future looks good. it's back in a lot of schools (partly to tackle the fat kid problem) and that wont ever happen with MMA. those kids will look out for who is the best in boxing as they are growing up. success at the olympics always raises the profile of the sport plus there are big names like pacquiao, hatton, calzaghe and vitali who are known to most sports fans. i doubt whether most sports fans could name you any UFC fighters.

this is the best ufc fight ive seen

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub4nR5UdqzE

lowersmiths wrote:
there is also the ''tapping out'' element which i dont like, because it is basically quitting. de la hoya got smashed from pillar to post in the seventh and eighth round last week but he was defiant and even though he lost, you have to respect the heart he showed for staying in there. same with roy jones junior against calzaghe. but in UFC, they say ''ooooh we are the toughest and this is as real as it gets'' but then start tapping the floor when their arm gets a bit sore from being bent around. that aspect of UFC is a big turn-off. fighters shouldnt quit.

I think this subject has been done to death, as you state lowersmith, but I am surprised by your attitude to tap out losses - especially for someone who claims to have followed the sport for any period - tap outs reflect the martial arts basis of MMA. In martial arts you tap out in training/sparring to concede without suffering dibilitating injuries; the same goes for MMA competition. Some fighters refuse to tap and want to go out 'on their shields' - this results in either unconsciousness from a choke or, more crucially, a broken bone. Do you have any idea how long a broken forearm takes to heal lowersmiths??

See clip below and tell me he shouldn't have tapped?:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1S9C2NoIP ... re=related

As recently as Weds (10th Dec) Steve Cantwell caught Razak Al-Hassan in an arm bar. Al-Hassaan refused totap. The result?:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vBf4pqbOiSA

This is what happens when you DON'T tap out after 'your arm gets sore from being bent around a bit'. Not nice, is it?

Cantwell is being villified (rightly so in my opinion) for his reaction to breaking Al-Hassan's arm - but can you question Al-Hassan's fighting spirit or will to win? Of course not.

As for De La Hoya, he might have retired (isnt that quitting?) after taking a beating against Pacman but what about his 'fist pounding on the canvas' BS against Hopkins? If the body shot was so debillitating how did he manage to pound the mat in frustration?

It is one thing to question the aesthetics and potential longevity of the sport of MMA, but to question the toughness and competitive spirit of the fighters really does take the p i s s

exittored wrote:ok dude, fair point

I personally enjoyed some of the undercard fights like Martin Gethin vs Scott Lawton but if you as the paying customer and hardcore fan felt letdown by it than that is something that promoters definately have to work on as you are the lifeblood of the sport.

I just think Boxing has the tools to fix itself rather than look elsewhere for solutions but it continually fecks itself up with the sanctioning bodies and promoters only thinking about now rather than the future

Rather than ufc, Boxing needs to follow football and have one world wide body like FIFA and than have organisations within it to correspond to different world zones like Uefa and the Premier league, they would be the sole match makers of the bouts to make sure they were matched right and be entertaining for the paying public and rankings would be based on actual acheivement rather than politics!

The irony is I agree with you completely. Good place to wrap it up then
Lowersmiths, you make some good points as well fella.

Fookin hated that Cantwell arm bar, Terry. Especially when you see it bend over 180 degrees. Haven't felt that sick since Gonzaga made Crop Cop's ankle bend 180 degrees.

For those with a less sensitive stomach; http://z.about.com/d/martialarts/1/0/p/ ... op_011.jpg

Emerson Poncey Name Ghent wrote:Fookin hated that Cantwell arm bar, Terry. Especially when you see it bend over 180 degrees. Haven't felt that sick since Gonzaga made Crop Cop's ankle bend 180 degrees.

For those with a less sensitive stomach; http://z.about.com/d/martialarts/1/0/p/ ... op_011.jpg

If you really want to churn your stomach up, take a look at the freak, football-style leg break that Corey Hill suffered in an off-TV match:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PVX_cO7CQWQ

Fast forward to 6:30 secs - the sound is well out of sync with the pictures. Be warned - it is horrific.

TerribleTerry wrote:

lowersmiths wrote:
there is also the ''tapping out'' element which i dont like, because it is basically quitting. de la hoya got smashed from pillar to post in the seventh and eighth round last week but he was defiant and even though he lost, you have to respect the heart he showed for staying in there. same with roy jones junior against calzaghe. but in UFC, they say ''ooooh we are the toughest and this is as real as it gets'' but then start tapping the floor when their arm gets a bit sore from being bent around. that aspect of UFC is a big turn-off. fighters shouldnt quit.

I think this subject has been done to death, as you state lowersmith, but I am surprised by your attitude to tap out losses - especially for someone who claims to have followed the sport for any period - tap outs reflect the martial arts basis of MMA. In martial arts you tap out in training/sparring to concede without suffering dibilitating injuries; the same goes for MMA competition. Some fighters refuse to tap and want to go out 'on their shields' - this results in either unconsciousness from a choke or, more crucially, a broken bone. Do you have any idea how long a broken forearm takes to heal lowersmiths??

See clip below and tell me he shouldn't have tapped?:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1S9C2NoIP ... re=related

As recently as Weds (10th Dec) Steve Cantwell caught Razak Al-Hassan in an arm bar. Al-Hassaan refused totap. The result?:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vBf4pqbOiSA

This is what happens when you DON'T tap out after 'your arm gets sore from being bent around a bit'. Not nice, is it?

Cantwell is being villified (rightly so in my opinion) for his reaction to breaking Al-Hassan's arm - but can you question Al-Hassan's fighting spirit or will to win? Of course not.

As for De La Hoya, he might have retired (isnt that quitting?) after taking a beating against Pacman but what about his 'fist pounding on the canvas' BS against Hopkins? If the body shot was so debillitating how did he manage to pound the mat in frustration?

It is one thing to question the aesthetics and potential longevity of the sport of MMA, but to question the toughness and competitive spirit of the fighters really does take the p i s s

those clips blur the line between what is acceptable as sport and what isn't - but i would say the referee should be stopping the fights when it becomes obvious that a break is going to occur without a tapout. i've seen a lot of mma fights where there are tapouts as soon as someone gets in a hold, and that just looks like quitting to me.

i agree with you re hopkins v de la hoya though

lowersmiths wrote:
those clips blur the line between what is acceptable as sport and what isn't - but i would say the referee should be stopping the fights when it becomes obvious that a break is going to occur without a tapout. i've seen a lot of mma fights where there are tapouts as soon as someone gets in a hold, and that just looks like quitting to me.

If a submission is locked on, the fighter knows whether he'll get out or not. If it's a choke, for example - the fighter might have less than 3 seconds to tap before he's out.. same goes for many subs. Just cos people tap quickly doesn't mean they're quitting.

Ofcourse there's exceptions to the rule, where fighters quit quickly, or even offer a sub - but it's the same in boxing, where fighters occasionally don't want to continue.

Anyone see the TUF Finale on saturday? The Kimura Krystoff sub'd Shane Primm with wasn't far from tearing his arm off

ive got to say that i was really impressed with royce gracie against matt hughes - gracie refused to tap out even though he must have been agony. maybe i enjoyed that because of the background to that fight.

Gray-Fox wrote:

ebeneezer wrote:The UFC still hasn't even scratched the surface of their potential in America as they are still unsanctioned in certain states, including New York.

And MMA is waaaaaay bigger in Japan than the states. The PRIDE organization used to pack out the 65,000 seat Tokyo Dome everytime they ran a show in it.

But if PRIDE was that big and profitable in Japan, why was it bought out by UFC?

They lost their TV slot due to their connections to the Yakuza being revealed and investors pulling out due to the scandal.

Their last couple of shows, which were not broadcast on television in Japan, still drew crowds of around forty thousand plus.

lowersmiths wrote: A sweeping statement was made about UFC being popular in Asia - it isn't. It's banned in Thailand and doesn't operate anywhere outside Japan.

There have been several major mma shows run in South Korea and Korean fighters are starting to appear in the UFC and in the top Japanese organizations. The PRIDE events were broadcast all over Asia.

As for Europe - what are the numbers in Spain, Germany, France and Holland?

Holland is, and has been since the mid 1990's, an mma and kickboxing hotbed. Bas Rutten, Gilbert Yvel, Bob Schrijber and Melvin Manhoeff, to name but a few, come from Holland.

Russia has produced the top mma heavyweight on the planet and has been well represented in mma since the mid 1990's also.

Fedor vs Linland was held in Moscow with Vladimir Putin in the crowd, Holland has held countless events, France has held quite a few, so has Lithuana, Romania and Norway.

And we still have UFC 92 to come, which is a huge card. Can we have number 3 as a Boxing card? ;;-)

Cotto v Margarito was just edged out to number 11 with 450,000.

Top 10 North American PPV buy rates, 2008

1. Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, Dec. 6, 1,250,000

2. UFC: Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture, Nov. 15, 1,010,000

3. Wrestling: WrestleMania, Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Paul “Big Show” Wight, March 30, 670,000

4. UFC: Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch/Lesnar vs. Heath Herring, Aug. 9, 625,000

5. UFC: Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, Feb. 2, 600,000

6. UFC: Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin, July 5, 540,000

7. UFC: St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra, April 19, 530,000

8. Boxing: Felix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr., Jan. 19, 500,000

9. UFC: Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans, Sept. 6, 480,000

10. UFC: B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk/Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida, May 24, 475,000