A lot is being made about these comments by HBO’s Mark Taffet in regards to the overlap of Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts fans. Steve Cofield from the Cagewriter blog on Yahoo seems to think Mark is wrong. I know that Luke Thomas from Bloody Elbow is a HUGE fan of the “Sweet Science,” but he is what I would call a combat sports zealot.  Does the average MMA fan like boxing & vice versa?  My answer is unequivocally no. Not just because I love MMA and find boxing to be dull and monotonous.  Not just because I personally know dozens of people that are fans of one or the other, but not both.  I draw on my experience of planning out afternoon drive sports talk radio programs in both Baltimore and Washington DC and another show in Phoenix.  Humor me…

Hockey is a violent sport.  It’s played at high speeds with plenty of action, hitting,  & athleticism.  Those adjectives can be used to describe NFL football but is there massive crossover for those two sports?  Not judging by the callers to my various radio programs.   That’s a pretty large sample, maybe even larger than the one HBO used for their comparison.  We have hockey callers & football callers.  It is VERY rare to have both.  These are your average fans, not your hard-cores/maniacs.  Is it really so hard to believe that run of the mill MMA fans would be bored by boxing?

Take the corruption, big ego fighters and slow, dull decisions that dominate that sport out of the equation. Most MMA fans start booing if fighters inside the cage circle for more than 20 seconds or if the fight is taken to the mat for longer than a minute.  These ADHD animals are going to sit through 2 arrogant millionaires jabbing one another for 12 rounds?  Of course there are exceptions (Manny Pacquiao being a great one) but that doesn’t make up for what I like to call the “Zab Judah effect.”  I don’t like pricks & the pricks in MMA tend to be more exciting in my opinion.

The argument that I have used in the pass to defend my obvious disdain for boxing in regards to MMA is that by watching MMA, you get boxing.  Why would I watch a Field Goal kicking contest?  Field Goals are a part of football.  I imagine if field goal kicking was it’s own sport the kicking would be of a MUCH higher caliber than the kicking in actual football.  Much like the hand throwing in Boxing is generally thought of as much better that it’s counterpart in MMA.  That alone does not a sport make.  I love all the “mixed” parts of mixed martial arts.  Boxing, takedowns, jiu-jitsu, grappling, wrestling, kickboxing, the works.  Why would I sacrafice “The Works” on my burger for a burger with really good mustard?  I wouldn’t.

I’ll leave you with a few words from Steve Austin. A man that knows a thing or selling pay per views  He tweeted this yesterday in regards to the most recent boxing PPV:

“my respect goes out to all fighters on the card. wasnt worth the price of the ppv.”

Agreed Stone Cold.  These athletes get all of my respect, but none of my dollars.  I’ll stick with the sport that has phenomenal athletes and more often than not manages to put on an entertaining show as well.

You can argue about the stratification of boxing with all their divisions and promotions. You can talk about arrogant, boring fighters the jab their opponents to death. Fighters that fight not to lose. Fighters that want to take it to the cards. The lack of big name heavyweights. The rise in popularity of mixed martial arts. All of those are valid reasons for boxing’s waning appeal. The one thing that people will not stomach is fixed fights. Corrupt judges and fallty scoring can end the sport. And when you have talented athletes like Paul Malignaggi screaming at Max Kellerman that the sport is shit, you have a problem. From the good folks at Bloody Elbow:

What’s worse: incompetent MMA judges or corrupt boxing judges? Scott Christ explains what happened last night:

From my view, Malignaggi (26-3, 5 KO) largely dominated the fight defensively and with speed. He looked like the vintage Malignaggi that was a legit contender at 140 pounds. Diaz (35-2, 17 KO) did survive a bad cut this time around, and didn’t fight badly. But he had a horrible time closing distance on the longer, taller, quicker Malignaggi, and it was Paulie that made much of the fight go.

It was also, it should be noted, a highly-entertaining style collision between two guys that came to mix it up and win. They both needed it badly, and fought like it. But it was Malignaggi, in my opinion, that won the bout. And I’m not alone. Bad Left Hook scored it 116-112 for Paulie. HBO’s Harold Lederman scored it 115-113 for Malignaggi.”

I’m no fan of boxing.  I find it slow and dull compared to the multifaceted mixed martial arts.  That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t LIKE to have another combat sport to pay attention to.  Until they dispel the phantom impropriety that haunts the sport. it will continue to be difficult to draw in fans like me looking for a reason to be interested.