Mma Versus Boxing - Who Will Win Win the Battle?

Over the  last 3-4 years Boxing’s mantle as the number one ‘fight’ sport has come under serious threat from Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), and in particular the Dana White lead Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Ultra slick presentations, clever marketing and the ability to produce the fights which fans yearn to see, has seen the UFC explode in the United States. The phenomenon is now actively spreading across Canada, Europe and the rest of the World. States and countries who once banned MMA events as ‘too brutal’ are now openly promoting them in their top stadia and venues. The UFC Events always have sell-out crowds regardless of the venue enormity, and this has continued as the bandwagon has spread to countries such as the UK and Ireland. Other MMA Organisations, such as Pride (Japan) and Affliction also gain huge crowds for their events. All this is occurring against the back-drop of a global recession!

                On the other hand, Boxing has been a mainstream populous sport for in excess on 100 years. Legends such as Muhammed Ali, Marvellous Marvin Hagler, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson (to name a few)  are household names amongst most people from both sides of the Atlantic. Boxing, celebrity and glamour have gone ‘hand in hand’ for decades. Watch re-runs of Mike Tyson fights from the 90’s on YouTube and try and spot the non-celebrities ringside - it’s very difficult! With such celebrity links comes huge revenues - something which top-level fighters have, in many instances, capitalised upon to become extremely wealthy, along with their promoters. However, this vast influx of celebrity and wealth appears to have come at a costly price for the noble art of boxing. With such money and prestige available to ‘World Champion’s’, every promoter wanted a champ. This has led to the increased number of weight divisions (very small variance between the weights) and most damagingly the introduction of  the numerous ‘alphabet’ World Titles. The original and respected boxing organisations such as the WBC, WBA, IBF have dramatically swelled with the forming of the WBO and IBO, followed by such non-entity belts as the WBU. All this has led to numerous World Champions at each weight class. Whilst it is now commonly acknowledged that it is the fighter who ‘makes the belt’ (The Ring Belt is ultimately decided upon in this way), the reluctance of organisations to interlink means many ‘top’ fights never occur.  Combine this with the reluctance of promoters / fighters to risk their status as ‘World Champ’ for anything less that an ‘out of this world payday’ and you the present scenario.

                Whilst there are always exceptions to the rule, as Ricky Hatton and PBF recently proved, it is too often the case that the best fighters don’t ever meet in the ring. This is not the case in MMA, where every event seems to provide at least one fight between a weight divisions top two. There are also less weight divisions, and, unlike boxing, there never seems to be a mis-match simply to ‘pad’ a fighter’s record. The glamour / celebrity side of the sports is also turning in MMA’s favour (and that’s not referring to Tito Ortiz’s partner!). Celebrities such as Paris Hilton are common place at UFC events, Donald Trump actively promotes events in his venues whilst the Goldenboy of Boxing, Oscar Del Hoya, was recently ecstatically cheering ringside at the Affliction main event of Fedor v Arloski (he had a business interest in that event).

                It appears that MMA is clearly challenging Boxing’s supremacy like it has never been challenged before. Many fans suggest the sports are as different as Football is to Rugby, but their audience catchment groups most definitely overlap. If MMA, and the UFC in particular, continue to ‘run their business’ and improve as they have in recent years they have a big future. They should take a cautious note of what has happened to boxing in recent years and learn from their mistakes. On a ‘flip-side’, maybe boxing and it’s bosses should ‘go-back to basics’, benchmark the MMA success formula and re-invent their brand accordingly. Only time will tell.