Extreme Fighting A Sport?

Lazy thinking. Boxing is a 150 year old sport that has tried and true techniques. There is an art form to boxing and well established rules and controls. The sport is corrupt, but it is regulated by a referee and has sanctioning bodies, and more importantly a specific set of rules.

Mixed martial arts isn't a sport in that sense. It is getting there, but essentially it is gimmick pitting different forms of martial arts in a fight. For years they didn't even has weight classes for mixed martial arts.

I know boxing isn't popular, but it is much more highly skilled than people think. MMA doesn't have that skill or professionalism yet.

MMA belongs in the sports page as much as pro wrestling.

 

MMA destroying boxing? Boxing is hot in pockets, especially in the hispanic and immigrant communities. MMA is a fad that is highly marketed. Give me a good boxing fight over the carnage of a MMA fight any day.

Pro wrestling still delivers bigger ratings than both. What does that tell you?

 

Did you not hear about the 5 million or so watching since it was on CBS??

 

Newspapers should be covering the shit outta MMA, but they won't. The sport is fucking huge among the people we need to bring into readership.

 

Prove it. Why are wrestler that are legitimate athletes like Brock Lesnar going to UFC? MMA is the leader in PPV right now and UFC's reality show has had higher ratings than NBA games on cable. Now there are five different MMA promotions on TV - Strikeforce, EliteXC, IFL, UFC and WEC.

I know the crusty "old school" guys are against anything new, which is why the business is in the shape it's in today.

 

Winner winner chicken dinner.

And buju, maybe the crusty "old-school" guys aren't jumping at something with a shelf life of three years over something which has lasted well over a century.

Fanbois do not a sport make. A lot of MMA fans are MMA fans so they can say "I'm an MMA fan!" and feel all edgy. Sort of like driving a hybrid.

 

Well, no matter what, I truly believe MMA coverage would help draw readers more than a god damn redesign to make shit look pretty.

I have plenty of friends who swear by MMA. It might be a fad, but I don't think so. People like violence and boxing brings relatively little to the table anymore...and yes, I like boxing more than MMA.

So, just because it's a fad means we shouldn't cover it while it's hot? That makes absolutely no sense to me for an industry that needs to develop new readers.

 

Yes, MMA certainly had a terrific mountain to scale to reach THOSE heights.

If you had 10 viewers before and now have 30, you have a 300% increase. Statistics, lies, damn lies.

 

MMA is a sport in the same sense figure skating is a sport: Vast majority of followers have little knowledge of the sport beyond 10 hyped names, and it's watched as spectacle more than competition.

 

I haven't watched that much MMA, but I'm not sure I'd throw it in the same bucket as pro wrestling. I've always considered sports (at least in its purest, uncorrupted form), an activity where the outcome is largely undetermined at the start. That's what we cover. That's what wrestling is not.

I've always enjoyed boxing, and have watched it enough to know it's a disciplined skill. Some trainers consider it a martial art. From what I've seen of MMA, it may be rough, but it's still a skill.

As far as coverage goes, I'd say 'why not?' I don't think it's a fad. Violence has always been a draw. We've always decided what to cover based on what interests the public (football=yes; JV cross-country=not so much). So if MMA is drawing the crowd to the point it's more popular than the NBA or NHL or MLS, we might as well be there. Couldn't hurt.

 

You and I have no future in management as long as we hold this belief.

 

Um, that thinking sure worked with XFL, didn't it? It got puffed well beyond any good reason to. Remember PKA full-contact karate, ESPN's main coverage area in the late 80s-early 90s? If you're in your 20s, you may need a little sense of history.

And newspapers are not supposed to be slaves to fads.