Another November weekend, another packed MMA schedule. UFC comes to us from England, it's in primetime, and it's airing free on Spike.
And I will likely not be watching.
That's a bit of misdirection in service of this column, so I'll clarify: I'll certainly get to the fights Sunday morning on DVR. But Saturday night's my birthday, and I'm going out on the town and... oh yeah... planning my night around the Pacquiao-Cotto fight. The boxing card.
It's only fair that I afford you a minute here to light your pitchfork on fire. I'll wait.
Back? Good.
I found myself defending MMA to boxing fans on the comment section of The Rumble this week, which is odd both because they have a tremendous staff of MMA writers and the author in question, Dave "Large" Larzelere, is my favorite boxing writer and unquestionably one of the best on the web. But reading about his struggle to get excited about the Fedor/Rogers card made me wonder if pulling fans over from the sweet science might be even harder than getting them off the street.
Marcus Davis made a successful transition from boxing to MMA. But can the fans?
To answer that question, we first need to take a look at why we watch MMA. For some, it's because we like combat, the rush of powerful fighters brawling. That's one that comes over easily enough from boxing, right?
But there's more to combat than brutality. Dedicated boxing fans are used to looking for technique as well: the myriad punching angles of a Sugar Ray Robinson, the lightning footwork of a Muhammad Ali. It's a major mental shift to see the beauty in something like Fedor's wild sambo punches that throw as much arm as fist, or to appreciate the wide, takedown-stuffing bases that sap the power from shots.
To use an analogy: I like running. I like fencing. I like shooting! But you're never going to get me to sit in front of a modern pentathlon marathon on Versus. There are going to be a large number of boxing fans who simply don't like a grappling exhibition like we saw on Saturday night between Jake Shields and Jason Miller. And though their disciplines don't have as vocal a fan base, I wonder if the large pocket of amateur wrestling (mostly located in the midwest and north-central US) and jiu-jitsu fans are bothered by strikers. I certainly know that the BJJ guys I know are far more interested in seeing a Demian Maia than they do a Chuck Liddell.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
"I like running. I like fencing. I like shooting! But you're never going to get me to sit in front of a modern pentathlon marathon on Versus"
But it sounds like you would play a shitload of Zelda.
I always wondered how much MMA was trying to pander to boxing/wrestling fans. And the other way around, I'm sure "the original fightin' sport" is trying to Bissingerize a new style of regularly-scheduled combat.