After the Failure of Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, What's Next for Boxing?
by Luke Thomas on Jan 7, 2010 4:00 PM EST
in MMA News
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Scott Christ over at Bad Left Hook is writing some of his finest work to date:
Where else but in boxing can you get a catastrophe that will define the sport in the short term, putting it in a negative light, and then have everyone mud-sling instead of try and fix what's wrong? Bob Arum and Co. will spend their time calling Mayweather a coward, and Mayweather and Co. will spend their time pointing out that all Pacquiao had to do was agree to their demands.
I don't care about the blame game. I only care about what this does to boxing's image, and to the images of a couple of great fighters that I respect. Mayweather and Pacquiao are boxing's representatives to the general public, and depending on which side folks have picked, both of them have taken hits with this bungling. Neither comes out smelling particularly rosy, and when they fight their substitute opponents in March, there are going to be a lot of people that just say, "Who cares?"
All that goodwill that boxing has built up over the past few years is wasted with this one fight going under. Two men managed to captivate the public to an amazing degree, and then when it got right down to it, they backed off of the biggest fight there is.
So what do we as boxing fans do now? We move on. We look at upcoming fights such as Mosley-Berto, Luevano-Lopez, Gamboa-Mtagwa, Valero-DeMarco, Vazquez-Marquez IV, and the second stage of the Super Six World Boxing Classic. There's more to this sport than just Mayweather and Pacquiao.
But no matter what face I try to put on this personally, in the back of my mind on March 13, I'm going to wonder what it would have felt like to watch the two best in the world go nose-to-nose for the referee's instructions.
My love of boxing makes me hesitate to say this, but there's an opening here for the UFC. Lesnar's long term absence or departure removes the possibility of the doors being blown open for MMA, but just when boxing had the opportunity to reassert its position as a combat sports leader, the sport cuts off its nose to spite its face.
As the UFC machine continues to grow in size and sophistication - and with a number of cards in the March to early summer timeline that appear heavily stacked - there is room for MMA to remind everyone of boxing's painful history of shortchanging itself and its disciples. Dana White can easily play the "as boxing takes, the UFC gives" card to a much, much stronger degree now that boxing's leaders have allowed this happen.
Where boxing fails, MMA succeeds. Or so the game can be played...all over again.
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This won’t kill boxing. The sport’s too big to die over one fight – even a fight as big as this. But outside Showtime’s Super Six tournament becoming an absolute blockbuster, MMA has an huge opportunity to put a huge dent in boxing’s market share.
by Monday Morning Martial Artist on Jan 7, 2010 4:05 PM EST reply actions
Boxing will never die.
But it will cement its place in the back seat to MMA as the premier combat sport if they keep pissing off their fans and the media like this.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
This is what people fail to understand when talking mma and boxing
People complain about mma salaries compared to boxing but if mma starts doing boxing like salries you will never see stacked cards.
I’m all for an increase in salaries but if we go to boxing like salaries you will take a card like 111 and it will go from what it is to a card like this
GSP vs. Dan Hardy
Brown vs. Almedia
and then maybe a few other matches that are not that important.
Instead we get arguably the #1,2, 3, and 5 ww’s in the world and 2 top 10 hw’s fighting it out in the co-main event.
As a fan I’d much rather have the mma model and have the fighters make less and see a better card and if that makes me f’d up so be it.
by bigdmmafan on Jan 7, 2010 4:09 PM EST reply actions 2 recs
Meh.
I found the excerpt neither well-written or provocative, but, hell, you got me to read it.
I found your comment neither well-written nor intelligent.
Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
MMA Editor - SBNation.com
by Brent Brookhouse on Jan 7, 2010 4:16 PM EST up reply actions 12 recs
:((
Can’t criticize without you getting butt-hurt, eh? Don’t advertise someone’s work as his “finest work to date” when it’s banal, grammatically shoddy, and loosely written in the first person. I have no problem consuming and complimenting the editorials on this site written with craft—your work among them—but I won’t be muffled because someone can’t take criticism professionally.
by Ninkynonk on Jan 7, 2010 5:12 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I don’t think Brent minds constructive criticism. Problem is, your snarky post was in no way constructive. If you don’t want a snarky reply back, offer something of substance.
by Steve4192 on Jan 7, 2010 6:36 PM EST up reply actions 4 recs
^ this guy
Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
MMA Editor - SBNation.com
by Brent Brookhouse on Jan 7, 2010 7:31 PM EST up reply actions
Rule #1 os constructive criticism: don’t be a dick.
Keep firing Assholes!
It’s as if you fell down a flight of stairs, then logged onto the internet.
Second rule is:
You do NOT TALK about Figh- wait, what are we talking about?
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
At the end of the day, the reason boxing will lose (in the US) and MMA will win is that boxing has little foundation in American society. You can find karate academies, taekwondo schools, MMA schools, kickboxing schools, and all that, but a boxing school is very rare, at least out here in the Midwest. High schools don’t have boxing programs for fear of legal liability. If colleges have boxing programs they are will hidden. They do have wrestling programs though.
So where are all these karate, kickboxing and wrestlers going to go? MMA. They will follow the sport, teach their kids the sport, etc. MMA has roots everywhere in this country. Boxing doesn’t. Mayweather and Pacquiao is just a blip in the larger sociological trend of MMA eclipsing boxing as the dominant combat sport in America.
"an excellent example of why most MMA "journalism" is a joke. Pseudonyms like "toxic" and shitty writing like that dopey article"--- Joe Rogan.
Yeah Rogan bitched me out on Twitter cause I did a fanpost about how his biased play calling undercut the validity of the title. In hindsight a bit overwrought, but then the internet was aflame with Rua was robbed, mma is going to turn into boxing with all these bogus decisions, etc.
"an excellent example of why most MMA "journalism" is a joke. Pseudonyms like "toxic" and shitty writing like that dopey article"--- Joe Rogan.
Karate and Tae Kwan Do are for subarbanites
Boxing is for city kids. The way of the world.
by Trysdor on Jan 7, 2010 4:25 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
The farther you go out, the bigger wrestling gets. I think you are on to something.
Maybe another trend, Karate and Tae Kwan Do are for kids that have Mom’s that won’t let them play football. Just an observation.
Some people think I am a dumb, ugly human being, but really I am a beautiful ape, with exceptional verbal skills.
i played baseball and boxed… what up boondocks
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turning every good thing to rust.
Just a trend I see. Growing up I didn’t know boxing as a sport I could do was even an option.
Some people think I am a dumb, ugly human being, but really I am a beautiful ape, with exceptional verbal skills.
my old man, being from PR and who was a good boxer in his own right during his navy years, raised me on the stuff. i remember him telling me stories about Sixto Escobar and Wilfredo Benitez. shit, the first non-WWF/WCW ppv I ever saw was Tito/De La Hoya. I still think my dad has this sort of pipe dream that I’ll slip on a patch of ice, bump my head, and discover that I’m a great boxer and go on to crush every Mexican fighter in the world.
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turning every good thing to rust.
I used sports as an outlet for my violence.
Football, baseball, basketball. I constantly fouled out of rec basketball games so I joined the wrestling team because it was the same season. If there had been a boxing team, I would have been on it. If I had discovered lacrosse sooner I may have replaced baseball with it.
The ice slip remark made me laugh, only because I can imagine my own father getting excited at me falling and hoping I get up with talent.
Some people think I am a dumb, ugly human being, but really I am a beautiful ape, with exceptional verbal skills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqg01Nk3SYI
This video is spot on, but after being friends with Lax players and seeing how much punani they pull in in the northeast, I can’t hate that much
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turning every good thing to rust.
Lax guys can certainly skin a cat, but I was too small for sports other then wrestling.
Some people think I am a dumb, ugly human being, but really I am a beautiful ape, with exceptional verbal skills.
Yet another reason why wrestling has such a prominent
position in American society.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
Are you talking Eastern seaboard cities? West coast? Cities in general?
"an excellent example of why most MMA "journalism" is a joke. Pseudonyms like "toxic" and shitty writing like that dopey article"--- Joe Rogan.
FWIW
I train MMA in Manhattan, NYC at the same boys club i went to as a kid. In the late ’90’s you could train 1 of two combat sports: boxing to be in the golden gloves or Shotokan to be a point fighter. Now, in 2010, all the midgets (7-12yrs) train Shotokan and the juniors and seniors (13-20yrs) train MMA (BJJ, MT, Greco, Boxing). There is no more training purely as a boxer; the gym/dojo used to be a boxing ring and bags and now it is mats and bags.
GIVE UP?! GIVE UP?!
My question is boxing even still relevent?
and I’m serious so hear me out.
Take UFC 106 and the “pathetic numbers” it did with the “pathetic main event” but outside of Pacquiao/Hatton, Mayweather/Marquez, and Pacquiao/Cotto did any boxing PPV even touch those numbers? I dont know and that is why I’m curious.
I still see boxing listed a lot under PPV, at least one Saturday a month, but outside of the huge names in boxing does anybody watch like they do the UFC.
So this brings me back to my original point, it’s not that boxing is completely irrelevant but when a “huge name” is not fighting people dont really care where as with the UFC regardless of who is on the card it is almost guarenteed at least 300k buys anymore.
Take UFC 106 and the "pathetic numbers" it did with the "pathetic main event" but outside of Pacquiao/Hatton, Mayweather/Marquez, and Pacquiao/Cotto did any boxing PPV even touch those numbers?
Well these were the only three major boxing PPVs of 2009, so…
The rest of them weren’t distributed or promoted by HBO, and they were basically given no advertising time. They’re small-budget shows like Top Rank’s Latin Fury and Pinoy Power series, or that joke Zab Judah put on in November, or an imported show in the American afternoon like Valuev-Haye.
Bad Left Hook
"If bulls**t was poetry, Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini's name would be Shakespeare." -- Dennis Rappaport
Much as with MMA the buys were trending upward this year. A large part of that is undoubtedly because far less fights were on PPV and the ones that were were big. But they were doing the right hting and putting fights on cable to build stars. Honestly 2009 was a pretty decent year for the sport.
It’s not as relevant as it once was or as relevant as mma…but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter or can’t climb back.
Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
MMA Editor - SBNation.com
by Brent Brookhouse on Jan 7, 2010 5:00 PM EST up reply actions
And...
when as say not as relevant as MMA I only mean that in the average card sense….not at the top end.
Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
MMA Editor - SBNation.com
by Brent Brookhouse on Jan 7, 2010 5:01 PM EST up reply actions
“I told them to go f**k themselves. Here was a chance for Pacman to try for a record eighth weight divison world title and they don’t want it now. All of a sudden, Yuri is too tall. Let them go to Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus and find a midget for him to fight then.”
For those of you that kind of laughed off my saying that Foreman was a really risky fight for Manny…there ya go. The fight is not happening as Manny’s camp no longer likes it.
Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
MMA Editor - SBNation.com
by Brent Brookhouse on Jan 7, 2010 5:02 PM EST reply actions
I should specify...
the above is Yuri’s manager. The link to the story is here
Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
MMA Editor - SBNation.com
by Brent Brookhouse on Jan 7, 2010 5:03 PM EST up reply actions
and the plot thickens
getting really excited for the upcoming announcement of Pacquiao/Spinks…
/sarcasm
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turning every good thing to rust.
Unfortunately for boxing
The main stream answer is “Who cares”. The Money-Pac flight was the perfect storm to bring casual fans back into the fold and to create a new generation of boxing fans. Now they will just go back to mismatches that only hardcore boxing fans care about.
Giving Shogun his props. I had the fight 48-47 Machida but Shogun put up a monumental performance and I am honored to have seen it in person.
I'm a Pacman fan, but I agree with Floyd, why won't he take the blood tests within 14 days?
It seems with so many illegal agents 30 days, or close to that is the magic number to not getting caught. Pac’s camp won’t agree to any less than 24 days before the fight. Floyd is saying he won’t agree to more than 14 days. Maybe Old Man Mayweather is onto something.
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=4806180
It’s hard to say, because first money wanted up to 24 hours before and manny said no blood 30 days out. Now It’s 14 days and 24 days.
It could be that Manny is cheating, but the way it’s going down it just seems like another bullshit game of chicken and another thing that is going to have to be negotiated every time there is a big fight from now on.
It sucks that we cant see Pac-Money, no doubt
But given how avidly anti-MMA Bob Arum is, it puts a smile on my face tp know that he had a hand in bringing boxing’s resurgence of popluarity to a grinding halt.
Face it Bob, MMA is taking over, and its because of people like you.
Boxing has SCREWED THE POOCH
waiting for a funny gif.. guarentee a rec
Interestingly, John McCarthy is on their advisory board...
“One of MMA’s most recognizable faces, McCarthy, known to many as "Big John" has handled referee duties for more MMA championship bouts than any other referee in the sport’s history. McCarthy will oversee CAMO’s approved official training program for referees and judges.”
To have one person oversee the “approved official training program” through the use of that person’s for profit entity is illegal and considered a monopoly.
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