Boxing would be very well served by taking a step back and permanently ditching business talk and public negotiations?
Last Saturday in the main event of the UFC 229 pay-per-view, Khabib Nurmagomedov forced Conor McGregor to tap out and then went on a wild rampage that nearly caused a riot at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The undefeated Russian, who was raging with hate against all of Team McGregor for a fight build-up full of ugly, personal taunting, didn?t stop fighting even after he won. After initially looking like he wanted to continue the attack on McGregor, Nurmagomedov turned his attention to members of Team McGregor and leapt outside the octagon to attack the offending parties. A wild melee ensued with brawls going on both inside and outside the cage.
And, as I wrote over at FightHype.com:
??while some stuffed shirt moralists lamented the lack of civility and sportsmanship, the fact of the matter was that nobody who purchased this pay-per-view event walked away unhappy. People got a spectacle?something to share on social media, talk about with friends, and add to their collection of memorable sporting moments.?
At the risk of offending boxing?s own legion of stuffed shirt moralists, boxing could sure use a bit of the chaos and insanity seen at UFC 229.
Yeah, yeah, the purists have an affinity for civility, sportsmanship, and the idea of noble gentleman brutes engaged in noble battle. But, in the long run, some fire and a flare for making violent spectacles would be much more beneficial to the sport?s bottom line and long-term health.
More and more in boxing, fighters are looking like shirtless businessmen who are only really fighting because they need to fund their other business ventures.
Boxing cards often look like a list of showcases that exist solely to peddle future moneymakers and, more often than not, the entertainment value of a show is tied completely to its main event.
The UFC, meanwhile, encourages testosterone-fueled craziness at every level and in every moment of every card. Combat sports fans who actually want a raw, brutally decisive fight?which is most of those fans tuning in?appreciate fine technique, but RESPOND to all-out war.
All-out war is universal and something salable to not only loyal fight fans, but to the casual-curious fans needed to turn a critical success of a fight card into a true financial success.
The UFC fosters an image of working to deliver wars whereas boxing chatter seems disproportionately filled with business talk and the perception that a good segment of top fighters are reluctant warriors eyeballing convenient matchups more than legacy-defining conquests.
Boxing would be very well served by taking a step back and permanently ditching business talk and public negotiations. Promoters would help their bottom lines greatly by building big names and big rivalries in the fiery, emotional way the UFC does.
This is not to suggest that boxing should go full caveman and/or embrace flailing brawlers over well-schooled boxers. Neither should it adopt all of the infomercial-like mega-marketing hucksterism of the UFC brand.
But it certainly wouldn?t hurt for boxing to build towards some real competitive heat with smart matchmaking and/or promotion and to also encourage full-on combustion to play out when things look especially fit for explosion.
People expect the ?wow factor? when they tune in to combat sports. Fighting is inherently a spectacle and, whether the purists and stodgy old guard-types care to admit it, quiet, competent gentlemen, engaging in the art of technical combat do nothing but please purists and stodgy old guard-types.
The sport needs to embrace anything that brings more eyeballs to screens and asses to seats. It needs to embrace the buzzworthy chaos that goes hand in hand with a good, bloody, wild, and unpredictable fight card spectacle. Returning the fight to fighting is a must.
