Forget the outcome. We already knew that. Any unbiased person with half a brain and not a slave to click bait material knew Floyd Mayweather would defeat Conor McGregor on Saturday night. Now that the smoke has cleared, each man will deposit their insane paycheck and all of the rubes masquerading as real fans of mixed martial arts (MMA) or boxing will go back to largely ignoring these combat sports.
If you wish to consider Mayweather/McGregor a perverted farce designed to exploit both sports rather than promote them, that’s fine. Other may look at it as a night when boxing and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) were at the forefront of the sporting landscape for one of its few times each year. The presumption though by many sports fans and casual observers is that UFC president Dana White did boxing some sort of favor, as boxing is still dying a slow and painful death.
An interesting interpretation, considering the event was dictated entirely by the retired boxer, not the UFC superstar.
Floyd Mayweather imposed the terms. Floyd Mayweather successfully negotiated the use of 8 oz gloves instead of the mandated 10 oz gloves. Floyd Mayweather reportedly got three times the money as his counterpart. While McGregor is no stranger to competing in Las Vegas, the fight was held in the city in which Floyd has lived, trained and boxed in every bout since 2006. And of course, it was a boxing match. The entire spectacle played to Mayweather’s strengths from start to finish.
Sidebar: Also, the stars came out for this prizefight in ways they just don’t for UFC. Ringside has always trumped cageside—just ask Frank Lucas.
It stands to reason that the party operating from a position of weakness would be the one to concede all items up for negotiation. In this case, that ain’t boxing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM1KwqcfiBw
Contrary to popular belief, boxing has been putting up A-Rod numbers for quite some time. Even with the increase in popularity of UFC and MMA as a whole, coming into the weekend boxing still owned the seven of the top 10 highest grossing pay-per-view events all-time. And for those of furiously refuting this as ancient history, the top three events were all boxing matches from the last 10 years. The remaining three events were all UFC cards.
Cable TV has also seen a recent uptick in boxing telecasts. The Premiere Boxing Champions series debuted in 2015 with three million viewers on NBC, and has since expanded to eight other networks. Last week, ESPN aired the live prime time knockout victory of newly undisputed light welterweight champion Terence Crawford. Two of the sport’s biggest stars, Canelo Álverez and Gennady Golovkin, will lock horns on September 16. Some are speculating the event will draw three million ppv buys, which would triple the output of Canelo’s last fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. That bout yielded a stellar one million buys, putting its commercial performance on par with the biggest names UFC has to offer (Lesnar, Silva, McGregor etc.) Álverez/Chavez was especially impressive considering the one-sided nature of the contest going into the fight (Canelo dismembered Chavez as expected).
For perspective, the Jon “Bones” Jones/Daniel Cormier 2 bout from July 29 — a grudge match between two heavyweights that included the best athlete UFC has to offer — topped out at 860,000 PPV buys. Canelo/GGG surpassing that total is a pretty safe bet.
Pugilism antagonists cite boxing’s corruption for its downfall. While the historical lack of purity in the sport is a legitimate criticism, Jon Jones was just knocked for doping for the second time last week. Add this to his other outside-the octagon transgressions and Mr. Bones has created quite the rap sheet for himself. This downfall isn’t new for UFC. If boxing is guilty of not hyping its young stars enough, White and his league are guilty of the opposite—over-hyping stars that, for one reason or another, fail to stand the test of time (see: Ronda Rousey).
Conor McGregor isn’t going anywhere and neither is UFC, but there’s plenty of room for both sports to live and thrive. The growth of one doesn’t automatically correlate to the demise of the other. True, boxing has fallen from the days when its stars were exalted above all others. There was a time when the Floyd Mayweather of the day would regularly be the first guest on The Tonight Show. Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis once hobnobed with Frank Sinatra. The disappearance of this era, and the rise in popularity of MMA, shouldn’t be confused with the death of The Sweet Science. Floyd might be gone, but boxing has stood tall for generations; proving that the next Johnson, Dempsey, Louis, Robinson, Marciano, Ali, Leonard, Tyson or Mayweather is just a check left hook away.