What's up Kid? I hope all is well and that you got the dvd copy of Pele Reid-Vitali that I sent to you in the mail as your Hannukah present..
There has been lots of UFC event coverage in the LA Times, Washington Post, and other very famous US newspapers; not AP reports, mind you, but correspondents from each of these papers have been going to the shows, and their reports are among the most-viewed stories on their websites. You, on the other hand, are resorting to citing an obscure newspaper from Connecticut to prove the relevance of boxing. That is weak, sir.
As for your bit about how Ali and Joe Louis are so famous, I will give you the former, but not the latter. And though you may enjoy disparaging soccer, any of David Beckham's tattoos are more recognizable to the world than all 4 heavyweight champions combined.
Unfortunately for your obtuse view of the importance of boxing in America's culture, mma is not only the future, but the present. Other than Oscar-Mayorga, the biggest ppvs this year have all been UFC, not boxing. When the results from Hughes-GSP come in, they will probably crush the 350k buys that Morales-Pac3 did, despite the immense amount of hype behind the fight, and the huge Mexican fanbase behind Morales.
When Liddell and Tito fight at the end of December, the De la Hoya-Mayorga fight will no longer be the box office champ of the year, and mma will have its first 1 million buy event in America.
Does any of this mean boxing is dying? Luckily no, but as soon as Oscar retires, there won't be many fights left with the capability of generating huge ppv numbers. Nobody cares about the heavyweights, Hopkins is 41, Taylor isn't as good as we had hoped he would be, Floyd doesn't capture the public's attention the way Sugar Ray did, Morales looks done as a top level fighter, Barrera can't be far behind, and unless Pac Man moves up in weight to fight Floyd (perhaps at 130 or 135 tops, with same day way-in), I can't think of a single boxing match post Floyd-De la that would interest the casual fan.
You can say that the UFC is a fad all you want, but if the majority of young people prefer mma over boxing now, while mma doesn't even have near the depth of talent it will have in 10 years, imagine how badly it will kill boxing in said amount of time when it has the purses and the mainstream recognition to compete on an even footing with boxing.