Remember when people said Boxing was dead and was being ''swallowed'' by MMA?

[TexDeuce]

@Song2

John fury, the fighting man, the machine! Saved boxing

John Fury FLIPS TABLE & LOSES IT at KSI vs Tommy Fury press conference!

[2buff]

You just dismissed your own point you idiot.

Currently inoue is bigger than sakuraba in Japan. He will be in the hall of fame.

Ricky hatton was bigger than bisping even in his losses.

There are ZERO Mexican mma stars and are over shadowed by berrara, Marquez, and morales.

You live in a bubble.

[James_III]

@TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle

@James_III

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.

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.

If that is what you want to believe then I won’t try to convince you otherwise.

@TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle

@James_III

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?

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.

Well you strongly implied it in your previous post below. Again it doesn’t really matter you are free to believe what you want.

@TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle

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.

@TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle

@James_III

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.

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.

It’s quite depressing the amount of people who have posted relatively recently on the video who claim it has aged well.

Rogan definitely got way to carried away there but Lou Di Bella came across very badly as well IMHO.

[Song2]

John Fury Being Hilarious Compilation

He’s a machine!

A fighting man!

[Song2]

Fuck I’d like to fight John. 135 I’ll spark him

[JabToucher]

I thought fighters were only being paid more/ teh sport picking up due to all those rich saudi blokes funding events?

[MasterOfMartialArts]

@James_III @TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle Good shit, I enjoyed this exchange. Some valid points brought up on both sides. I definitely think boxing is more popular on a global scale, with more people knowing what it is, even if they aren’t fans.

MMA is more of a combative that has big scenes in more regional areas, but is mildly popular around the world. ESPN certainly accelerated its growth but a lot of people still don’t really know what it is. I’ve talked to many people from here in the states that still don’t even know the term “MMA”, although they’ve seen “UFC” because of social media and such.

I don’t think MMA will ever close the gap and it doesn’t need to, but it is interesting and noting there is some fan overlap, although (seemingly) a large percentage of people who like one, but not the other. There are some fighters in the UFC who are popular in their countries and therefore their reach is spread to surrounding areas. But overall I would say there are a lot of people in Western Europe who don’t know who Topuria or Gane are.

MMA isn’t as engrained into our culture as boxing is, and some of the biggest stars in boxing have transcended the sport. VERY few (almost no) MMA fighters have done that.

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

@2buff

Currently inoue is bigger than sakuraba in Japan

“In Japan”

Theres probably 30+ CURRENT MMA fighters who are more known GLOBALLY than Inoue.

@2buff

Ricky hatton was bigger than bisping even in his losses

When did I ever bring up Bisping? you’re now shifting the goalposts to comparing two UK names when what I actually said was GSP, Anderson, Chuck, Randy, Jones and you can also add Tito and Rampage are more well known than the vast majority of boxers in the last 20 years.

@2buff

There are ZERO Mexican mma stars and are over shadowed by berrara, Marquez, and morales.

The Mexican American UFC stars like Cain, the Diaz bros and Ferg were/are bigger stars INTERNATIONALLY than they were.

@2buff

You just dismissed your own point you idiot.

So 6, maybe 7 boxers over the last TWENTY YEARS being bigger than the UFC names I listed is me dismissing my own point? bearing in mind I didnt even bring up Conor, Ronda and Brock who were bigger stars than most of those boxers listed. Khabib is obviously very recognisable too.

@2buff

You live in a bubble

I am a hardcore fan of both, and am from the UK, one of the most prominent boxing markets on the planet.

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

@James_III

Well you strongly implied it in your previous post below. Again it doesn’t really matter you are free to believe what you want.

I think Eastern Europe is a hotbed for both. Combat sports in general tend to be big in those places.

@James_III

It’s quite depressing the amount of people who have posted relatively recently on the video who claim it has aged well.

Rogan definitely got way to carried away there but Lou Di Bella came across very badly as well IMHO.

Its people that werent watching boxing then and dont watch it now. I’m sure a lot of them werent even watching MMA back when the interview happened either.

[2buff]

@TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle

Theres probably 30+ CURRENT MMA fighters who are more known GLOBALLY than Inoue.

Ok then name all 30 of them.

Show me

• Google trends
• Social media followers
• PPV buys
• YouTube views
• Sponsorship deals

I was going to refute all of your other dumb takes but it wasn’t worth my time.

I’ll patiently wait.

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

IG followers:

Inoue - 1.4m

Conor - 47.4m
Jones 8.7m
Islam - 8.7m
Izzy - 8.7m
Khamzat - 8.1m
Do Bronx - 7.5m
Ngannou - 7m
Poirier - 5.3m
Poatan - 4.9m
O’Malley - 4.5m
Topuria - 4.4m
Max - 4.4m
Usman - 3.7m
Paddy - 3.2m
Jorge - 2.9m
Ferg - 2.8m
Valentina - 2.7m
Volk - 2.5m
Strickland - 2.4m
Gaethje - 2.3m
Thug Rose - 2.3m
Chandler - 1.9m
Nunes - 1.8m
Paulo Costa - 1.6m
Leon - 1.5m

Youtube vids filtered by view count.

Inoue - top 5 vids have 16m, 4.3m, 4.1m, 4m and 3.7m views.

Cant be bothered checking tons of MMA fighters but i’ll check a few, wont use Conor as that’d be unfair.

Adesanya - top 5 vids are 16m, 15m, 14m, 14m and 12m

Poatan - 16m, 15m, 9.1m, 7m, 7m

Paddy - 12m, 11m, 10m, 9.8m, 7.5m

Islam - 16m, 15m, 11m, 10m, 9.6m

Gaethje - 11m, 11m, 10m, 10m, 9.7m

Khamzat - 14m, 14m, 14m, 11m, 10m

Dunno why you would think a little Japanese dude boxing almost entirely in Japan would be more known globally than MMA names. You’re seriously underestimating the size and international reach of the UFCs platform compared to boxing promotions.

[2buff]

Those are bots dummy.

Buy Instagram Followers - %100 Real, Instant | Only $0.59

You have to count social media “engagement”.

If these mma fighters had real engagement, where are their sponsors?

That’s right they have none.

You said 30, where are they? Show us on Google trends. How many PPVs are they selling which is the REAL metric of someone’s popularity, an actual paying customer…

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

“show me social media followers”

“The social media followers dont count, they’re fake”

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

I suppose the Youtube views are all bots too. I mean it couldnt possibly be that fighting in the UFC, a multi billion dollar US based company that tours the world regularly and has its own video games, would get you seen by more people spread across a wider range of countries than boxing TJ Doheny in Japan would.

[Squatdog]

Canelo - 18m on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/canelo/

[Squatdog]

Canelo vs. Jon Jones

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=canelo,Jon%20jones&hl=en

[James_III]

@MasterOfMartialArts

@James_III @TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle Good shit, I enjoyed this exchange. Some valid points brought up on both sides. I definitely think boxing is more popular on a global scale, with more people knowing what it is, even if they aren’t fans.

MMA is more of a combative that has big scenes in more regional areas, but is mildly popular around the world. ESPN certainly accelerated its growth but a lot of people still don’t really know what it is. I’ve talked to many people from here in the states that still don’t even know the term “MMA”, although they’ve seen “UFC” because of social media and such.

I don’t think MMA will ever close the gap and it doesn’t need to, but it is interesting and noting there is some fan overlap, although (seemingly) a large percentage of people who like one, but not the other. There are some fighters in the UFC who are popular in their countries and therefore their reach is spread to surrounding areas. But overall I would say there are a lot of people in Western Europe who don’t know who Topuria or Gane are.

MMA isn’t as engrained into our culture as boxing is, and some of the biggest stars in boxing have transcended the sport. VERY few (almost no) MMA fighters have done that.

Just my opinion but I’ve always felt that with Pride rules MMA once had the potential to overtake Boxing worldwide.

However with unified rules and the huge underpayment of the top fighters in the UFC it’s not going to do that anytime soon. Especially if Boxing get’s it act together.

You are right though apart from McGregor and Rousey no MMA fighters have transcended their sports like many Boxers have.

[JabToucher]

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

@James_III

Just my opinion but I’ve always felt that with Pride rules MMA once had the potential to overtake Boxing worldwide.

I’d like Pride rules but with elbows and headbutts.

Ive always had mixed feelings about ring vs cage. Aesthetically rings look better but the cage gives MMA more of a distinct feel.

I wish the UFC put more effort into making the events seem like a big spectacle the way Pride did. Having a big fancy entrance ramp and having the fighters come and stand on there at the start, having pyro (which the UFC itself actually did at times in the 00s) etc etc. Like @TexDeuce said a few posts up, big boxing events still feel bigger than big UFC events, even at times where the UFC event is actually doing bigger business, and I think the difference in presentation is part of it. Also the UFC seemingly being allergic to trying to do stadium shows.

[Pugilist82]

There are a few factors:

1. While an MMA fighter can beat a boxer in a fight, that doesn’t mean it’s more exciting.

2. MMA is driven by the UFC, the UFC chooses to market the brand instead of fighters . Combine this with the fact that every big fight is PPV, and it’s just about impossible to get the general public excited about a fight. When was the last “must see” MMA fight? How many fighters can most casual fans even name?

3. The UFC sucks live compared to boxing. While boxing also has its issues live, the UFC sucks live because of the cage. Of the fights I’ve been to, the only times I’ve been able to see anything are when Ive been in a luxury box because it’s elevated. With anything ground level, you spend half the time looking at a screen.

4. Boxing is a lot easier for someone who doesn’t train to understand.

Don’t get me wrong, I love MMA, but I think there would have to be a lot of changes for it to get to the next level. It’s possible, but very unlikely the changes will ever happen.