How MMA KO’d Boxing and the Political Lessons From Its Downfall: A (Semi-)Insider’s Story

They were angels. John L. Sullivan. Jack Dempsey. Joe Louis. Rocky Marciano. Muhammad Ali. Joe Frazier. George Foreman. Larry Holmes. Mike Tyson. Evander Holyfield.

The heavy champion was once the most well-known person on the planet. They were more immediately recognisable than president and bigger than princes. Muhammad Ali could have traveled to the most remote locations in the world, such as some remote huts in the middle of nowhere, and somehow every farmer would be aware of his title:” Ali boma ye”!

Now? Who is the heavyweight champion, even if you do n’t know?

To understand just how drastically boxing has fallen, contemplate this: At one point, fighting was THE most popular sports in the United States. Fighting was our love! Sure, there were a few international companies. In the first round, Brazilian Luis Angel Firpo reportedly knocked Jack Dempsey out of the band. In round two, Dempsey violently KO’d him. German Max Schmeling and Joe Louis engaged in a traditional two-fight rivalry. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sweden’s Ingemar Johansson hosted a series with Floyd Patterson. And Henry Cooper, an English folklore legend, flattened a fresh, cocky child in the third grade who was still known as Cassius Clay but who had to be stopped on reductions in the second.

However, boxer was viewed as a game that was widely accepted in America. Almost without fail, for 100 years, the nation’s greatest athletes were Americans.

During the first half of the 20th century, fighting was prevalent on radio and television. Every major paper had three or four full-time fighting writers on their payment. It was in our blood: Boxing was far bigger than football, exponentially bigger than basketball and hockey, and even bigger than baseball, our so-called “national pastime” .&nbsp,

And now? The two most talked-about athletes of 2024 are YouTuber Logan Paul and an Olympic competition of unclear/misreported identity. Oops!

Meanwhile, the Ultimate Fighting Championship — the premier mixed martial arts ( MMA ) league — was valued at$ 12.3 billion in April of 2023.

That’s more than any individual NFL team (! ), by much! ), including the Dallas Cowboys.

The UFC’s deal with ESPN ( just domestically ) is valued at a whopping$ 1.5 billion! &nbsp,

Joe Rogan does MMA. But does Mark Zuckerberg, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Pratt, Chris Hemsworth, Snoop Dogg, Gisele Bündchen, Ashton Kutcher, Keanu Reeves, and Elon Musk. In the recent” Roadhouse” remake, Dalton ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) is now a UFC star. MMA is torso and cool: All the great boys are into it! Meanwhile, fighting is … passé.

When Vince Neil and Axl Rose engaged in a fight, Vince Neil and Axl Rose fought it out in a boxing fit thirty years ago. Rose courageously confronted his critics on the music” Get in the Ring” to record it. ( Axl is quite physically imposing, you know. ) Back then, fighting was also perceived as the comprehensive test of one’s penile fortitude — an ultra-manly way to resolve issues.

But when billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are feuding, it does n’t even occur to them to put on gloves and enter the ring. Otherwise, it’s all about MMA: Your enclosure or me?

What happened to fighting? &nbsp,

Why was it replaced by MMA? &nbsp,

And are there any classes for elections?

The solution to the first two questions is interconnected: Boxing has many sanctioning bodies but not genuine operating monitoring. It was never structured in a manner similar to a traditional sports club. Rather, it relied on public opinion and financial pressure to unite the leading competitors. &nbsp,

For a great 80 or 90 years, this method worked wonderfully. Boxing was bespoke to make for stereo and TV channels, during the Golden Age of those media, fighting had near-limitless coverage. Young, eager, up-and-coming fighters would emerge on the radio every few weeks, so you could follow their path and be longtime fans. Closed circuit channels and Pay Per View newscasts became financial aspects in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, but for the most piece, they were reserved for the super-fights. There were still a lot of free programs, and superior networks like HBO and Showtime made a lot of money in the fight game.

In 1986, a 20-year-old athlete named Mike Tyson battled Marvis Frazier — Joe Frazier’s child — on ABC’s” Wide World of Sports”. ( Tyson cornered Frazier and decapitated him within 30 seconds. ) This was broadcast tv on free TV, and Mike Tyson won not just the battle but millions of new fans as a result of their support. Many of those viewers remained with him throughout his entire career.

There’s somewhere for a younger, up-and-coming boxer to generate that kind of complimentary publicity anymore.

By the 2000s, the best boxer realized they had walk almost all of their battles to PPV and earn a lot more money. For them, sticking to PPV was their best revenue model. Their supporters were n’t thrilled, of sure, but it’s definitely unjust to wrong soldiers for maximizing their money while they’re still young and healthy. They chose what they believed was best. It just was n’t right for their sport.

Without the best soldiers appearing on ordinary TV, boxing lacked an “anchor appeal” to reel in fresh fans. Simply put, it was impossible to compete against other people on the Mike Tyson cards and have it shown to ABC. Finally, in the 2010s and 2020s, PPV merged with streaming, and the end result is what we have now: A fighting plan that’s impossible to follow without anxiety, planning, lots of money, and subscribing to several programs.

However, the UFC is strongly organized. It’s a coherent sports club, ruled with an iron fist by the excellent Dana White. The best UFC fights nearly always occur, the schedule is simple to follow, and new talent is continually being showcased to their fan base. From weekly fight cards on ESPN to reality TV (” The Ultimate Fighter” ) to social media, the UFC makes it super-easy to be a superfan.

It’s an incredible success in sports promotion: I worked in MMA. Also, I did PR/media for MMA, Lord knows I’m far too cowardly to truly fight in a box. Plus, I cry like a woman when folks hit me. &nbsp,

There were a lot of myths from editors and partners in those early times. It took a long time to proceed beyond John McCain’s “human poaching” analysis. But one by one, all the different state began legalizing box battle, and when we’d step the first MMA cards in their says, it would be front-page information. Before long, the sponsors followed the fans. Accruing this momentum was n’t easy, but once we had it, the grassroots MMA fanbase exploded. A different fan was present. A nice story on a website like MMAJunkie.com would do wonders, but landing stories in the daily newspaper or terrestrial radio did little to drive ticket sales.

This was an audience that veered young, attended events, spent money, and consumed info digitally: The exact audience demo that sponsors covet! &nbsp, Which left boxing with no audience. And now it’s down for the count.

It’s unfortunate because, in my opinion, a great prizefight is still superior to a great MMA fight. There’s more opportunity for back-and-forth action, and most of the time in boxing, the better fighter wins. MMA is more unpredictable and prone to upsets, there’s no standing eight-count, so if you get caught with a solid shot, it’s a lot harder to recover and continue. In MMA, the better man often wins, but the outcomes seem more random.

So what’s the political lesson?

1. All movements, including political movements, must have a feeder system to stay competitive. Even though it might take a while, you’ll pass away with your feeder system when it fails. ( It took boxing 30 years. )
2. An organized, well-run movement will absolutely destroy an unorganized one — even if the unorganized one had a 100-year head-start.
3. If you’re not willing to fight for your audience, someone else will, and your audience will leave with them.
4. Because the dominant media are not required to conform to an organization, an organization must conform to how it presents itself to the dominant media.
5. Boxing was NOT given a black eye by the 2024 Olympics. Hey, this is boxing: We ran out of black eyes back in the 1920s. At this point, it’s just wailing on a decomposing corpse.

Learn these lessons well, lest your organization’s epitaph be Terry Malloy’s immortal cry from” On the Waterfront”:” I coulda been a contender”!

Followed by Roberto Duran:” No más”.

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