[quote]ZEB wrote:
As for me I’ll continue to buy both boxing and MMA fights on PPV, but how many people are, or will remain dedicated to both sports?
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Boxing is having it’s own renaissance of sorts, and it’s been doing well the last few years.
People have been saying for years that it’ll “die” but the money keeps coming in and the fights keep happening.
I don’t understand your insistence that both sports can’t coexist. It makes no sense.
And one thing you’re forgetting - until MMA gyms bring down their prices, there won’t be black and Latino fighters. They are far more expensive to join than a boxing gym.
Besides this, there are cultural differences that make MMA a more difficult sell. White kids grow up wrestling, so MMA isn’t really a stretch.
Minorities in the ghetto grow up either boxing already, or fighting with their hands. Latinos especially look at fighting on the ground as cowardly when compared to standing and trading- as evidenced by the continued idolization of fighters Julio Caesar Chavez.
Maybe it’ll happen, maybe not. But boxing is in the same shape it’s been in for some time- if anything, it’s better.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
As for me I’ll continue to buy both boxing and MMA fights on PPV, but how many people are, or will remain dedicated to both sports?
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Boxing is having it’s own renaissance of sorts, and it’s been doing well the last few years.
People have been saying for years that it’ll “die” but the money keeps coming in and the fights keep happening.
I don’t understand your insistence that both sports can’t coexist. It makes no sense.[/quote]
I never said that they couldn’t coexist. I’m more a believer that MMA is going to be the premier combat sport in the world with boxing a distant second. And I’ve made this determination not based on one being “better” than the other. I’ve made this determination based upon financial considerations. I don’t think that the typical young male who may enjoy both combat sports will ultimately be able to pay for both MMA and boxing. If I’m right that means that one of them will be dramatically effected in a very negative way. Don’t get me wrong I don’t see this happening tomorrow. There will be plenty of big boxing fights for some time to come. At least I hope so.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
And one thing you’re forgetting - until MMA gyms bring down their prices, there won’t be black and Latino fighters. They are far more expensive to join than a boxing gym.[/quote]
You make a very good point. But we both know what brings prices down. That is competition. Right now there are plenty of boxing gyms, and this is reflected in the cost. AS MMA gyms grow the prices will come down, the owners will have no choice if they want to keep their doors open.
You’ve made another good case for MMA out pacing boxing. Back in the 20’s 30’s 40’s and even in to the 50’s High Schools used to have boxing teams instead of wrestling teams. But every HS in the country dropped boxing and added wrestling.
[quote]ghetto grow up either boxing already, or fighting with their hands. Latinos especially look at fighting on the ground as cowardly when compared to standing and trading- as evidenced by the continued idolization of fighters Julio Caesar Chavez.
Maybe it’ll happen, maybe not. But boxing is in the same shape it’s been in for some time- if anything, it’s better.[/quote]
You might want to rethink that statement. Boxing In the US is not as big as it was say back in the 70’s when I think it may have hit its peak when Ali, Foreman, Frazier and company were trading. We also had plenty of action with names like Sugar Ray Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and many other pretty big names in and around the middle weight division.
I wish it were that competitive now, I would love to see that sort of competition. I never missed any of their fights regardless of weight class. Each fighter brought his own style of fighting and created excitement enough to pack the house.
No,boxing is not what it once was and the addition of MMA only hurts their chances of a renaissance.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Zeb- boxing is different though. There aren’t huge events every year like there are in the UFC… there’s only maybe one or two, as opposed to 10.
UFC is more popular among white people, I’ll give you that. But boxing still holds the crown amongst the mininorities and Latinos especially… and boxing PPV’s- the top ones- blow the UFC away- look at Mayweather vs. DLH.
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The primary audience for either sport is looking for is the casual fan and that demographic encompasses all races. Now boxing has always and will always be more popular with minorities, it’s an inner city sport. Minorities can relate to it more. Same with the UFC, the white MMA fans[not casual fans] can relate to the fighters because they used to wrestle, take Karate, or do some form of martial arts. In regards to popularity I’d say both have a pretty broad audience.
I wouldn’t quite say the UFC puts on 10 big events per year, they’ve PPVs that do well and others that do poorly. There are just inherent benefits of having 12-15 events per year while discussing revenue lol.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
And one thing you’re forgetting - until MMA gyms bring down their prices, there won’t be black and Latino fighters. They are far more expensive to join than a boxing gym.[/quote]
You make a very good point. But we both know what brings prices down. That is competition. Right now there are plenty of boxing gyms, and this is reflected in the cost. AS MMA gyms grow the prices will come down, the owners will have no choice if they want to keep their doors open.
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That’s the Republican in you talking. And even when related to combat sports, it’s wrong- plenty of places around here do MMA. All of them are expensive. It’s the nature of that beast.
Boxing has never been expensive.
And I’m not saying that boxing will ever be as popular as it once was… people have been saying it’s in decline for the last 80 years- but it sticks around, and big fights and big fighters continue to happen.
I don’t give a fuck if it’s more or less popular than MMA- honestly most of the time it seems like the only people who give two shits about that are the MMA fanboys.
Boxing will keep on keepin on regardless of what the affliction crowd thinks. And if this last fuckin fight can be made with May and Pac, you’ll see the drawing power that my sport still has.
I think MMA gyms are a lot more expensive for a few reasons, one of the main reasons being that it’s not an Olympic sport so there’s no real incentive to subsidize the cost of a gym.
I can’t really see the merit of a “boxing will never be as popular as it once was” argument, it’s completely unrealistic. There were times when Joe Louis fought that they’d put baseball games on hold so that the players and fans could listen to the fight, over half the population of the United States listened to his second fight with Schmeling on the radio, and he regularly filled stadiums of 40,000 plus people to see him fight. On the telecast for Muhammad Ali fighting George Foreman someone said it’s expected to have a billion viewers globally, that’s an unreal audience. If they were off by even 300 million it’d still bigger than multiple major sporting events combined. It’s unlikely that any combat sport will gain that amount of recognition or regain that amount of recognition ever again.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
And one thing you’re forgetting - until MMA gyms bring down their prices, there won’t be black and Latino fighters. They are far more expensive to join than a boxing gym.[/quote]
You make a very good point. But we both know what brings prices down. That is competition. Right now there are plenty of boxing gyms, and this is reflected in the cost. AS MMA gyms grow the prices will come down, the owners will have no choice if they want to keep their doors open.
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That’s the Republican in you talking. And even when related to combat sports, it’s wrong- plenty of places around here do MMA. All of them are expensive. It’s the nature of that beast.[/quote]
It’s not the republican in me as much as the economist in me. I’m sure that you’re not claiming that competition does not bring prices down. But let’s take the next step to answer your assertion. First of all MMA has not been around all that long, so the newness is still there, bright and shiny. Kind of like Hoola hoops, cabbage patch kids, or mood rings of years past. When a new product hits there can be many distributors or outlets and prices remain fairly stable. But, there comes a time in the life of the product or in this case, service where the shine comes off. So there are many factors that move a price up or down, but yes competition is one of them. Keep your eye on all of those places that offer up MMA. While they may always be higher than boxing, for now, in a couple of years the prices will inevitably come down through the over crowding of such places. It’s called the saturation point.
Never? I wonder if you can be sure of that. Boxing became legal sometime in the early part of the 20th century. Before that wrestling was actually one of the biggest sports in the US. In fact big wrestling matches used to out draw every other sporting event. And this was real wrestling the kind that mattered. In fact, boxing usurped wrestling as the number one combat sport sometime before 1920. Interesting how that happens. Up to that point wrestling was THE combat sport. Anyway, I have no idea how much boxing gyms charged way back then (I was only a boy LOL), but you’re probably right I don’t think it was ever expensive to join a boxing gym. It was always a sport which drew the disadvantaged. Great champs like Dempsey and Marciano came out of poverty through boxing. And it hasn’t changed much.
Fair enough. But when you make a statement like that you must know that a thing which is not growing has the potential to die. Although I’m not saying it can’t wallow.
I agree. The talk of decline usually followed a great fighters retirement.
Or overly defensive lovers of boxing.
And I’ll be one of the first to buy that fight, I hope it happens.
Gyms have different rates. The nonprofit gyms such as PAL gyms are typically free to anyone 18 and under. I don’t think any gyms producing champions really go beyond $50 a month. When my grandfather boxed he said it’s only a couple cents per month to rent a locker and that’s in the 1940s and 1950s.
[quote]goldengloves wrote:
Gyms have different rates. The nonprofit gyms such as PAL gyms are typically free to anyone 18 and under. I don’t think any gyms producing champions really go beyond $50 a month. When my grandfather boxed he said it’s only a couple cents per month to rent a locker and that’s in the 1940s and 1950s.
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I love those old boxing gyms, they have such character. My father used to box and I remember sitting in the gym as a very young kid watching him. Those guys were gold man.
Here in Europe we pay about 500 euro per year or 45 euro each month to train.
For this price I can train 6 times per week (3 times Muay Thai, 1 time BJJ and 2 times MMA/grappling), insurance cost is 50 euro per year.
What are prices in the US, seeing the discussion going on about how pricey MMA gyms are… In Europe this does not seem to be a problem.
(Edit: Euro and Dollar is not a big difference I think if compared to eachother)
In Austria i have to pay 55 â?¬ per month. i can train everyday and take muay thai and mma classes or join the boxing class…
Yeah but Austria is still on this continent, I’m wondering what the average price is for American gyms.
Seeing as the expense seems to be such an issue here…
There’s a pretty big difference between the Euro and the dollar at the moment.
That being said where i am you’re going to pay at least $80 a month and up for instruction, with some places ranging into teh $125- $200 range.
Shit ain’t cheap.
sucks serious balls that it’s that expensive tbh…
Seeing the trainers and teams in Europe are on somewhat of the same level…