boxing proponents keep criticizing the UFC for paying it's fighters too little, which has always seemed petty to me. Yet, we never really knew how much the top guys were making. Now we do.
"Georges St. Pierre makes between $4 and $5 million per fight.
Those are the figures he gave to Agence France-Presse last week in a quick interview during his time in Las Vegas for the UFC 137 event."
I think the average UFC fighter makes more than the average boxer. Its just the top boxers that make a ton, $20 mil per fight.
Boxing has become a joke.....every "big fight" is only seen on PPV....I don't even know who the Heavyweight champion of the world is anymore.
Nothing like the days of Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier.....15 rounds....those guys were beat up....still fun to watch the old matches.
Thats not chump change :)
I'm with D6 there's very little to interest me at heavyweight level. The best action for boxing these days is in the lighter divisons. One of my favorite fighters at the moment is Manny Pacquiao. That guy never stops throwing punches.
I've never really got into the MMA. I appreciate the gladitorial aspect. However I find little in the way of technique that impresses me.
Those guys were pretty much literally dying D6. Look at Muhammed Ali. There is a reason we changed the rules and of course every big fight is on PPV, that's because it's not a joke, it's serious business that people are willing to pay money for.
PS, I doubt the average MMA makes more than the average boxer. Even if you ignore the top guys boxing is a more complicated skill than MMA and if Kimbo Slice taught us nothing it's that you can take a bum off the street and he can be competent, not good obviously but good enough to get to the professional level of MMA.
"Kimbo Slice taught us nothing it's that you can take a bum off the street and he can be competent"
um, no :)
MMA is way more complicated. Did you see the fight between randy couture and james toney (toney was an elite level boxer). He was dominated by randy.
"Kimbo Slice taught us nothing it's that you can take a bum off the street and he can be competent"
Nope again :) They had Kimbo fighting nobodies. Do you remember when it was on the utlimate fighter show? That's a show with amateur MMA people fighting to get a pro contract. He couldn't beat the amateurs! He only got a pro contract because they thought his big name would draw people to the seats, not because he was any good.
They had him fight nobodies who were professionals. Show me a boxer who had no training and made his way up functionally by fighting other bums. I'm not saying he was talented, but he was good enough to make a name for himself, get on tv and get his ass kicked by a somebody.
I didn't see the fight between Randy and James, I'll see if I can dig it up. That said they are different skill sets. The fact that once you get a boxer off his feet he's pretty much a worthless bitch doesn't make boxing less skillful. That's like claiming that football players are better than soccer players because they can pick up the ball and plow through you instead of kicking it around and constantly risking someone getting it.
"get on tv and get his ass kicked by a somebody."
He got his ass kicked by nobodies. I'm not sure how closely you follow mma, but a few years ago people realized the UFC was getting big and a number of other "pro" MMA companies started overnight. They were very light on talent, and one of them gave Kimbo a contract hoping his name would bring fans to their new organization. They had him fighting nobodies that couldn't even get into the UFC. It's hard for me to call them pros or somebodies. Eventually that company collapsed and the UFC said that he'd have to go through their reality show if he wanted a UFC contract. The show is amateur guys hoping to get into the UFC. He did very very poorly against these amateurs. After the show the UFC gave him a couple of pro fights. He only won one fight there, and it was against a guy that isn't very good AND he was a weight class lower than Kimbo. Other than that, he lost pretty easily to everyone in the UFC.
I don't follow it much at all other than i keep hoping someone will kill Brock Lesnar. If I pay 40 dollars to watch some guys fight it better last for more than a few minutes and I'd like it if someone got hit with a chair or did a flippy do off of a ladder.
My basic points however are as follows.
(1.) MMA is safer than boxing. We won't have full data on this for a few more decades but it's clear that boxers (and wrestlers, and football players) die relatively young. It turns out that repeated blows to the head aren't really good for you and by contrast most MMA matches are over relatively quickly and seem more likely to end by submission than by knockout anyway.
(2.) Boxing is a more established sport and people are willing to pay more for it. We can debate over whether Britney Spears is more talented than the guy who plays the guitar on the corner of 5th and Main, we can't debate who's the superior entertainer/marketer/what not. That part is settled by who's the one playing on a street corner and who's the one who can sell photos of themself, and then charge more if they choose to sign it.
(3.) Kimbo Slice is real. Brock Lesnar is real. Kimbo as bad as he was (and yeah I saw his matches cus my brother was into him) got to be on television and got to be while not a super star he's not a "who is that?" guy either. And he started with nothing. You can atleast make the argument that had Brock not been a huge name in pro-wrestling that he would never have been given a shot in MMA but as I understand it he's not the worst thing to happen to the world. I suppose both can ultimately be written off as freak accidents but I can't name any boxer who's a freak accident like that. Again both got to compete (albiet terribly) on national television and not in the American Idol ranks, they got on actual tv and not buried in the 2am time slot tv. I have a hard time looking down on that.
(4.) MMA is a lot closer to "real" fighting so there are a greater number of people who have the necessary skill set. I'm not claiming it doesn't take talent particularly at the top but boxing isn't like real fighting. In a real fight I don't wear gloves that prevent me from grabbing you, if it seems like a good idea to knee you in the chest or head I will and choking you out are all perfectly acceptable. In boxing I have to actively not do these things when the option arrives. More people who can has that supply and demand thing kicking in and driving down prices.
Ultimately however the only thing that I think should matter is how much the promoters/owners are making in comparison to the fighters. Those are more the numbers that interest me if, Dana White I believe, I always think it's a girl but saw pic and realized it was a boy who's parents hated him at birth if I'm not mistaken, is making billions then yeah the fighters need to make millions. Hell the janitors better be above minimum wage but that aside I don't think UFC guys are being held back I think they are a victim of being a less popular sport with a greater talent pool to pull from. We'll have to check in a decade or so once it's really established itself in the same way that boxing has to see if the pay scale equals out or eventually exceeds.
"other than i keep hoping someone will kill Brock Lesnar"
He got killed in his last fight. Well, not literally.
You forget that brock lesner was an elite level collegiate wrestler. He trained for years, and wrestling is one of the most important skills in MMA. He wasn't some untrained big guy. He's also a freakish athlete. It's like saying basketball doesn't take as much skill as boxing because Lebron James was dominant at 18.
No no. As a WWE fan I'm in the "Vince poured a lot of money into making you famous and as soon as you were you stopped entertaining us cus you wanted to play football. . .sorry MMA after you sucked at football." club. The Rock also shares a small portion of this scorn not so much for leaving cus he stuck around well after becoming famous but that moment when he became Dwayne Johnson not the Rock was pretty much an enormous fuck you to the fans who frankly sat through some subpar (The Scorpian King, Doom) movies to get him there cus he was the People's Champ. I don't pretend that this is rational. :-P
The UFC is a less dangerous enviroment with fewer fans. Of course they get paid less and four mill isn't exactly petty cash.