As UFC continues its rise in the sports’ world, the future for boxing is up in the air
By JOSHUA NATOLI
Staff Writer
PUBLISHED October 11, 2011
As the stars were circling around Victor Ortiz’s head after a knockout by Floyd Mayweather Jr. I wondered to myself if this was good as boxing was going to get. In the past 5 years, boxing has taken a very seriously popularity and economic dive. This dive has led to various attempts to bring some life back into boxing such as free fights on HBO.
Even though the top Pay-Per-View event in history was a boxing match between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, the WWE and UFC still sits much higher than boxing in respect to revenue and popularity.
Much of this major dip in popularity can to be attributed to the rise of the UFC and that is rightfully so. It seems as though out of nowhere the UFC became a household name. Everyone have heard of it before and thought of it as barbaric and only for a true martial arts fan. Once Spike TV started to air past matches on its network, people began to realize that the fights were extremely entertaining.
It offered everything boxing did not have at the time; shorts bouts, better fighting, and better fighters. The UFC offers much more action than boxing does as well. By incorporating multiple fighting styles, more vicious combat and more interesting fighters, the UFC’s popularity has grown so far past that of boxing.
The biggest popularity boost the UFC received was the acquisition of former WWE wrestling star Brock Lesnar. Lesnar brought many fans of the WWE into the world in UFC and brought the UFC to even greater heights. Aside from Lesnar, the UFC features some of the most exciting and greatest fighters in the world such as Georges St. Pierre, Anderson Silva, and Jon Jones. It seems rather savage but people love the knockouts and tapouts.
Boxing matches can and very often do go all twelve rounds without any action whatsoever, wasting a boxing fan’s time and money. The UFC can pretty much guarantee a knockout every event. The fights in the UFC are also a lot faster paced and quicker than boxing, allowing for more fights on the card in a given night.
Another drawback boxing has nowadays is the lack of popular fighters. I highly doubt any reader could tell me about Victor Ortiz prior to the Floyd Mayweather fight. Boxing is long past the glory days when everyone and I mean everyone knew the fighters. Guys like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Mike Tyson do not exist in the boxing world anymore.
We still have Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, but those guys won’t last much longer with Mayweather inching closer to retirement and Pacquiao now concentrating on his congressional duties in his native Philippines. When these two are gone, who will carry the torch?
Wladimir Klitschko? Please, the only fight credibility that he has done was being in the boxing scene in Ocean’s Eleven. Bernard Hopkins? He’s old enough to be my father let alone be the one to keep boxing alive. Maybe Clifford Etienne can start some sort of new wave of boxing while he serves his two life sentences in prison. If Mayweather and Pacquiao don’t give all us fight fans the match of the century that we want to see, then they very well may be looking for a new career instead of their next fight.
This is one of the dumbest most biased articles I have ever written. The sport of Boxing has had a great revival worldwide in countries throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia. Do some research before you start just talking. The only place Boxing is having trouble is in North America because it is on premium cable and ppv.
No idiiot it’s no longer popular in North America because: 1) athletes want to get paid and they chose other sports (in boxing only the top boxers make some serious cash), 2) athletes don’t want to be brain dead after there career, 3) boxing is one of the most corrupted sports (judges, promoters, mickey mouse federations, etc…), 4) and finally, it is just not as exciting to watch as mixte martial arts.
My bad read.
Look these dudes up: Jose Benavidez Jr., Saul Alvarez, Brandon Rios, Nonito Donaire, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Gary Russell Jr., Andre Ward, and Sergio Martinez. Boxing is a world sport and mma is a niche sport in America.
It’s people like Floyd who give boxing a bad rep. Boxing will only get better. There are stars in the horizon. BTW watch and enjoy Pacman next month.
PACQUIANO!
“I highly doubt any reader could tell me about Victor Ortiz prior to the Floyd Mayweather fight”–Well for starters he had a great up n coming career that was derailed by Argentina’s Marcos Maidana. He pulled together some half hearted wins to get him in a position to get a championship fight which happened against Berto. Mind you both the Maidana and Berto fight were wars and had I believe almost a total of 10 knockdowns between the two. Somewhere after that the Mayweather fight came together. So, I’m not sure what you mean no one knows who he (Ortiz) is, I think you mean the casual “Tyson Fan” as they were once called, the one’s that just can’t let it go that we don’t have a Heavyweight Champion.
what a stupid article. In UFC u could guarantee a KO in every match? Are you freakin’ kiddin me?
Most UFC matches go like this. Fighters through the sloppiest punches ever. One guy gets grazed by a punch, he loses balance and goes to the floor. The other guy jumps on him and the ref stops the fight.
Please…jumping on a guy when he is down?
I much rather watch a pure BJJ match than anything UFC puts on.
Joshua, you are a moron who knows nothing about boxing or life for that matter. Not a single fact to back up all of your nonsense.
Oh, and yes, one other thing; the one who needs a new career is YOU because my cat knows more about boxing than you. If you think MMA is so great, why dont you ask your MMA buddies to hook u up! Moron!
Awful article do some research there is only about a 5% overlap of fans between Boxing and MMA. Soccer and Boxing are the two most global sports in the world. Go anywhere in Latin America and say Boxing is dead lol see the reaction you get. How do the UFC and WWE sit much higher in respect do revenue and popularity? Are you taking in to account all Boxing shows all over the world?
It’s funny you say do some research…and you have no clue about revenues generated!!! That’s plain ignorant. I will let you in on a secret…the UFC is now on Fox!!!
Joshua Notoli you don’t know anything about boxing. Here is a suggestion for you Joshua boy boxing is currently bigger than WWE and UFC put together. What your article needs to clarify is that you are talking about United States of America sports. Boxing is like the internet world wide. UFC are simply UFC contenders and champions not “World Champions.” There are more punches in one boxing match than an entire MMA card. There’s a market for everything and apparently there is one for grown men dry humping the living brains out of each other.
I think that y’all dudes who are really uptight about this article need to chill. I mean if you look at it right now yeah ufc is still more popular than boxing and i agree that after pacquiao who will be the next great boxer? cause i haven’t really heard of any great up and comers. But y’all need to chill on the kid Josh Natoli. Solid article.
Boxing is a sport where you trained to become better and compete in a way that involves physical strength it’s not for those who have a weak body and undisciplined behavior..