MMA = Boxing?

Hey guys I kind of brought this up in another topic and I was wondering what you all thought. Do you guys think that MMA will ever be as big as boxing was in its heyday? Now before you answer think of guys like Mike Tyson, Ali, Frazier, Rocky Marchiano, and many more. Do you think MMA will have figters that are remebered like these guys or fights that are remebered like the thrilla in Manilla? I would like to think that yes it would. However, these fighters and fights are legend (think of all the great movies about them: Ali, Raging Bull, ect...) and I don't know if attaining these heights are even possible in this day and age? Well I'm done rambling what do you guys think?

I don't think so. We(America) had far less stimuli back in the days of Marciano.
There was no Super Bowl that made the NFL huge. Baseball was substantially smaller. The NBA hadn't hit it's hay-day yet. Not to mention all the technology changes.
I don't even think boxing will ever be there again.

I don't think American boxing or MMA will reach the level of popularity it once had. There is too much access to too many competitive sports and activities.

Worldwide boxing right now may have more fans than it ever did. Several countries have their most popular athlete as a boxer (Phillipines-Manny Pacquiao, Japan-Koki Kameda, Mexico-Marco Antonio Barrera/Erik Morales...). Unfortunately I don't see any places where MMA reaches that level of popularity. Japan might have been closest, but a lot of their most popular MMA fighters were crossover stars (I think the two most televised fights in history were Yoshida/Ogawa and Sapp/Akebono).

Good points by both of you guys, thanks!

I think NFL is going to be holding the remembered athletes of today, but MMA is going to get big as boxing, it will just hold less big names. Hopefully there will never be a mike tyson, I dont want MMa to be rigged so fighters can seem perfect and then make the promotions separate so we can never see good match ups.

you also got to remember, boxing was the only sport that showed tremendous heart back in the day ( in terms of a fighting spirit to hold on for everything you have ) and, all the great fighters come out of an era of some sort of tyranny or epidemic, Ali = vietnam and how everyone flipped out at the muslims etc the list goes on. thats why they're put up on a larger pedestal.

I think MMA will get bigger but not as big as boxing in it's prime which was the 70's and early 90's....

But I think MMA could turn into Boxing....Old MMA I watch is so much better and more entertaining then the MMA fights today. Old skool MMA was just striaght brawling with no gameplans...

Now fighters have gameplans and are getting more technical...

Boxing in it's prime was just full of fighters that could care less and just brawled non stop every fight they were in...Now boxing is more technical...

MMA is getting popular since the gloves are smaler and the KO's are pretty brutal but MMA's getting more technical and eventually it will turn into Boxing right now and we will only see instant classics like Gatti-ward, Morrales-Barrera triologies every now and then in MMA...

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Posted by NatedawgThaM

I think MMA will get bigger but not as big as boxing in it's prime which was the 70's and early 90's....

But I think MMA could turn into Boxing....Old MMA I watch is so much better and more entertaining then the MMA fights today. Old skool MMA was just striaght brawling with no gameplans...

Now fighters have gameplans and are getting more technical...

Boxing in it's prime was just full of fighters that could care less and just brawled non stop every fight they were in...Now boxing is more technical...

MMA is getting popular since the gloves are smaler and the KO's are pretty brutal but MMA's getting more technical and eventually it will turn into Boxing right now and we will only see instant classics like Gatti-ward, Morrales-Barrera triologies every now and then in MMA...

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Boxing was much more popular before WWII than it has been since. Guys like John L Sullivan (1890s) and Jack Dempsey (1920s) were the biggest stars in all of sports, not just boxing. Muhammed Ali is the only fighter in recent times to rival their popularity--although he had the modern media outlet to distribute the image more efficiently.

I'd also say that there is a myth that "the old days" whether it's the 1970s, 1950s, 1920s, etc. had tougher fighters. Every generation has thought that, but the reality is that the training techniques and actual fighting techniques have varied litle in boxing over the last 110 years. There are plenty of guys in the modern game (Arturro Gatti, Diego Corrales, Rafael Marquez) who put aggression before technique just like there were plenty of old-timers (Jack Johnson, Willie Pep, Pernell Whitaker) who would stink out the joint with superior technique and a cautious style.

The problem with boxing the last few years has been the heavyweight division. The days of when it was loaded with legit fighters, which was as recent as just 10-12 years ago, are gone. Now we have Wladimir Klitschko and...well...that's it. Boxing needs to really put the spotlight more on the lower weight classes, which have given us many great fights the last 3-4 years (Lacy-Calzaghe, Corrales-Castillo, De La Hoya-Mayweather, among others) and also is the breeding grounds for lots of great up-and-comers, moreso with the legends finally starting to retire. That's more spots opening up for more guys to move up.