For true international stars, the UFC had Connor McGregor and Ronda Rousey.
They’ve been desperately trying to make Sean O’Malley the new McGregor, but then the Dana White Curse struck.
1 Like
Obviously the exact disparity is gonna vary from week to week. Boxing has more events but I think a lot of people expect the gap to be way bigger than it is, and also underestimate how international MMA actually is now.
I dont have one. I’m just speaking from my experiences as an avid follower of both. Suppose you could look up the schedules for both on Taplogy with the “tv and streaming” filter on but i’m too lazy right now. But off the top of my head MMA has UFC, Bellator, PFL, One (granted barely an MMA promotion now), KSW, Rizin, Brave, Oktagon, Cage Warriors, Ares, UAE Warriors, LFA, ACA etc etc all holding events on a somewhat regular basis, getting filmed, having English commentary and being relatively easy to watch somewhere official.
Yes I am from the UK, the UK is an anomaly for boxing though, most countries do not have the kind of domestic scene or casual interest for the sport that we do. Also MMA itself has a sizeable following in the UK. I would say theres a decent amount of crossover between the fanbases. Really the UFC hasnt capitalized as well as they probably could on Aspinall and Paddy.
What cards do you think typically are getting more viewers spread across a wider range of nations than the UFC? remember i’m not talking about the viewership for ALL boxing cards combined, i’m saying the UFC is probably getting on average more viewers globally than any specific promotions boxing cards. Its the WWE/NFL/NBA effect, ie wherever you are in the world, if you’re an MMA fan, you’re probably following the UFC, thats not the case with boxing as its much more fragmented across multiple promotions and domestic scenes, no one platform has the kind of international reach that the UFC does. The exception being when a major name like Canelo, AJ, Fury etc etc fights. But for the most part how many people outside of the UK are tuning in to some random Matchroom card? how many people outside of America are tuning in to some random Top Rank card?
If we are using inactive names as well then obviously Brock was too. Dunno if i’d put Anderson, GSP, Chuck, Randy, Jones etc on that level but they are more well known than the vast majority of boxers that have shown up in the last 20 years.
Tyson Fury and Canelo are household names.
The average person doesn’t know who ‘Jon Jones’ is.
2 Likes
In my job I do a lot of traveling around Western and southern europe and I can tell you from experience when watching TV there is far far more Boxing on the sports channels shown than MMA and it’s not even close.
MMA wasn’t even legal in France until 2020.
I obviously don’t need to explain just how huge Boxing is in Eastern europe.
So really not sure what you are basing your experiences on when you say that it seems more MMA cards get filmed than Boxing ones.
I think your confusion is stemming from the fact that you are comparing a specific company from one sport to another.
I’m talking about the sports as a whole. So while the UFC may get X amount of viewers for a specific card there will be far more viewers for Y amount of smaller Boxing promotions combined during the same duration.
Jones wasn’t even a huge PPV in the UFC let alone a household name internationally.
Which boxers are more popular in France than Ngannou and Gane? which French boxers are more popular outside of France than Ngannou and Gane? which boxing cards in France are doing better business both domestically and internationally than the UFC cards being held there?
And MMA isnt? The biggest post WW2 attendance for any combat sport in mainland Europe was from a KSW card.
I told you, from being a fan of both and watching a ton of both on a weekly basis, there seems to be way more MMA you can actually watch than boxing. As in a higher ratio of boxing cards are not even being filmed. Maybe they’re all being locked into their domestic market, shown only on tv in those places and blocked from having any footage on Youtube though, who knows…
I had a look at Tapology, i’m sure its not fool proof as what you can watch probably depends on your region etc, but FWIW, when you check whats available to watch via tv or streaming from now through October it lists 35 MMA events vs 18 boxing events.
Maybe, I wouldnt necessarily say “far more”, it would totally depend on what boxing is happening that weekend vs what the UFC is doing and what other MMA is going on.
In the time Jon has been fighting theres been literally three boxers who were bigger PPV draws than him in America ie Floyd, Pac and Canelo. If you wanna extent it to global PPV draws then AJ as well, but his fights cost a fraction of the price that UFC cards cost in the US.
You are moving the goal posts here. I’m sure you have been to France so you should know that there is substantially more Boxing shown on TV there than MMA. A French MMA fighter’s individual popularity doesn’t factor into it.
No MMA is absolutely nowhere near as big as Boxing in Eastern europe. I have been assuming that you have a level of knowledge that you do not seem to posess.
I’m not going to go to all the effort to prove this to you in the same way I’m not going to bother disproving someone who thinks Football (Soccer) is more popular than the NFL, NBA and MLB in the U.S.
I was trying to be civil when I said that.
You live in the UK and you previously acknowledged that isn’t even the case in your own country (saying the UK is an anomaly) so I don’t know what you are really on about at this point.
Again as previously mentioned we seem to be using completely different metrics here.
I was responding to someone talking about Jon Jones recognizability outside of the sport.
Most of his numbers are claimed because many are not officially released so I don’t personally believe a lot of them. Despite that he has never cracked a million once despite first becoming champion 13 years a go.
Listen I don’t know where you are hoping this exchange is going to go but I’am an MMA fan here I’m not trying to shit on the sport and bring it down.
This thread was just poke fun at those on the old OG who celebrating the death of Boxing somewhat prematurely.
Cant say ive really paid attention. I’m just asking a simple question though, if you’re knowledgable on the subject, can you point me to some big French boxing stars and big cards that have been happening in recent times? obviously with the UK, America, Australia, Japan etc its quite easy to do this, with France? not really. I mean according to Boxrec theres 7 boxing cards booked there from now through October, and hasnt been a card this month at all, in a country of 70 million people. Meanwhile Ngannou is a pretty big name globally, even Gane is far bigger than any French boxers.
Alright well again, i watch a lot of both sports and a lot of it comes from Eastern Europe, and thats not the impression that I get, at all. Obviously “Eastern Europe” is a broad range but it looks to me like KSW is bigger than any boxing in Poland, and DEFINITELY is when it comes to international profile. When it comes to Russia most of the boxing I see there comes from RCC which is also an MMA promotion. I see stuff like Nashe Delo and HFC getting millions of views at times but have yet so see that from Russian boxing events. I dont know if Bivol and Beterbiev are bigger than Islam or Khabib in Russia but pretty much any social media or Youtube numbers point towards the MMA names being bigger internationally at least.
I just gave you actual evidence along with my own experience lol. I dont know why its so hard for you to accept that theres more MMA out there that seems to be filmed and easily watchable for an international audience. I was just trying to search some of the fights of top French boxers and legit was struggling to find footage for most of their fights. I earlier on listed you like a dozen MMA promotions if not more that film their events and broadcast them live, often with English commentary. Its especially odd in the Youtube era that a lot of these boxing events dont have footage available.
But you’re about 15 years too late, brother. That whole boxing is dying, MMA is the sport of the future shit is so late 00s. Lots of UG’ers are boxing fans as well, and most of the MMA fans who shit on boxing are dumb casuals who dont have a clue anyway.
Maybe dinner and a blow job.
Again we are talking about the popularity of a sport in terms of how many shows are put on and the total combined viewing figures. Not how popular a individual fighter is.
Ngannou has never even fought for the UFC in France anyway.
Look I cannot really be bothered to go to all the hassle of proving to someone on the internet what should be blatantly obvious in country where MMA was only legalized 4 years ago. If you want to believe I’m lying and full of shit then that is your prerogative.
You watch a lot of sports on TV in the UK and that tells you that MMA is more popular in Eastern Europe than Boxing?
Okay…
lol I apologize for that I was sure I had deleted that line I wrote about you making shit up in your head but can see it was still there.
I will go back and edit it out now.
The thread was just a little bit of fun to see if I could bait any of the people I remember celebrating the death of Boxing on the old UG.
Most of them were going off of Joe Rogan’s prediction in 2008 that there would be no new stars in Boxing after Hopkins and De La Hoya (because they would all go to MMA) which clearly did not age well to put it lightly.
Don’t go full retard
1 Like
For those interested his excellency Turki Alalshikh has already put up the full fight of Joshua vs Dubois on Youtube less than 48 hours after the event.
Anyone have friends over for the fight? Cant remember doing that since Tyson was biting ears and threatening to eat children.
Nah just watched it at a local Pub.
Hard to find on a screen here. Last time I went to 10 places and they all said no we ain’t showing boxing
1 Like
But the viewing figures are pretty speculative. Most evidence suggests that theres not much decent scale boxing happening in France at all. I actually remember some French guy over on Shitdog saying that Doumbe was the most popular fighter in France a few months ago, no boxers were mentioned.
What? when did I even say MMA is more popular in Eastern Europe than boxing? all I know is theres a fuck ton of MMA events of a decent scale coming out of Russia and Eastern Europe and lots of high level fighters.
Always hated that video. It was Rogan all full of piss and vinegar because the UFC was snowballing into a boom period so he got carried away. If you look at the comments you can see the people agreeing with his take are complete casuals that never watched boxing in their lives. I dont think the UG or even Shitdog was ever really like that.
Okay, can you elaborate? which boxers in the last 20 years do you think have more recognisable names/faces than GSP, Chuck, Randy, Anderson and Jones then?
By my count its Floyd, Pac, Wlad, AJ, Fury, Canelo. Any more in your opinion?
Edit: maybe Usyk?
It really shouldn’t be a competition. Back in the day we thought it was, but now we see both can co-exist together.
Both sports have their fanbase with a significant portion being crossover fans of both.
On every big boxing match you see many of the top guys in MMA posting about it online, they are fans too.
Vegas just sold out two big events for boxing and MMA on the same day.
1 Like
MMA usually has better cards top to bottom, but a big boxing event feels bigger than a big MMA event with celebrities in attendance and crowd etc.
I love both sports equally, no need for either side to be insecure about the other at this point. Both sports can co-exist and thrive together.
1 Like