MMA’s Take On The Jones/Hopkins Recent Boxing Match

For the record, I’m a longtime boxing fan.  And I have felt the pain of boxings’ recent lack of big fights with known fighters.  Nonetheless, I can’t ever say that boxing is dead!  That’s sort of an inconclusive notion.  If there isn’t a big American heavyweight with knockout power, the sport of boxing tends to suffer.  Or, if there isn’t enough flashy and gregarious p4p top fighters, especially amongst the Latino population, many fans become casual or less casual at best.

This past Saturday, two veterans and future Boxing Hall of Famers squared off.  Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones, Jr. have a average age of 43.   Hopkins is still a contender, and Jones is simply fighting just because he can…and he still gets big bucks. 

Myself and friends went out to a bar/restaurant in downtown Chicago to watch the boxing match on ppv.  I knew better than to order this fight from my local cable provider.  However, I don’t laugh at those that did.  These 2 boxers sort of deserve perhaps their last big fight show.  It was a rematch 17 years in the making.  They are 1-1 now.

I was amazed at the crowd of people that came out to watch this fight.  There was the Final 4 (NCAA) hoops tourney going on.  (And from somewhere, a ton of West Virginia fans invaded this bar.)  It was standing room only for the basketball games…and this is a good sized bar.  Boxing timed the start of the fight perfectly, which started less than 10 minutes after the last Final 4 game. 

And I tell ya, even though some people left after basketball was done, the crowds swelled twicefold for the boxing match, many more than I’ve seen for any mma ppv event.  You would have thought that Pacquiao and Mayweather were about to dook it out. 

What this proves on some level is that boxing isn’t dead.  It just doesn’t have enough leaders that many people can gravitate towards such as a Mike Tyson or DeLaHoya, Julio Cesar Chavez, Holyfield, the young RJJ, etc.  No one in America seems to care much about the mighty Klitschko Brothers.  You could just feel that the patrons at this bar were so eager to be watching a fight where at least the perception of top notch boxing would soon be on display. 

Well, the fight was a big swing and a miss, imo! Very few to any big blows were ever landed, and neither enforced their will on the other.  The fight was not exciting at all (see GSP’s last fight).  There were actually many times when I looked around, and many patrons were texting…….during the middle of a round.  A few also would shout out tunes of “boo’ooooo”….even amongst the female fans who appeared to be equally involved in watching this fight.    There were a few exciting moments, but nothing where either was in a position to take the other out. 

I think mma fans can’t take this fight as their example of how mma is this and that over boxing.  Did you see the Couture/Coleman fight?  

Boxing is more universally accepted than mma.  And boxing also has a much more diverse fan base!  Most of my friends are boxing fans, and I have a few that are casual mma fans at best.  I don’t see them getting any more involved in mma in the near future.   One thing that I can see having mma amassing a bigger and more diverse fan base is mma’s willingness to put on fights from high profile personalities such as Kimbo Slice, and Brock Lesnar, and Rampage Jackson, and Herschel Walker.  The educated mma fans (sometimes called the (UFC) fanboys with a keyboards) tend to turn their noses up at such ‘sideshows’ as James Toney.  What these fans would want to understand is that such fighters will help usher in a slew of non and casual mma fans….which has positive ramifications for the growth of mma into mainstream America.   

Boxing is and will always be a mainstream staple.  Dogg Days of Boxing?  For sure!  I think the UFC had its’ dogg days as well….

MMA is continuing to draw its niche into this mainstream market as well.  What gets annoying is the negative back and forth comments from boxers and mma’ers, and each others fanbase.  It really makes little sense for a mma fighter to challenge a boxer, and vice-versa.  Neither will probably beat the other at their natural craft.  I fought no fighter who wants to simply, fight!