The meaning of boxing today?

[lobosloboslobos]

I'm 56 and as a young sports fan I was also a boxing fan. And it wasn't just the sport itself, which was hugely exciting, but the fact that guys like Ali, Duran, Tyson, etc. were understood to be the most fierce and dangerous guys in the world. The baddest man on the planet was a really powerful aura. (Whether it was literally true or not doesn't matter.) Like a lot of people I'd go out of my way to watch any big fight back then.

I know the decline of boxing is partly tied to the greed and stupidity and corruption of the guys running the sport, but as I have gradually become a fan of mixed martial arts, and come to understand the skill level of the best guys in the sport, I find myself completely uninterested in boxing. Partly because mixed martial arts is so unpredictable and involves so many different skills, but also because the aura of boxers today is just so diminished as a result. I mean who cares if Floyd can beat Conor in a boxing match? It was so obviously a fight where one guy won only because the other guy essentially had his arms tied behind his back. Or his legs, to be more accurate. It was good for a laugh but you couldn't take it seriously.

Anyway, I see boxing matches promoted all the time and I just have no interest whatsoever whereas I now go out of my way to watch UFC. And I guess I'm asking am I the only who feels that way (obviously not) or maybe, can boxing ever hope to become an important sport again?

And I guess even beyond that, do people feel that all martial arts are in a way diminished by the rise of mixed martial arts? Is the same thing true of wrestling and kickboxing and karate now, or is it only boxing that has suffered?

I can see that some people around here are actively involved in mma so i'm curious about what people who are inside the game think.

[aggerrard]

I think boxing can be as exciting as MMA. But the big difference for me is politics and different interest. In MMA you have a few major organisations, with UFC still being number 1, head and shoulders above the rest. So you have the majority of the best fighters fighting for one organisation which makes a great starting point. If the fans wanna see the champ vs the n1 contender, it will likely happen - in boxing though it's different promoters, different tv-stations and different belts, so making two champs fight each other will require much more to succeed. It's like if the UFC should negotiate a fight with Bellator, One etc - or a fight with Mayweather in boxing. Different promoters, organisations and tv-stations want to be heard and it just makes it that much harder to make a deal happen. That's one thing for me, we will have to wait years upon years for the fight we wanna see - while MMA (UFC) produces these fights all the time.

Another thing is the level of competition. In boxing you have these up and comings with padded records. 21-0, 30-0, 17-0 etc with really no names on their record list. Then they fight for a belt and defends it five times before facing an actual threat. As you said boxing is one-dimensional, so you have a pretty good feeling who wins a fight before it starts. Often it's not a question of who wins, but how the fight ends and how dominant the win is.

Also with these boxing-events, the undercard are often irrelevant - so it's a 6-7 hour wait for the main-event. Which again goes back to the previous point, you have 3-5-7 guys in each division who can compete with each other, and then the rest are unimportant more or less. In MMA you are mixing all the arts, and it makes the fights that much more unpredictable - and most of the fights are important. You can have a fight with a n15 ranked vs a n8 ranked, which can be an important fight for a division and for future fights. At the same time the sport is still young, so you have up-and-comings fighters all the time, which means we are seeing new contenders challenge the established names. And then back to the first point, since it's one organisation ther aren't any conflict of interest, so we will see the right fights and the true contenders fight the champions.

[Jasen777]

And I guess even beyond that, do people feel that all martial arts are in a way diminished by the rise of mixed martial arts? Is the same thing true of wrestling and kickboxing and karate now, or is it only boxing that has suffered?

I agree with you on watching boxing, whenever I do I can't help thinking that they are asking to be single legged. And when I watch wrestling or BJJ I'm like "punch him already".

But I think that has very little to do with boxing's decline, which seems to be mainly self-inflicted.

Wrestling (that is legit wrestling) was never very big in terms of fan support. Karate had a moment in the 80s that it was never going to sustain, but MMA may have hurt it a bit as now it's more of a "something to get the kids out of the house" than the pinnacle of martial arts.

[Duke4life831]

The "Death" of boxing really is all on boxing's shoulders. Like aggerrard said, the politics in the sport over took the actual sport and made it really hard to watch. For instance the fact that after the Fury/Wilder draw, fought Tom Schwarz and Otto Wallin before the rematch is beyond stupid. This would be like if Khabib and Conor fought to a draw their first fight, then instead of the immediate rematch Conor went and fought Alexander Hernadez and Joseph Duffy. It would've made zero sense. The padding of records in boxing is insane to think about. Once guys reach the top in the UFC, they only fight the top guys, there are no fights just to pad the records (unless its a late replacement fight). Boxing can be extremely frustrating watching a great fight, then finding out the next few fights for the champ will just be toss away fights.

I also think the sport itself suffers against MMA. MMA is still such a super young sport and you can still pretty easily see the progression of the sport. MMA is getting to the point where they're finally really shedding off the "no holds barred" persona and the elite skill level is starting to shine through. And I think elite MMA skills are more entertaining than elite boxing skills because there is a vast variety of different skills. Whether its Adesanya putting on a stand-up clinic in every single way possible, Khabib with his otherworldly grappling and so on. You watch that then go and watch elite Boxing, its hard to get out of the back of your mind that, that skill while very impressive is so limited compared to the MMA guys vast skill set.

So I think the horrible politics in boxing really opened the door for combat sports fans looking for something new. Then the overall excitement and skill level of MMA has really begun to show.

[REDDzone]

What decline/death are you guys talking about? I'm just wondering if this is reality. I'm a casual fan but my understanding is that boxing has had a great last 2-3 years compared to MMA. Especially with the likes of Joshua filling up arenas in the U.K., Fury/Wilder, Canelo, etc.

I prefer MMA to boxing but is MMA really doing better business wise?

[Jasen777]

What decline/death are you guys talking about? I'm just wondering if this is reality. I'm a casual fan but my understanding is that boxing has had a great last 2-3 years compared to MMA. Especially with the likes of Joshua filling up arenas in the U.K., Fury/Wilder, Canelo, etc.

I prefer MMA to boxing but is MMA really doing better business wise?

I don't think MMA is doing better than boxing now. I was think boxing compared to like the 80s for boxing and even before. Boxing used to be a much bigger deal. Granted this may be from an overally americentric view.

[lobosloboslobos]

What decline/death are you guys talking about? I'm just wondering if this is reality. I'm a casual fan but my understanding is that boxing has had a great last 2-3 years compared to MMA. Especially with the likes of Joshua filling up arenas in the U.K., Fury/Wilder, Canelo, etc.

I prefer MMA to boxing but is MMA really doing better business wise?

I don't think MMA is doing better than boxing now. I was think boxing compared to like the 80s for boxing and even before. Boxing used to be a much bigger deal. Granted this may be from an overally americentric view.

Yeah I actually don't really understand how boxing still generates these huge purses since I don't know anyone who cares about boxing anymore, but obviously some people do. Maybe it has to do with gambling, and maybe it's all phony or crooked money anyway. Or it may well be the international audience for boxing is still much bigger than MMA, but I bet that will change as more and more fighters from different countries become heroes as MMA champs. I'm sure Khabib and Conor both had giant influences on the popularity of UFC in their home countries.

But also yeah I wasn't really talking about money but more about status. Boxing's appeal today is nothing whatsoever like it was in the 70s and 80s. I mean Ali was hands down the most famous and revered guy in the world when he was champion, and guys like Sugar Ray Leonard and Tyson were also global heroes/villains. At a time when there was no internet and no MMA the world of boxing was truly internationally influential. Tyson Fury seems like a talented and interesting boxer but in terms of influence or notoriety he'll never come remotely close to heavyweight champs of the past. that's the decline i was talking about. Like average guys on any street in the world knew and cared who Ali and Tyson were. That's gone and probably gone for good.