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What mainstream media coverage looks like
By Zach Arnold | July 16, 2006
By Zach Arnold
I looked around for a media report to see if Mike Kyle appeared at the Boise (Idaho) MMA show on Saturday night (and he didn’t), and what I found was this article reviewing the show. Actually, it was more or less commentary disguised as actual coverage of the show (and negative). The most interesting note — the show promoter came from boxing. Throughout America, you are seeing more and more boxing promoters getting out and promoting MMA events.
This generation, the MTV generation, expects to be entertained every minute. They want professional wrestling’s antics and theatrics, but not its staged outcomes. Reared on reality television, they want — and expect — anything-goes entertainment.
But if boxing suffers because of the perception that it’s boring — too much clinching, not enough fists flying — then MMA will soon find its fans turned off by the constant ground action.
Try telling that to people who had to watch Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski at the UFC 61 PPV show.
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
First of all the Sylvia-Arlovski fight was great. If you’re a fan (which I know you are) you remember the history of the two fighters. Sylvia afraid of the ground, and Arlovski afraid of the counter right hand. The fight played out as it should have with both fighters being cautious and Sylvia’s reach being the deciding difference.
Secondly, boxing promoters are generally not boxing fans, they are money fans. They are going to promote the product that puts fans in the seats, whether it be boxing, MMA, or professional underwater basket weaving. Putting down a whole generation of fans because of their reaction to what has been offered to them as entertainment just sounds like sour grapes to me.
I guess I just wanted to say that the boxing fans who are bored with boxing were not true boxing fans in the first place. MMA fans who get bored with submission grappling are not true MMA fans either. They are both out there for us to either enjoy or ignore, so let’s just live and let live and may the best show make the most money.