Boxing losing the battle of evolution to UFC
When Marc Ratner resigned his office and took a position with the UFC, it signaled a major death toll for the sport of boxing.
With mixed martial arts already grabbing a huge market share from boxing, the intelligent addition of Ratner as a mouthpiece to commissioners and politicians nationwide shows the dedication that UFC has to becoming the evolutionary replacement for our sport. Ratner, who is a fervent advocate for fighter safety, adds credibility to the UFC and further assists the genius business plan that someone has developed in that company.
Or perhaps all the UFC executives had to do was collect all the articles written by boxing people over the last two decades that have warned of boxing's demise if changes were not made and applied the cure to the UFC business plan. Intelligently they decided that it is better to build the business of MMA instead of any one athlete. Competitive matchups, entertaining shows, a focus on the sport similar to the NFL model instead of a focus on individual hype, joined with positive reporting.
Writers have been pointing out boxing's deficiencies for years only to be blown off by promoters as sensationalism. The difference now is that an alternative is available that excites people and absconds with our fan base. Now the UFC is successfully recruiting our most intelligent executives.
Promoters in our sport remind me of the husband that gains 50 pounds, begins giving gifts of toasters instead of diamonds, and considers a fishing trip to Montana a romantic getaway. Then when the wife takes off with her yoga instructor he cries foul and can‘t figure out what the problem was. "Wasn't my fault," he says, as he lays on the sofa with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other.
All we fans warned you for three decades now that a couple of good fights a year would not keep us happy, yet you continue to feed us with bouts like Samuel Peter versus Julius Long. What was your thinking, that you could replace quality with hype and the next thing to come along wouldn't attract our fan base?
I don't intend to pick on just one bout or event because the disease that took over boxing in the 1970s is rampant yet still curable, but everyone is waiting for someone else to do it first. When pro wrestling and martial arts took a large percentage of our audience in the '80s, promoters thought they would come back and it was business as usual.
They didn't.
The problem is that as we wait to correct our issues the competition grows stronger and we weaken ourselves.
Boxing's death certificate will read suicide, because the cure is in front of us, but like the answer to most people's problems, the solution isn't easy, often more painful than the problem. So much money is tied up in built fighters that fortunes would be lost if we changed things making the statis quo desirable.
Already our opponent pool is on the verge of extinction as every fighter that turns pro wants to be protected by someone. Never in the sport has so many belts, and so many undefeated records existed than today. Fighters in their late twenties and early thirties are entering the sport looking to stay undefeated for life.
We have gone to importing fighters from other countries that have ineffective commissions and it is only a matter of time before we see another rash of ring deaths. These countries allow fighters with a couple of dozen wins to box debut fighters and build ridiculous records and place safety at a minimum while building paper champions.
Promoters focus on churning and burning credible opponents as if another is just a day away but the truth is that less are turning pro and now another avenue exists that combative athletes can join, avoiding the sport of boxing and the bad publicity attached to it.
In our gym I have had more grapplers coming in to learn hand skills than I have had boxers coming in to go amateur or pro. Where boxing is a singularly skilled sport, the UFC can draw personnel from all combat sports. Boxing was once in schools nationwide, until its reputation ruined that pool of wealth, yet high schools furnish wrestlers to the UFC as well as judo, karate and other martial arts.
Boxing trainers can now join with a grappling coach to form another stream of income, which will build more wealth personally and further restrict dependence on local promoters. UFC knockoffs are springing up nationwide.
While promoters continue to focus on building individual fighter's records on the backs of a smaller pool of opponents, not one promoter sets aside prelims to build those opponents back wins and the commissions retire more and more fighters based on losses. Purses are beginning to grow smaller as ticket sales decrease on smaller shows.
Frankly, I have seen better fights between two .500 fighters than most of the main events in the last several years. Fighters, managers, and promoters continue to hype undefeated as a gauge for a fighters career while truthfully 80 percent of the undefeated fighters today would have been B fighters in the '30s.
We must begin to use quality of opposition as a gauge instead of wins and losses. The power to change our extinction lays only in the people in the business. It could lay in the hands of commissions who should force a boxer to face similar opposition instead of allowing undefeated versus a .500 guy but why would he or she want that headache and conflict with promoters. The same commissioner can sit back and wait until the UFC replaces us and have the same revenue, same workload, less headaches, and a sport that is popular.
Being the commissioner of a popular sport that doesn't carry the baggage of boxing has got to be a better deal. Fact is, with so short a history, MMA and the UFC doesn't have the ring deaths to turn off the tree-huggers and soccer moms.
I was shocked prior to the Chris Byrd-Wladimir Klitschko heavyweight title fight just how many boxing sites didn't post staff predictions prior to the bout. Every answer I got as to the why of that, was that the fight was so predictable that it wasn't worth the effort. That is a major symptom of the illness that inflicts our sport.
I ask all our promoters out there: Is the remedy of fixing boxing — fighting your golden boys in tough fights consistently, being more concerned rebuilding boxing, winning fans instead of losing them — such a bitter treatment, such a bitter medicine, that it is better to go extinct holding a phony title with a phony record, than to survive and thrive?
On Jan. 20 I stood at ringside next to a camera man watching as J.C. Candelo was robbed of a win against Teddy Reid when the bout was declared a draw. The camera man turned to me and said, "New year, same old crap."
When the people that make a living from this sport have such a venomous opinion of it, why do we in the business expect our fans to return, time and time again, to smoke and mirrors?
