[Absolut]

Originally Posted by CarbonB

Probably because it is.....

plaintiff's exhibit # 1 http://www.peopleatlarge.org/2002eve...e_wildfire.jpg

[GlassJaw]

gotta agree with the Kid again.... great post.

bottom line resides in facts..... what drives people to boxing/mma? is it money? if that was the case.... show me a MMA event were a 106 lb fighter makes upwards of 1 million a fight..
Michael Carbajal did it some 13 years ago.....

[Kid McCoy]

Far and away the first global sport, 291 years of solid, widespread appeal, touching every continent and social sphere, and backed by an estimable history of near mythical proportions from the Greek Olympiad where fighters from throughout the ancient world vied for achievement in the most estimable contest of them all; it will literally be centuries before any other spectator sport is it’s equal on the whole time line level of relative assessment.

And insomuch, what is happening today during the current hour is relatively insignificant.

Regarding today’s game, and what is often viewed here and elsewhere as devaluation, it is time for me again to point out that that is not true, and simply a myopic perception.

The statistics presented at the top of the thread should be enough to thwart any attempt at sophomoric debate on the matter.

Boxing once commanded no less than 38 percent of the global sports take, a staggeringly high amount.
Today, no single sport (including Soccer, Football & Baseball) can claim any better than just half of that percent.

What boxing has done is simply make way for other sports to emerge onto an evermore crowded stage, and in so doing, it now appears to have ebbed.
And this has occurred only during the last 50 years, a recent development.

But, the reality is that sports as a whole have gained in status in the social consciousness of earth’s people, and Boxing, always an acquired taste, and seldom ever acquired at all by woman and the men who emulate them (groups comprising 2/3 of the population), retains a solid, sound niche within this expanded range of diversionious activities, within which many, many people make lots of money, and there is nothing whatsoever that can be gleaned statistically to indicate that this will change within our lifetimes.

So long as people acknowledge that there is honor in a fair fight, and as long as courage and dignity are still held in high esteem, Boxing will survive as the premiere method of unarmed combat sport, and excellence achieved in all other sports will be relegated to just games and stunts by comparison.

And lastly, I suppose it’s been long enough now for the ADD generation to have forgotten how it works, but the next Mike Tyson is always….always just around the corner, and when he emerges, and if he doesn’t implode into his own insanity before his peak, Pepsi, Nintendo, Life magazine and whoever else holds sway at that moment will be right back at the bargaining table, ready & able to wrap him up and roll him out for the public’s perusal, and have him fuck you till you love him through the magic of mass media.

Because friends, Money Talks, and Bullshit walks.

[Thaiboxer18]

Originally Posted by Kid McCoy

Whoo.....Not so fast.
There's plenty of room for more than one fightsport out there.

Hardly a 3rd tier sport.

Witness that Willie Pep’s death took up 4 consecutive days on the front cover of the Hartford Courant, American’s oldest daily newspaper.

Today’s hot stuff comes and goes as fast as you can say “in sync”, but history holds firm to very deep roots.

It has only been in the last generation that basketball, football, soccer and golf have joined Baseball in surpassing Boxing as a spectator social institution.

And yet none of these sports have ever produced an international icon equal to a Muhammad Ali or Joe Louis, who are as known through the world as Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan are in their U.S. homebase, and the nation producing the lion’s share of global sports revenue still resolutely rejects the existence of Soccer, viewing it as “a weak little sport for weak little people in weak little countries”, in the words of one sport writer.

In very recent years, propelled by their tie-in as recreational pursuits, Hockey and Tennis have also nudged up beyond boxing in the sports pages as well, owing singularly to the unpalatable nature of a combat sport, which are problems, actually, that MMA and K-1 face in far greater numbers than Boxing, so the main thing keeping Boxing out of the limelight will cause even greater obstacles for a sport without any history or pedigree.

This is why MMA is seen as a PPV & Video sales exhibition, rather than an actual sport reported on by the Associated Press.

In terms if the ‘Mainstream”, which sherdoggers have distanced themselves from completely in regards to their sports, John McCain, a strong contender for the next leader of the free world stated his observation after watching an MMA card: “to hit a man when he was down was un-American”, and called it "human cockfighting".

As recently as July of this year, McCain reiterated his intentions to ban the sport, should he get the opportunity, and if the 2008 presidential election polls have at merit this early in the sampling, his opportunity will come in exactly 24 months.

Despite one noted businessman’s rosy picture, painted as he promotes his product from his soapbox, the next big thing may turn out to be a big surprise for the lovers of the nouveau fight sport rules.

Younger people have always been less able to distinguish fads from historical trends, however, which is a fact, and one very much in evidence here.

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.

[Absolut]

Originally Posted by Kid McCoy

by woman and the men who emulate them

that is epic phrasing. pure gold. your own or borrowed?

[GlassJaw]

Originally Posted by Thaiboxer18

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.

but its not by chance that the same age brackets once Flocked to the WWF/WWE reaching HUGE PPV numbers some 10 years ago as well..., its been proven these are the same people who "grow out of" viewing habits, and move to the next trend.

my question is this.... if MMA is not a fad, why are there yet no stars recognized on a national level the same as any other sport...

your beckham comments hold true perhaps.. but than whats that compared to MMA?
Chuck lidell? tito Ortiz? who? dana white is as big of a figure in MMA as the biggest star.... and thats saying something in my eyes.

[Shotokhan]

Originally Posted by RA

I know boxing is really far from being dead in Mexico and Mexican American comunities, in America as a whole it is on life support.

True. Did you notice 98% of the audience (Pac/Mor) had black hair?

[alliedforces]

Kid, you make some valid points, but please, shove that thesaurus back up your ass before you hurt yourself...

[Kid McCoy]

Originally Posted by Thaiboxer18

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.

Bollocks.
BTW, Thanks for the tape bro......I told you it was a leg injury (I'm never wrong).
How'd you get Smiler to give it up ?

I noticed the package was mailed with Sugar Ray Robinson stamps.
I'll return it just as soon as the Chuck Liddell stamp gets issued, and we have evidence of my "obtuse view of the importance of boxing in America's culture".....LOL.

[Kid McCoy]

Originally Posted by Absolut

that is epic phrasing. pure gold. your own or borrowed?

My own.

Thanks, I try to slip in a dig where I can.....calms me down after a day in the sharktank.