Who is everyone picking for the big fight tomorrow? i got my eyes on Mosley and Saul Alvarez

 

Mayweather man.

 

I don't normally watch boxing, only grappling, kickboxing and mma but I put some money on pbf at -450. I think he'll win close on points.

 

mayweather unan dec

 

it's Money Mayweather.

 

Ditto

 

I usually hope for the underdog. In this match that was Shane Mosley. He was older. He had lost several fights. Floyd Mayweather was undefeated.

However, in a pre fight interview Mosley used the f word several times. Thus I was pleased when Mayweather won.

Boxing needs a charismatic champion, someone like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, or George Foreman during his comeback. Right now it does not have one, so the sport languishes.

But boxing will come back. This is a sport that goes back to the first Greek Olympics. Many of the greatest writers in history have written about it. These include Homer, Pindar, Virgil, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer.

 

Michigan grows 'em tough! :excited:

But nobody pays attention to the lighter weight classes unless they already like boxing.

 

I really doubt it will ever "come back" unless the business model changes, which I don't see happening. That's the problem with combat sports, it's hard to make fights if you have promotional entities like boxing and anytime you are asking someone to ppv it's hard to generate interest.

A lot of people don't like the violence of combat sports so the big fights can't generate enough ad money to be on tv and it gets very expensive to follow it on a regular basis. I watch probably 20 ppv events a year, don't think about it bc i'll watch either way but a lot of people won't spend $1000 or more dollars a year on a sport. They just want to see it on free tv. I think boxing will keep going through the growth cycles it has now, sometimes being big, sometimes not so big. Mma will get bigger worldwide but has peaked in north america, kickboxing will never get a foothold in north america but remain big in europe/asia, and the lesser liked sports like wrestling, submission grappling, judo, et cetera will pretty much be stagnant.

 

he from grand rapids?

 

There is a nearby restaurant where I can watch pay per view fights for the price of a meal and a few drinks.

What the sport needs is someone with a good television personality. Oscar de La Hoya might have been that person, but for some reason he did not connect with the public.

 

Mayweather represents everything that's wrong with boxing. Pac-Man is the real champion and everybody knows it, including PBF. PBF pulled that shit because he knew he would've gotten destroyed and considering how apeshit Pac-Man can go I wouln't rule it out that he was scared for his life if he got in the ring with him.

Until they give us the only fight that actually matters, I refuse to watch it or even acknowledge when PBF beats somebody Pac-Man would've knocked out in a couple of rounds.

Oh, and Detroit grows em tough, not the state of Michigan.

 

Yeah, almost any sports bar and some other eateries show them. My point is you can watch football on free television, when you're channel surfing. MMA and Boxing you have to pay or go out and still pay some to watch it. Yeah, there could always be that guy that revitalizes it for awhile but careers are short and in combat sports all it takes a few losses and no one wants to see you fight anymore.

It's so competitive now it's pretty much impossible to be undefeated unless you duck guys to fight cans. I don't blame them for using ppv all the time though, the promoter gets about 50-60 percent of the money from the ppv money that comes in, which can be around 25 million (promoters cut) for 1 million ppvs sold on good shows. The licensing fee from lets say a cbs for 7 million peak viewers would only be 1-3 million dollars. Combat sports just don't pull the ad dollars like ball and stick sports and not all casual fans will pay for a/every fight. It's kind of a catch 22.

 

If you're referring to boxing then no it is definitely not competitive. It was a disgrace until PacMan came along and even still it's probably the least competitive it's ever been.

Boxing comes from the old school so of course it's going to keep dying. The places that breed boxers in the US aren't like they used to be back then, and more people would rather do MMA than boxing and I don't blame them.

 

It may seem ironic, but television, and not just pay per view, hurt boxing. Until television any medium size city had several boxing gyms and at least one boxing arena. At least once a month there would be a fight card and fight fans would go to watch the men box. With television people were less likely to drive across town to pay to watch local talent if they could watch the best in the world for free.

Television turned boxing into a very steep pyramid. The rewards at the top became much greater. The rewards further down became much less.

 

Agreed but it's a moot point. Tv isn't going anywhere so we have to deal with the options we have. It's hard to get fights to be sure. When I was first starting kickboxing and mma as an ammy we'd fight smoker events with just maybe 100 or so people watching from various gyms. The few organized full rules ammy events we had were very difficult to get booked on and still have fairly small crowds. On the regional circuit for pros they have pretty good attendance but def. could be better.

I know where I grew up a lot of the boxing decline was all the mma gyms coming up, it cut the talent pool so there wasn't as much need for as many boxing gyms anymore. When I was coming up from 2003-2006 a lot of guys came from the boxing gyms for mma, I came from a kickboxing gym and later a grappling/mma gym. Just 4 or 5 years later a lot of those boxing, muay thai, and kickboxing gyms are closed or only part time because of the few mma gyms that popped up. Every douchebag out there wanted to be an "ultimate fighter" and plagues these gyms. Atleast boxing is so established you won't find as many idiots in there, it's not a new fad. I'm anxious for the mma fad to die down a bit so we don't have so many asshats come in the gym acting like idiots.

That is a good point about the paydays in boxing. The top is stacked but at the bottom guys make almost nothing. Mma is far lower on the high end but also a fair amount higher on the low end. It's a tough road either way, I never wanted to pursue it full time, too small of a chance at good paydays/success plus I never would have made it physically, too many injuries. I'd rather do something more concrete. Another thing I keep seeing is traditional martial arts schools like karate, kempo, tkd and others turning into "mma" gyms and the instructors claiming they have pro records but you can't find it documented on the databases.

 

I am interested in each of the martial arts, eastern and western, except for American professional wrestling, which is staged. I would like to think there is room for each of them.

I am particularly interested in mixed marital arts, because I see it as a laboratory where techniques from different styles can be tested against reality. MMA exposes the exaggerated claims of many styles.

When I was in high school I took Tang Soo Do (Korean Karate) lessons for several years. Unfortunately, Karate and Kung Fu practitioners tend not to do well in MMA competitions.

In retrospect I can see that many of the techniques we were taught looked good in staged demonstrations, but they would not likely be effective in an actual fighting situation.

 

I started in full contact karate and kickboxing. I'll be honest, I never have been interested in traditional martial arts much. I never took them for self defense or anything, just for competition. I LOVE wrestling and submission grappling more than anything. Not pro wrestling, ammy wrestling (collegiate and olympic style).

Mma is a nice mixture of what works and doesn't. It is still a developing sport and is nice to see the evolution of it. Right now one of the weakest aspects of it is boxing. Most guys come from wrestling, grappling or kickboxing backgrounds so their hands are very underdeveloped. Even in pure kickboxing the boxing aspect of it isn't very good. For instance in mma i've seen fights won and lost just based on effective use of the jab, which a lot of guys haven't put enough time into.

Good example is Rogerio Noguera (spelling wrong on last name), was a medalist in the pan american games in boxing and trains with the cuban national team. In his last fight he completely tooled someone that was considered a good "mma striker" just by a good jab. He was landed the jab easily and using his powerhand mixed in nicely, once he had cane (his opponent) rocked, rather than going apeshit flailing with hooks like a lot of mma guys do he kept patient with the jab and some mixed in power shots and made cane look like a completely fool, knocked him out in 4 or 5 minutes into round one.

The only problem they have with a boxing stance in mma is it's too upright and if you sit down on your lead leg it can be destroyed by kicks or you can't stuff the takedown because you are so upright. That's what makes it dynamic, finding that mix of what works and what doesn't.

 

Jake,

If my life had taken different turns I would like to be teaching full contact karate using protective equipment, aikido, and jujitsu. Karate is good for fighting on one's feet. Aikido is good if one is grabbed while on one's feet. jujitsu is good for fighting on the ground. One can get one's opponent's leg or arm into a submission hold.

Because I value tradition I would teach the nineteen kata described by Gichin Funakoshi in his book, Karate-Do Kyohan, but my emphasis would be on practical self defense and physical conditioning.

I would discourage my students from competing in mixed martial arts competitions because they are dangerous, but if a student wanted to compete, that is what I would train him for. I would be mainly interested in teaching bully's victims how to defeat the bullies, and girls and women how to deter a rapist.

 

There is nothing wrong with that, they are good for self defense. It's just not what I got into them for. Any sport is dangerous but sanctioned mma is safer than boxing, and submission grappling and wrestling are even safer than mma. I always cringe when I watch boxing and all the head trauma. I'm more of a grappler now, I don't like getting hit. It all just depends on what a person wants out of it.