Ive been saying this for a long time and it seems to be becoming increasingly more accurate; boxing will lose more and more casual fans because of the lack of actual big fights ever happening. This is probably even more true in the modern day where entertainment is so easily available and accessible, people don’t want to wait around for months or years for their fix.
Like @SRCJJ said, UFC fighter pay sucks but they are constantly making sure the top guys are fighting each other. There’s just no way a top guy, let alone a champion, would be able to sit out while not injured for months on end in the UFC.
Most of my mates and people I know follow the UFC far more than boxing. It’s easy to follow, you know who the champs are and big fights actually happen.
In the time that say, Fury and Joshua have been top guys, they’ve never fought and in that same time frame, the UFC have had changes in champions in basically every weight class. At a minimum each belt is contested at least once a year if not twice.
And in the instances where the champion is injured, the UFC doesn’t fuck around, they put on an interim fight between the two next best guys and then the champion has to retain their belt against that guy when they return. And all of this would still take place in a shorter time frame than the average time it takes for a big boxing title fight to go ahead and actually happen.
Maybe the boxing establishment don’t quite realise it but the new generation of fans just won’t stick around like previous generations and if big fights don’t start happening more often it’ll only grow the UFCs market share even more.
Sort of yes, sort of no. Its more the contract structure than the pay structure. Fighters are signed to the UFC and generally can’t fight in any way outside of the UFC.
A lot of the contracts have clauses that require the UFC to offer a certain amount of fights per year so that generally pushes things along too, plus fighters obviously need the fights for income.
But none of this really precludes the UFC from paying the fighters more money.
The culture is different between mma and boxing. A loss in mma is not defining whereas it can be in Boxing. Look at all the clowns suggesting AJ is finished because he’s lost three world title fights. Ali lost five ffs.
There are more but I can only think of Ward, Floyd and Calzaghe who retired as unbeaten champions in recent times.
In the UFC, the big fights get made for two reasons, well three: the fighters need the money, Dana Whyte is a plantation owner and mma fans demand the biggest fights and don’t write guys off after a few losses.
Dana White promotes every fighter in the UFC, he wins regardless. In Boxing there are forty million and one promoters. Why would you risk your 16-0 fighter when you know they’d be questioned after one loss.
Yeah I agree to an extent. I do blame guys like Calzaghe, Floyd and others who protected that 0 as preciously as they did with careful matchmaking.
You won’t find a single undefeated fighter like Ward, Calzaghe or Floyd who didn’t come under intense criticism for their matchmaking.
But boxing fans and public have been conditioned to believe the 0 is so important. AJ literally lost back to back fights to a generational talent and people are writing him off as if he’s yesterdays news who’d get smoked by all the heavyweights fighting now.
My favourite fighter ever is Bernard Hopkins who retired with 7 losses I believe. I love Ezzard Charles, who retired with many many more. The greatest of all time is Sugar Ray Robinson who retired with double digit losses.
Ali lost 5 times, Iron Mike lost 6 fights, even the great Lennox Lewis lost twice. Holyfield got beaten over 10 times. Larry Holmes lost many. Foreman and Frazier had their share of losses.
You can trace back to the origin of the obsession with being undefeated directly with Floyd when he retired after beating Hatton and the whole hype around being undefeated. And the way Floyd would use his platform to denigrate fighters who’ve lost before just added to that perception of fighters who’ve lost.
UFC was main evented by a guy who had lost something like 9 out of 20-30 fights.
Nobody should ever retire undefeated in a combat sport because there is ALWAYS someone with the style to beat you or give you a world of problems.
Agree. I’m in the group that believes that Floyd didn’t have anybody even close to him during his pomp though.
The other problem with boxing is that there are too many organisations.
I can’t for the life of me see why we aren’t getting Crawford vs Spence though as it’s the only fight that makes sense in the division. Fury vs Usyk will happen I believe as Usyk won’t be awkward in negotiation.
Brings us back to the point people keep making though, this is the issue with boxing, this fight got delayed about 5 years til Pacquaio was a significantly less formidable opponent for Mayweather.
Mayweather didn’t want it with Pacquaio when everyone really clamoured for the fight, because he wouldn’t jeopardise his 0, and theres no authority in boxing that could compel him to fight the other best fighter around.
If nobody was even close to him in his pomp there’d be no reason for him not to give the public what they wanted and fight the best of the rest in Pacquaio. I think the delay demonstrates that Mayweather himself knows that Pacquaio was at least “close” to him.
We’ll have to agree to disagree Floyd was the naturally bigger man, with Olympic pedigree, who had fought numerous formidable opponents and an unrivalled skill set. People neglect the fact that it wasn’t a prime Floyd in there either.
I’m not arguing that the fight shouldn’t have happened sooner - it should have.
Manny was an excellent fighter and a great entertainer but with the amount of losses he took, the drug rumours and the fact that he and Floyd faced off on a one-sided fight - it is difficult for me to look at them as near equals.
The only thing I’d say on Floyd is that he had an awful excuse for why he didn’t want to fight a lot of people.
If we look at the top WW fighters of his generation;
Cotto, Margarito, Mosley, Williams, Pacquiao
He didn’t fight Cotto until after he’d already been proven to be past his prime with the Margarito and Pacquiao loss. He literally said he didn’t want to fight him in 2007 because “he lives too far away”.
He turned down at the time a massive payday to fight Margarito and opted for retirement post Hatton. Him and Mosley didn’t get it on until Mosley had an 18 month spell out of the ring. He didn’t fight Williams and the Pacquiao fight didn’t take place until 5 years after it should have.
I don’t know that anyone would have beaten him but I do know he actively avoided certain fights because they were considered too high risk. That’s one thing I do believe.
And I’ve always said Cotto in 2007 gives him way more problems than he did when they eventually fought as stylistically he had the most “Castillo” like ability on the inside and we know Floyd had a world of trouble with JLC.
Even the Hatton fight taking place at 147 when Floyd was never really a natural 147 guy anyway and Hatton never looked good above 140. Hatton NEVER beats Floyd but Cortez + 147 made the fight impossible to be a competitive one.
Yeah apparently Fury-Usyk are already in talks for a March fight which I’d be happy with. AJ apparently going with Whyte rematch or Wallin. I don’t like either fight but I don’t begrudge the guy a comeback fight if he is fighting 3 times next year.
Crawford-Spence not fighting is bad news because Ennis is waiting in the wings and he has the ability to beat both men and spoil the fight forever.
So just seen that Benn has relinquished his license. Standard procedure for anyone who’s cooperating with the investigation. I just hope that he’s not going to seek fights under other licensing bodies.
Scumbag Eddie is claiming that contamination is to blame for Ben’s failed test.
No mate- it’s called not timing your cycle properly.
It’s shameful that he spends his time calling out retired / semi retired MMA guys lol.
He needs to start fighting boxers even at a low level to garner some credibility. Nobody is giving him credit for beating a man who is near 50 and has never had a sustained boxing career.
You can definitely see the numbers at dwindling though
As has been discussed in here before, these guys are actually making fights happen. This is not specifically a Loma v Paul thing, just a general boxing thing.
