on the verge of ufc 100 let me be the first to say...

[zato-one]

UFC is losing its hold on combat sports. :bbb
It seems as the boxing cards stack up against the ufc cards lately, its the boxing events you hear people talking about. Honestly, and hold me to this....If david haye wins his fight with klitch, the MMA>Boxing junk will be put to an end. Honestly, with the UFC fighters being so replaceable (ask dana white...he apparently likes to slander any fighter that doesnt win) it seems that they are trying to push new names up in UFC....Guess what....ITS NOT WORKING. People dont care about the new guys, and unfortunately with NO RANKING SYSTEM it seems that dana white is just throwing "whoever is popular at the time" against the champion. Sorry, dont get me wrong, and I should have stated at the beginning, I DO watch mma, and i have enjoyed watching it all my life....But its not something I could ever invest too much time in, as it always seemed like novelty to me. The casual fans that I talk to all seem to be in agreement....UFC is starting to slide.

So then....And quote me on this...

With the rise of pac and mayweathers return, one MEGA fight (understatement) on the verge of possibly happening, and a roster of such big tallent like williams, pacquiao, mosley, cotto, mayweather, things can only be looking up....there is however one thing that is missing from boxing being number 1.

Heavyweights.

Sweet and simple...If Haye wins, and can keep winning (im not a huge haye fan, but he is awesome for boxing) you will see the depleted heavyweight division start to grow again (hopefully).

Things are looking up for boxing...Im not so sure about mma.

The whole time MMA was on the rise I couldnt help of thinking of the wwf's HUGE popularity back in the late 90s. Novelty that didn't last...The shtick got old...Trends wore thin...Now they tape off half their stadiums to do tv shows so that it looks like people are still coming.

*sigh* well....enough ranting from me

[HeavyT]

I'm pretty sure they are still growing but UFC does lack a good ranking system, there not doingthe sport of MMA any favours. Thats another thing, its MMA, not UFC if you see what I mean. WWF still probably sell out the average world championship boxing shows, and consistently too.

[Imperial1]

I'm pretty sure they are still growing but UFC does lack a good ranking system, there not doingthe sport of MMA any favours. Thats another thing, its MMA, not UFC if you see what I mean. WWF still probably sell out the average world championship boxing shows, and consistently too.


Why do they need rankings ? In the UFC the chances of the best fighting the best are much greater in MMA than in boxing ..The ranking system in boxing is very flawed as well as corrupt ..

If anything they should take notes as to what the UFC is doing when their best fighters fight the best fighters ! Its only because the UFC has been giving boxing a run did they start to satck their cards ..The Lesner /Coture PPV got the over 1 mil in ppv buys ..It was time for boxing to get some healthy comp !!

[nervousxtian]

The thing is, how the hell do you know who is the best?

Most guys haven't fought all that much, and a lot of the fights are jokes. You also see too many upsets, which is of course because one little slip or mistake and it's over. Sometimes you can't even say the best guy won the fight, they'd have to fight multiple fights to prove it. Even more-so than boxing.

In the end of a boxing match, you almost always know who is better... can't say that's always true in MMA.

[liljp361]

The thing is, how the hell do you know who is the best?

Most guys haven't fought all that much, and a lot of the fights are jokes. You also see too many upsets, which is of course because one little slip or mistake and it's over. Sometimes you can't even say the best guy won the fight, they'd have to fight multiple fights to prove it. Even more-so than boxing.

In the end of a boxing match, you almost always know who is better... can't say that's always true in MMA.

and there you have it

[UFgators]

The thing is, how the hell do you know who is the best?

Most guys haven't fought all that much, and a lot of the fights are jokes. You also see too many upsets, which is of course because one little slip or mistake and it's over. Sometimes you can't even say the best guy won the fight, they'd have to fight multiple fights to prove it. Even more-so than boxing.

In the end of a boxing match, you almost always know who is better... can't say that's always true in MMA.

Yeah I see way too many fluke wins by guys because of some bs submission or lucky punch(having those small gloves helps).

Ultimately, UFC fans should enjoy this period of UFC when the fights the fans want are made and theres not a lot of corruption. The structure will crumble and split off into different organizations when they realize Dana fucks them over and is a dick.

I will honestly say that Pac-Hatton was the first boxing match I've heard a lot of people my age(college kids) talking about. There was a lot of interest in the fight and as soon as it was over those same people wanted Pac-Floyd. This is a good sign for boxing as all I've heard from these same people is UFC bullshit.

[Vengeance]

Some would say that's what makes MMA interesting. There's more crazy upsets. The top guys can lose to a nobody on any given day. If you get caught in the wrong position, it will happen.

[TKDfighterJoe]

boxing has been around and will always be around and in large quantity.

UfC is a fad and it's days are numbered. the huge showboating entrances, trash talking, rap music, strippers, rampant steroids, bad additudes, horrible commentary will all land it next to slamball, 'pro wrestling', and crappy skateboarding on mtv.

MMA will stay and may even shape up but ufc is on a collision course.

[1lehudson]

The problem with the UFC are the same things that are wrong with boxing only at different ends of the scale...In Boxing they say there are too many Champs, too many weights, no central governing body. While the UFC is run by ONE person that says you will fight this guy or eles.

Both are flawed. Boxing because It seems that all the red tape and different groups often make it hard or sometimes impossible to make the fights that we all want to see. UFC because the KING can freeze out fighters that he has problems with, or dictate who will or wont get shots, and there is little that person can do to breakthough.

It all ends on the same road, a product not offering what the people that support it wants.

[TKDfighterJoe]

If mma could start an amateur NGB that regulates well they might create a foundation for fighters to develop in then switch over to pro so that all televised fights are elite level.

Soo many of these fights I see televised have fighters who are utter shit.

[1lehudson]

If mma could start an amateur NGB that regulates well they might create a foundation for fighters to develop in then switch over to pro so that all televised fights are elite level.

Soo many of these fights I see televised have fighters who are utter shit.There are too many of them, that is the problem..

[TKDfighterJoe]

There are too many of them, that is the problem..too many on pro level right? are there any amateur mma leauges?

I suppose I mean they need to take all the show out and organize as a single sport. there are probably a lot of variations in the rules.

[1lehudson]

too many on pro level right? are there any amateur mma leauges?

I suppose I mean they need to take all the show out and organize as a single sport. there are probably a lot of variations in the rules.
Yeah, they just put any bum on TV. No training no skills. Hell even the WWE has a training school that most of them has to spend a couple of years learning the trade.

[Wilhelm]

boxing has been around and will always be around and in large quantity.

UfC is a fad and it's days are numbered. the huge showboating entrances, trash talking, rap music, strippers, rampant steroids, bad additudes, horrible commentary will all land it next to slamball, 'pro wrestling', and crappy skateboarding on mtv.

MMA will stay and may even shape up but ufc is on a collision course.

Say what you will about it being a fad or whatever, but all of those things I've highlighted are MUCH worse in boxing than in the ufc. I've never seen any UFC guy to a ring entrance 1% as bad as Hamed or Macho Camacho or even Spinks with his shitty dancing. I've never seen anyone wear a sombrero or a fat suit either. The trash talk and rap are exactly the same as in boxing, the ring card girls are exactly the same the steroids are comparable (the only top guys I can think of in either sport are Toney and Mosley in boxing and Sherk in the UFC) and I have no idea what you mean by "bad attitudes". Sure the commentary is fucking horrible because Goldberg sucks, but there are people out there who hate Kellerman more than death.

[Wilhelm]

Yeah, they just put any bum on TV. No training no skills. Hell even the WWE has a training school that most of them has to spend a couple of years learning the trade.

That's bullshit as well. It's a different type of thing than boxing because everyone comes to being a top pro boxer by doing the same path through ams and then fighting bums for a few years and then slowly moving up whereas in mma some guys come from kickboxing and some from wrestling and some from judo etc. Guys can become the best in the world in mma with only a few fights in mma because they had a thousand matches in other sports. BJ Penn fought for the title in his fourth fight. If you watch Matt Hughes punch you'd think he hardly trained for it ever, but he was the most dominant UFC champ ever because he didn't ever need to punch on his feet.

The point is, just because the guy looks bad at something doesn't mean he has no training AT ALL, it's just probably in another aspect of the sport.

[TKDfighterJoe]

Say what you will about it being a fad or whatever, but all of those things I've highlighted are MUCH worse in boxing than in the ufc. I've never seen any UFC guy to a ring entrance 1% as bad as Hamed or Macho Camacho or even Spinks with his shitty dancing. I've never seen anyone wear a sombrero or a fat suit either. The trash talk and rap are exactly the same as in boxing, the ring card girls are exactly the same the steroids are comparable (the only top guys I can think of in either sport are Toney and Mosley in boxing and Sherk in the UFC) and I have no idea what you mean by "bad attitudes". Sure the commentary is fucking horrible because Goldberg sucks, but there are people out there who hate Kellerman more than death.much worse =/= 'exactly the same' / 'comparable'. inconsistancy in your post though it's not a huge concearn.

Smack talking in ufc includes excessive profanity and the commentators idolize people who 'have no respect for the sport' (not that there ever was any in ufc). The entrance music is always rap which is to my knowledge chosen by dana to make it look 'badass'. On T.v it is extremely loud and vulgar, whereas boxing simply has background music in the stadium.

I cannot emulate smacktalking becuase I'm not going to quote hundreds of minutes of video, but pac vs hatton included 'I think ive got the better boxer' 'he has no chance' 'he punches like a novice' whereas ufc typically follows 'his ass is grass' 'he needs to STFU' etc.. with often excessive profanity.

I must retract what I said about entrances, I've been watching too much WEC where the fighters walk in on illuminated walkways often out of the mouth of some kind of dragon with flames and stuff.

never heard anything about bad additudes? thats laughable.

Steroids eh? sherk eh?
lets try...

Royce Gracie ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
Chris Leben ([Only registered and activated users can see links])
( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
Hermes Franca ^
Nate Marquardt ^
and Stephan Bonnar ^
Josh Barnett ^
Tim Sylvia ^
Stephan Bonnar ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
Anthony Torres ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )

*strikeforce*Adam Smith ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
Dennis Hallman *former ufc* ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
*strike force* Alexander Crispim ^


mostly WEC:

antonio silva ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
ken Shamrock ([Only registered and activated users can see links])
Alexandre Noguiera ([Only registered and activated users can see links])
Phil baroni ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )

wow almost all the top guys in eliteXC are juicers. and these are the guys that are caught....

[scurlaruntings]

The problem with the UFC are the same things that are wrong with boxing only at different ends of the scale...In Boxing they say there are too many Champs, too many weights, no central governing body. While the UFC is run by ONE person that says you will fight this guy or eles.

Both are flawed. Boxing because It seems that all the red tape and different groups often make it hard or sometimes impossible to make the fights that we all want to see. UFC because the KING can freeze out fighters that he has problems with, or dictate who will or wont get shots, and there is little that person can do to breakthough.

It all ends on the same road, a product not offering what the people that support it wants.
Boxing may be flawed but the facts remain compeition is essential for a sport to survive. Its not often we see anything less than the big 3 being marketed as a world championship bouts. Boxing also has independant and an organisational ranking systems. The UFC has neither. Dana simply pits whomever he wants against whoever he wants that will make the card and himself the most money. If he had a ranking system Lesnar would NOT be a world champ. If he had a ranking system Machida would have got a title shot already.

Boxing has far less problems because its NEVER going away. Its a sport that has 150 year history. Nations collide and come togther because of boxing icons and big boxing events. Thats the nature of our sport.

When you have one despot as the face of the UFC who makes ALL the calls thats simply not good for the sport because all Dana is is a promoter who does whats best for himself. The pay scale in the UFC is shambolic. He's not interested in working with other organisations. He wants all options on his fighters. When they loose he scatters them to the four winds. Thats simply not good enough and not defensible for a fledgling sport like MMA. It is my opinion that most have truly missed out on a glorious era of MMA and it is my opinion that the future doesnt look bright at all as all the stars wane one by one. There not being replaced and i dont see anything on the horizon that gives me hope.

[TKDfighterJoe]

Boxing has far less problems because its NEVER going away. Its a sport that has 150 year history. Nations collide and come togther because of boxing icons and big boxing events. Thats the nature of our sport.People seldom remember how true this is. An olympic sport with world renown importance. Good point.

[codeman99998]

The thing is, how the hell do you know who is the best?

Most guys haven't fought all that much, and a lot of the fights are jokes. You also see too many upsets, which is of course because one little slip or mistake and it's over. Sometimes you can't even say the best guy won the fight, they'd have to fight multiple fights to prove it. Even more-so than boxing.

In the end of a boxing match, you almost always know who is better... can't say that's always true in MMA.

Buster Douglas was better than Mike Tyson.

[scurlaruntings]

Buster Douglas was better than Mike Tyson.:lol::lol::lol:

[codeman99998]

:lol::lol::lol:

Just in case it wasn't clear, I was definitely being sarcastic.

[Wilhelm]

much worse =/= 'exactly the same' / 'comparable'. inconsistancy in your post though it's not a huge concearn.

Point taken.

Smack talking in ufc includes excessive profanity and the commentators idolize people who 'have no respect for the sport' (not that there ever was any in ufc). The entrance music is always rap which is to my knowledge chosen by dana to make it look 'badass'. On T.v it is extremely loud and vulgar, whereas boxing simply has background music in the stadium.

Hmmm…this is the first of many indications that you and I have very different views on what’s ‘excessive’ and what’s ‘expected’ (no matter how annoying it may be, some amount of trash talk seems to be obligatory in nearly all sports now). I can think of profane trash talkers in boxing (Mayorga, PBF, Vargas etc) and in UFC, but none of them really bother me more than others. I prefer it when there is none of that and you will see that with the very top guys (Winky Wright never trash talks, and neither does Randy Couture).

As for the “commentators idolize those with no respect for the sport”, I honestly don’t know what that means. The commentators for UFC can be as good as decent and as bad as unbearable, but since I don’t know what you mean by “no respect for the sport” or how you would know how a fighter feels in that regard, I can’t really agree or disagree.

The entrance music for UFC more often a stupid metal song than rap, but based on the bits of country and comedy music that’s been played from time to time, I’m sure it’s picked by the fighters. If you really have a beef with this then by far the worst exhibition of this I’ve seen is Cory Spinks actually having the shitty rappers rap him all the way into the ring while he danced. In UFC it seems to be a bit more businesslike in that they get checked out by the ref and have their shirt etc taken off at the end of it. I've never seen anything like the Hamed or Camacho spectacles, but again, my exposure may be limited compared to yours. Then again, if you stopped watching a while ago then it may be different than you remember.


I cannot emulate smacktalking becuase I'm not going to quote hundreds of minutes of video, but pac vs hatton included 'I think ive got the better boxer' 'he has no chance' 'he punches like a novice' whereas ufc typically follows 'his ass is grass' 'he needs to STFU' etc.. with often excessive profanity.

Again, there are very good examples of this in both sports, but for every Pac/Hatton or Couture/Liddell there is a Jones/Tarver and Ortiz/Shamrock. It’s not that I don’t believe that that is a statistically higher occurrence in this in UFC than in the top echelons of boxing, I just don’t see how, if this is such a big deal to someone to use it to knock UFC, they could still enjoy any number of big boxing matches.

I must retract what I said about entrances, I've been watching too much WEC where the fighters walk in on illuminated walkways often out of the mouth of some kind of dragon with flames and stuff.

This more than anything makes me think that we’re watching totally different events. I’ve never seen anything like this since the very early shows perhaps and in less reputable organizations like elitexc.

never heard anything about bad additudes? thats laughable.

As with the “no respect for the sport” comment, what do you mean by ‘bad attitudes”? You mean like Nick Diaz being a general prick all the time? I really don’t see much difference between him and someone like Mayweather who shits on people left and right or Mayorga who calls whoever he’s fighting a bitch at every press conference.

Steroids eh? sherk eh?
lets try...

Royce Gracie ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
Chris Leben ([Only registered and activated users can see links])
( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
Hermes Franca ^
Nate Marquardt ^
and Stephan Bonnar ^
Josh Barnett ^
Tim Sylvia ^
Stephan Bonnar ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
Anthony Torres ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )

*strikeforce*Adam Smith ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
Dennis Hallman *former ufc* ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
*strike force* Alexander Crispim ^


mostly WEC:

antonio silva ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )
ken Shamrock ([Only registered and activated users can see links])
Alexandre Noguiera ([Only registered and activated users can see links])
Phil baroni ( [Only registered and activated users can see links] )

wow almost all the top guys in eliteXC are juicers. and these are the guys that are caught....

I mentioned Sherk and Toney because they were the most recent guys at the very top of each sport who’ve been busted recently. Guys like Mosley and Vargas though have been high profile guys busted in the past, and there have been big name guys busted for diuretics as well. It’s quite a list of guys you’ve put together, but again, if this is something that bothers you enough to turn you off from UFC than I don’t see how you can watch boxing either knowing that someone may be on roids or even worse that they may have illegally loaded gloves.

Both sports have what looks to be decent testing policies, so it’s not like Japan where anyone can be on anything and no one even tries to find out.

I guess the reason why I spent so much time replying to this is because a lot of the stuff that you bring up are things that bother me as well, but none of them ruin the enjoyment of either sport for me and in the end come down to taste. If you just don’t like UFC enough to put up with stuff you put up with in boxing because you enjoy it more, then that’s cool. I just don’t agree that there is a significant difference between the two sports with regards to the issues you brought up.