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The great debate on whether UFC has changed boxing or not
By Zach Arnold | August 5, 2009
Bernard Fernandez, a long-time boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, did an interview with Joe Hand, who is the major player for closed circuit TV distribution of fight events. Hand told Fernandez that UFC is where the money is in distributing events to bars as opposed to boxing shows, which cost more and draw (supposedly) smaller crowds.
Last week, Bernard was on the UFC conference call and I went ahead and transcribed his questions on the call. Check it out.
Bernard Fernandez (Philly Daily News): “Although it’s a couple days early, let me say in advance welcome to Philadelphia.”
Dana White: “Thanks brother, we’re excited man. It’s a huge event, I’m sure you already know the biggest fight in Pennsylvania history, so. We’re excited.”
BF: “Yeah, well, we’re going to have a special 8-page pull-out section on Friday which in the newspaper industry almost never happens any more. So, thanks for that.”
Dana White: “I love you, man. Heh heh heh.”
Bernard Fernandez: “I have three specific questions and one has to do with the level of competition and I think it speaks a lot towards UFC and what’s happening in MMA because the four top guys and the two top on August 8th have a combined record of 66-17-and I believe 1. You look at boxing and so many guys get moved along and when they finally get a title shot they’re 43-and-0 with 40 knockouts and whatever, even the best MMA guys you know if they have a 75% winning percentage, that’s pretty pretty good. I mean what does it say about the level of competition that it’s so much harder to compile a really stupendous record in UFC.”
Dana White: “Yes, it’s not though, when you really look at the sport and the way the sport is, there’s so many ways to win and so many ways to lose in this sport and guys… I’ll give you an example, Machida, he’s like 17-and-0 or 18-and-0 now, guys who can go undefeated and even if you look at guys who have records like Tito, um, you know, any of the guys that are any of the top fighters in the UFC to go for long periods of time without losing a fight, Kenny Florian is going into this fight without having lost in like the last 2 1/2 years. You know, that’s very tough to do in this sport and that’s one of the things that people started getting sick of with boxing, you had these guys that were you know 42-and-0 you know who had a title but they’ve only fought good guys their last three or four fights. You know what I mean?”
Tito: “I gotta help you out with that, Dana. With the UFC, what they do, I wish they did but I guess they don’t anyways, is give fighters kind of gimme fights. There’s never been a gimme fight at any one of the UFC’s at all, every single one of them are an action-packed fight, you guys are getting the best, you guys are getting main events when they’re even not main events. It’s just every one of these fighters who competes as far as their records aren’t 43-and-0 because they’re competing against the best guys in the world, it’s not like boxing where you can get Joe Schmoe to box somebody else and yeah he gets a knockout 50 times in a row or 40 times in a row and yeah, they’re good fighters but at the same time they’re not competing at the same level as MMA guys are and as Dana says, we can win any ways of knockout, submission, decision, referee stoppage, I mean there’s so many different ways that to win or lose in this bout it’s separated from boxing you know you can say boxing as checkers, well MMA is chess. There’s so many ways, so many ways to win and lose, there’s so many different moves you can do, and that’s why it’s so exciting for the fans to watch I think.”
BF: “I know that you know in the past and maybe even still now that you have been a boxing fan but you’ve also been critical of that sport because of moves that things that they do that are don’t seem very sensical, shooting themselves in the foot and that sort of stuff. In recent weeks, we’ve had situations where Showtime announced a tournament for the Middleweight division and they had another meeting with like 30 boxing promoters where they were all work in unison. This is something that hasn’t happened before. Do you think that these sort of moves are like boxing trying to answer stuff from the UFC that you know that they have been having so much problems competing with you guys that they’re making moves that maybe they should have done a long time ago, you know, in direct reaction to the success of your operation.”
Dana White: “No doubt about it and listen, the things that I say about boxing are absolutely 100% true about how screwed up that business is and these guys have just taken and taken and taken and taken from the sport for years and never given back and yeah, I think they’re trying to fix it now, they’re trying to but here’s the reality, you know what the reality is? Both of these sports can exist. I like boxing. The problem with boxing is they’re doing it again with the next Floyd Mayweather fight. Nobody wants to see that fight. Fans do not want to see that fight. But that’s the fight they’re going to give you. They’re going to cram that one down your throat and see if you’ll pay for it. Everybody wants to see the Pacquiao/Mayweather fight, that’s the fight everybody wants to see. And yeah, these guys are… more than just that, I see tons of things that they’re trying to do you know to make it, but good! That’s good! It’s good that we’re forcing them to make that sport better.”
BF: “You know, you remember going back years ago with you know the image that MMA used to have with the John McCain comments and that sort of stuff, several years ago you brought in Marc Ratner who had been the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, very well-respected guy as the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs. How much has he meant to UFC?”
Dana White: “He’s meant a lot. I mean, a lot of the key people over the last couple of years we’ve picked up a lot of great people and Ratner being one of them. The crazy thing about the fight business is, everybody hates everybody in the fight business, this guy is like the most respected man I’ve ever met in my life. It’s very hard to find people that say bad things about Marc Ratner. He loves the sport of combat, he likes combat sports, whether it’s boxing or Mixed Martial Arts and he’s been one of the guys whose helped build this industry, too, and I think by us bringing him in, it’s meant a lot to the UFC and to the sport. You know, he’s an amazing human being and the answer is yes, if that’s what your asking me, has it meant a lot for Marc Ratner being a part of this? Absolutely. I couldn’t say enough good things about him.”
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 38 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
There’s no question Hand is right. Boxing’s promoters priced themselves out of the bars years ago and it destroyed a lot of people’s ability to go see fights. It became PPV or bust: Closed Circuit/public displays, who needs them? The long term effect was initially an increase of PPVs and then ultimately sinking buys.
The Daily News (and the Inquirer) produce some quality sports reporting, I’m curious to read this 8 page layout they have planned for Friday. Its nice to see a respectable boxing journalist cover a MMA event and treat it with the respect it deserves.
I can’t wait for this event, and the Q&A session with Dana and Lorenzo.
Again..if anyone wants to join in on my tailgate prior to UFC 101, just let me know.
Thanks for going through the time and trouble to transcribe that, Zach.
Dana White when talking about boxing:
“I am huge boxing fan but let me tell you why it sucks”
Like people demanded to see Belfort vs Franklin.
Mayweather vs Marquez is much more significant and will be a lot more competitive then people think. The undercard is also just as good or better then UFC 103.
Both the UFC 103 card and the proposed Mayweather/Marquez card rock. I’d probably pick the boxing between the two just because I know I’ll have an easier time downloading…I mean, viewing the undercard from the UFC later.
I love boxing too and think a lot of things about the business end of it sucks. Dana is dead on there.
Mayweather/Marquez is a real good matchup. If boxing were run like a business though that fight would be on HBO and not PPV. Well, I guess it’ll be on HBO a week after the fact.
Boxing has been a lot of fun with some great megafights that lived up to the hype over the past five or so years now. Problem is, nobody but boxing’s hardcore fans know about it. If boxing were easier and/or cheaper to follow it would have grown in leaps and bounds.
MMA’s big advantage is that you have sanctioning body/promotions/leagues that advance fights, fighters and storylines on the same TV Networks. In boxing you don’t have that. You may like Miguel Cotto, B-Hop and Paqman. You watch when they fight. Maybe you hear another fight you want to see or you religiously watch the HBO fights, etc. But there’s no momentum build between fights.
It’s real complicated and has been discussed to death other places. But you can essentially thank HBO Sports and Golden Boy for tanking boxing. Bob Arum, Lou DiBella and a bunch of others have played a role too.
Weird that Dana would be complaining about how Mayweather is taking the toughest tuneup fight ever and we’re going to have to wait a few months for Mayweather/Pacquiao (assuming Floyd gets past Marquez) when the biggest HW fight in MMA is not happening.
In fact, despite all the complaining among MMA fans about the big fights not happening in boxing, it seems that MMA has a much bigger problem in that regard because of the refusal of some of the major promoters to work together.
Looks to me like boxing has a killer schedule from September-December.
HBO:
Mayweather-Marquez PPV (+ good undercard)
V.Klit-Areola
Pavlik-Williams (hopefully, it will get made or it gets shot down today)
Dawson-Johnson II
Bute-Andrade II
Pac-Cotto PPV (+ hopefully a good undercard)
Shane Mosley-Berto (most likely)
W.Klit vs Povetkin or Chambers
Showtime will have the super six tournament.
I agree with Mr.Roadblock, all those great non-PPV fights will get very little mainstream coverage. Boxing just doesn’t know how to market itself outside of its niche fanbase and ESPN won’t give a dam unless Pac or Mayweather are fighting (and even then one of the main talking points will be about how boxing is dying).
Also agree with Isaiah, has there been one article to criticize the fact that the UFC refuses to do one fight co-promotions instead of only working with a stricter Don King model?
Co-promotion requires another MMA company to be at the same level as the UFC and bring just as much to the table. With boxing co-promotion, it typically means two fighters of around equal value….
Until another organization equals that value, it’s bad business to do co-promotion. I think the reports see this, hence why they don’t question it.
Basically the same thing as being in MLB….. You don’t co-promote with the Japanese leagues. The player comes over and plays for the best league…
@45 Huddle
Not true, Fedor vs Brock would generate the type of money that it would benefit the UFC for a co-promotion (but it would kill their pro-wrestling business model which is why it will never happen).
In boxing no one cares who is promoting, it doesn’t matter only the match ups do. It does matter in MMA, ZUFFA has managed to convince most people that they are the only show that is relevant, I guess the ultimate blame lies with the fans.
MK: No, Brock/Fedor would not generate that kind of money, at least not enough in excess of Brock/Couture 2 or any of a number of Zuffa internal options. Fedor is not enough of a name in the states to make a co-promotion worth splitting the profits. Straight up.
Brock vs. anybody…. Whether it be Fedor, Carwin, Mir, or anybody else likely won’t make much of a difference in the PPV Buys.
For a co-promotion to make sense, M-1 would have to provide half of the fighters, half the financing of the show, and half the promotional power. They don’t bring any of these things. Not to mention the UFC would just be funding a competitor.
And for them to co-promote, realistically Lesnar/Fedor would have to do DOUBLE the business a Lesnar vs. anybody else could do. And that just isn’t happening.
Fans are not to blame here. Fans are use to watch the NFL, MLB, NASCAR, PGA, & NBA. It isn’t much of a stretch for them to want to see as many of the best fighters under one banner for MMA either. This is where boxing fails. Without the uniform banner, people can’t follow it as easily, and it’s easier to give up on it.
Fedor vs Brock would have generated more then Brock vs anyone else. People have heard of Fedor and his claim of being the number #1 fighter in heavyweight or even MMA history, it would be an easy sell. Even the mainstream press would pick it up and they have already to a degree with ESPN/Jim Rome talking about him.
Fedor or anyone else without the UFC brand = mediocre buys at best
Star + UFC marketing machine = much bigger PPV numbers then regular 400-600k UFC PPVs.
Fans here had no problem proclaiming the potential fight as the biggest ever. Word of mouth and press would spread.
The UFC could settle on a 80-20 split, and M-1 would not hesitate to agree (I know what Millen said but its BS).
The real reason is that the UFC does not want to comprise their business model, and it seems fans are ok with that in spite of Fedor vs Couture (2008) and vs Brock not happening.
How many promotions that Fedor fights in must go out of business for people to finally except that hes not a draw? Affliction only had 3,000 tickets sold for his fight before it was canceled and hes never been on a PPV that did over 100,000 buys. The guys not a draw plain and simple.
I like the UFC 101 card, put I think UC is making a mistake not pushing Silva/Griffin as the main event. Silva/Griffin is the real main event of the show.
MK: I’m not convinced that Lesnar/Fedor would draw significantly more than Lesnar/Couture 2 or Lesnar/Carwin. Lesnar is the draw, not Fedor. Even 80/20 is a net loss for Zuffa if Fedor cannot increase PPV buys by probably something like 30-40% over the next best guy.
Moreover, Fedor/Lesnar is ONE FIGHT. What about the other two fights on the contract, where Fedor either beats Lesnar, and takes 20% of two more PPVs, which sell much less now that Lesnar is no longer the HW champ. Or, alternatively, Lesnar remains the champ, while Fedor is a busted draw who takes 20% off two more PPVs while contributing very little to actual PPV buys? 20% off per PPV, times 3 fights, means about 60% of a single PPV over the course of Fedor’s UFC career. For a guy who is really only contributing for one fight, thats a huge loss for Zuffa.
MK, you’re wrong on this one.
UFC could build Fedor into a megastar by using Spike TV and Zuffa’s promotional team. But a co-promoted show with Strikeforce wouldn’t be likely to outdraw UFC 100.
As mentioned above Brock/Randy II, Brock/Nog, Brock/Mir III, Brock vs a built up Carwin or Velasquez, if you can find a way to make Chuck or Tito legitimate matchups. Any and all of those fights would be off the charts.
Not to mention you have a real interesting group of guys coming down the pike on this season of the Ultimate Fighter. One or more of them will be ready to be fed to Brock in 18 months or so.
If Brock keeps winning and stays interested in fighting, UFC has a printing press on their hands.
Not to mention… Once you co-promote for “just one fighter”…. You open up a can of worms…. And start to go down a path that will wreck your business forever.
Also, MK: you’re greatly overestimating the power of the Zuffa marketing machine. It is incredibly powerful OVER TIME. Fedor vs. Lesnar for Fedor’s first fight gives the UFC basically three months to promote Fedor, while also promoting all the other cards they do. That isn’t time enough to turn Fedor/Lesnar into BIGGEST FIGHT EVER in the mainstream, no matter how much we hardcores wish it.
Look at it this way: GSP/Penn is probably the biggest single fight to date in UFC history, a fight they did the 24/7 with, and so forth. With two competitors who have coached TUF, who are longtime UFC stars and champions. Word is that fight did 800k to 1million PPV buys. And you expect Fedor to boost PPV buys to some insane extent? You’re out of your mind.
Brock vs Fedor wouldn’t be the biggest MMA fight ever. It might be the most anticipated fight among hardcore fans, but it wouldn’t touch UFC 100 numbers.
I understand the situation and I never expect the UFC to change its stance (Though I still think Fedor-Brock outdraws the fights Mr.Roadblock mentioned unless those fighters go on a good winning streak, but maybe by only a few hundred thousands).
But not having a superfight because the UFC would earn $20 million instead of $30 million for one show is lame considering that they are swimming in money.
My main concern is that most of the fans don’t give a shit (not referring to anyone here but in general) and they are more concerned with the profit margin of a promoter. Oh well.
How about a singular worldwide governing body that will mandate all the major fights with promoters going through a purse bid for each match? Thats a lot more realistic, right? LOL
MK: I think its reasonable that people on here have a personal investment in MMA not going down the road of the boxing promotional model.
Very few fans care much about the profit margin of a promoter, so long as it remains healthy enough to continue to put on good fights into the future. But I’m personally afraid of M-1 and its co-promotional bullshit. That road leads to boxing and protecting fighters and no investment into the sport whatsoever.
On the flip side of having one major promoter who controls the sport we are assuming that all the fighters in the world will agree to their contract demands , that Dana White’s personal grudges won’t prevent fighters from fighting in the UFC and that the UFC can provide enough TV/PPV slots to support these fighters (its already hard for them to give more then 2 fights per year for their champions and having all the top class talent will lead to the fighters demanding more money over time when the UFC in reality can have mid-level talent sell the shows.)
All those problems are already present, people assumed that all the Pride fighters would magically go to the UFC without any problems.
The major league format will never work. Kobe Bryant can’t get the same millions he gets from the NBA by playing in Europe because he would be on a mediocre team and facing mediocre talent each week. Fighters only fight around 3 times a year, you can easily lure big names away from the UFC to fight somewhere else if the promoter is willing to fund the show because we assume that people will want to see the fight. This will especially be the case if MMA really does become global, when nationalism comes into play partisan fans won’t care about the brand of the promoter.
We do care, which is why we want Fedor to sign with the UFC. You’re acting like only the UFC is to blame, when the rest of us realize the UFC more than met them halfway. When a deal goes sour, I blame the side with the absolutely ridiculous demands, not the side whose offer, if anything, was probably too generous.
If Dana White told Fedor he could fight Brock, but only if Fedor fought for free and gave Dana half his net worth, would you get upset at Fedor for not making the superfight happen?
Meeting them halfway would be agreeing to a one fight deal with the split greatly favoring the UFC.
Demanding “options” on the fighter is bad for the sport and the Ali Act specifically tries to prevent this because its ethically wrong, not that anyone actually enforces the Ali Act in Boxing or MMA.
“The major league format will never work. Kobe Bryant can’t get the same millions he gets from the NBA by playing in Europe because he would be on a mediocre team and facing mediocre talent each week. Fighters only fight around 3 times a year, you can easily lure big names away from the UFC to fight somewhere else if the promoter is willing to fund the show because we assume that people will want to see the fight. This will especially be the case if MMA really does become global, when nationalism comes into play partisan fans won’t care about the brand of the promoter.”
That won’t work, because you need a) two marketable fighters at a time and b) enough cash flow from the fight itself to accept not making any money from the myriad cash flows the UFC is developing. Given enough time, the UFC will be entrenched enough that a will be difficult to pull off, and b will be impossible.
As for the fighters having leverage, I’m all in favor of a fighter’s union. One major promotion, with a union, would be a thousand times better for the sport than the boxing model.
Frankly, even without a union, the sport would be better off. Boxing has been misrun for so long that its hard to see exactly how badly the fighters have been screwed by the lack of a dominant body.
Also, MK, meeting them halfway does not involve a split and co-promotion; it involves giving them a huge money deal. M-1 brings nothing but Fedor. Nothing. The UFC, as a brand and as an organization, is so much more valuable than Fedor that it hurts. Any sort of co-promotional split would be incredibly one-sided in favor of M-1. Even 1%.
When you realize that the UFC brand, and the UFC marketing machine, are worth as much money as all the fighters in the organization put together, then you realize exactly how ridiculous M-1’s demands were.
MK,
Not sure if you follow boxing. I’m guessing you don’t. At this point co-promoting with M1 will lead down the boxing road. Every fighter with half a name built up by Zuffa will split and form their own promotional company at the end of their contract.
Look at Golden Boy. They match up contracted fighters with Saturdayorning wrestling jobbers and pollute HBO with the fights. Guys go one, two, three years sometimes with no meaningful fights.
Fools for Dana. He nit only protected the best brand in MMA. The brand that brings us the most big fights. He also protected our sport.
MK, those problems are present, but the alternative you’re suggesting would be significantly worse in all areas. It’d be even harder to sign big fights. How the heck are half a dozen promoters going to work together to bring big fights more often than one promoter? Mid-tier and low-tier fighters would be making even less than they do now, since promotions won’t bother building them up or paying them well, since they can jump ship at will. They’d be earning market value, which is next to nothing (see mid-tier boxer pay). Sure, big name fighters would earn more than they do now, but I’m not crying a river for them when they’re already making 7 figures per fight.
The major league system is already here; it’s working fine. In the last few years we’ve seen bigger fights than fans would have dreamed of 5 years ago.
The UFC is only going to grow from here. If fighters aren’t getting poached off at will now, how are they going to do it when the UFC gets even deeper pockets? All they need is one big deal with a network TV station and any possible competition to the UFC is finished.
Fedor is the heavyweight champion, he brings legitimacy to the paper belt that Brock is wearing. The sport should matter or we are entering pro-wrestling territory.
There will always be some big shot who will lure fighters away (eg. M-1), do they make a profit? Who knows, probably not. But seeing the success of the UFC is incentive enough to try. Its not like they have to set up a league with various teams etc, a fight is easy to make logistically on paper.
I am all for one major league + a union. But having one promoter as your commissioner is a HUGE conflict of interest. One singular world wide body that is run by a third party (non-profit) is fine by me, but it will never happen unless the government somehow mandates it.
Saturday morning wrestling. And good for Dana. Damn iPhone. I have to stop posting from this thing.
Brock will bring his own legitimacy to the belt he’s wearing, if/when he goes on a tear and cleans out the UFC HW division. It won’t take long at all for him to have more wins over *current* top 10 HWs, and once that happens he’s the *current* #1. Lifetime achievements only matter after you retire.
You have to beat the man to be the man, unless the man refuses to fight, in which case you only have to surpass his biggest wins, or wait for those biggest wins to become obsolete in the current standings.
I am a hardcore boxing fan and I never said that the boxing format is perfect (far from it) but MMA has some big problems that should also be looked at. In boxing if both fighters want the fight and if there is enough money to make it the fight will happen. Fedor vs Couture and vs Brock would have happened.
Golden Boy has had some weak PPV shows and horrible undercards but they have produced good shows this year and if anything they push their prospects too fast for their own good.
This whole talk started because Dana White said that boxing is bad because they don’t do so and so, he might be correct but he is also a hypocrite. That was the point I was making along with the fact that fans will live and die by the UFC, god forbid that ZUFFA has any major controversy that the mainstream media picks up, where will the sport be then?
I am not delusional and I realize that the UFC and their business model will dominate the MMA landscape for the foreseeable future.
“Affliction only had 3,000 tickets sold for his fight before it was canceled and hes never been on a PPV that did over 100,000 buys. The guys not a draw plain and simple.”
Fedor hasn’t been promoted to the general MMA public very well by any company, so it makes sense that he isn’t a draw, yet.
It is a fan friendly model. Remember four years ago when we were all spoiled with $20 ppv every other month that were jam packed with meaningful fights. Then w complained that they were $24 then $30. Then it was just one good fight and a bunch of crap fights from TUF 1 & 2. Now every ppv is $45 just like boxing. But generally there are more shows that have three or dour good matches than not. Compare that to boxing ppvs. UFC is doing right by the fans.
On the topic of M-1. Read this article about them not applying for their August 28th show in L.A. It’s what the 4th of August already.
This really points out what idiots these guys are. This to me completely validates that Dana is right in everything he says about these morons.
http://mmajunkie.com/news/15738/m-1-global-searching-for-new-location-for-previously-announced-breakthrough-event-on-aug-28.mma
MK, you are correct with respect to the Fedor-Couture/Lesnar fights. They would have found a way to split the purse eventually. But both also would have happened if he was a UFC-contracted fighter.
As a fan, the fights are really what matters. One major league with matchmaking control over the important fighters is really best for the fans. This eliminates many of the obstacles that have to be negotiated between two independent parties. It is regrettable that we have lost out (for the time being) on those two fights, but if the UFC continues to collect the best talent, we will miss out on fewer and fewer fights as time goes on. Long-run, this is best for fight fans. Short-term, there will be blips as a guy like Fedor existed and established himself before this power structure was put in place.
The UFC does benefit fans and fighters in ways that are not possible without the structure they provide.
– No protection for champions
– More matchmaking options (from control)
– Injuries are less of a problem for the healthy fighter and the scheduled card, they can be rebooked on the same card or one in the near future
– Cards have more depth up and down the card (though still largely reliant on the ME for PPV sales)
Don’t get me wrong, the earning power of fighters has to be protected. But I am more worried about the lower-end fighters earning enough than getting Randy Couture another couple mil on what is already a multi-million dollar payday. I would rather each fighter get 10k more for fighting (~250k per card) than see Randy/whoever earn 1 million more. Even better if all can share in that 1 million, but that is why you will not see a fighters union any time soon. The stars won’t want to subsidise their peers.
—
Also, how do you explain fighters ducking Paul Williams?
In MMA, some argue that Machida was put on the slow track/ducked. But thanks to the UFC’s unofficial ladder, he was able to rise to the top and can’t be avoided any longer.
Brilliant analysis, Mizark.
I made this same point years back. In boxing Rampage never would have gotten near Chuck. In fact Chuck was booked during the UFC boom the way a boxing champ would have been. He was matched up with grapplers who couldn’t strike. The perfect fighter for his style.
Rampage/Forrest would have happened. But Forrest’s promoter wouldn’t have put him in with Rashad. And Machida would be being ducked the way Paul Williams is now and the way Antonio Tarver was for years.
If Dana ran all of boxing Paul Williams would be a household name and a belt holder.
In short:
-The UFC could co-promote if they wanted with a less than 50/50 split. Whether or not M-1 wants that or would accept it, hell if I know. But there’s nothing stopping the UFC from doing just that, just as you have purse splits in boxing. They choose not to, because….
-The UFC doesn’t want to recognize anyone else in the sport except their own fighters on a promotional basis. They have the right to do this. Is it good for the sport? Depends if you think that they can get every fighter in the world of value under contract. Obviously there’s a significant number of people here who do think that, and no matter what happens over the next 5-6 years, that will continue to be the predicted course, regardless of what happens in reality.
Ultimately at this point, the UFC has shown to me and most other people that they have the fans and sport’s best interest in mind fight wise probably 90% of the time. Top fighters are not babied. Its absolutely true. Look at Diego Sanchez: one gimmie in his last 6 fights. Look at Forrest Griffin – Shogun, Jackson, Evans, Anderson Silva. In boxing, he gets an “optional defense” as some crappy meaningless belt holder post Rua fight and ends up fighting some washed up smaller guy who was a name ten years ago on an HBO card. In the UFC, he gets to fight Rampage.
Now, sometimes, they work in ways to protect guys, but its never as overt. Everyone accepts that Lesnar is probably fighting the winner of Couture/Noguiera next – that’s fine. The winner will probably be a top ten fighter. Do they deserve to be? Arguments for both exist. Are they competitive matchups for Lesnar? Well, Randy is gonna be another year older, and Noguiera got thrown around by a talentless Bob Sapp when he was in his prime. Coleman/Tito is clearly intended to help Tito, but Coleman at least looks live as a dog and, hey, its a pay day for the old man (hopefully he doesn’t have a MI during his camp or fight). He’s a lot better than Shamrock at 40-whatever.
I agree that the UFC has very good matchmaking but that is only if the fighters agree to be part of their league, if they don’t they just don’t exist.
Boxing needs someone in power to force good matchmaking, the various corrupt sanctioning bodies have failed miserably in that aspect and only made it worse. HBO and Showtime have made some strides this year to force top level matchmaking, ideally the UFC could do the same if they agreed to work with everyone by offering the power of their brand as monetary incentive the same way HBO offers guaranteed money on cable.
But obviously there is no need for them to do this from a business standpoint.
So this is the trade-off, guaranteed high level matchmaking for 60-70% of all MMA fighters and at the same time completely excluding certain world class fighters from the mix or going to the boxing model and hoping that all the big fights get made. Both are faulty, boxing offers a lot less consistency but there is a better chance that the big fights get made and in the past three years I would argue that promoters have done a good job to make those fights.
Paul Williams being the most avoided fighter is mostly a myth. He seemingly has no problems fighting top 10 opposition in 3 divisions and he has no problems ducking other lesser known fighters like Clottey. If he turns down the Pavlik fight because of ridiculous contract demands then he has no right to ever complain again.
One good thing about the UFC, we never have to hear about constant contract haggles.