It has been a while since I did my last blog on MMA vs. Boxing and I thought I would see how this issue has changed in the past 6 months or so. The reason I am doing this today is because Mayweather vs. Mosley is tonight and the UFC has 2 big events this month including one next week.
As I said in my previous blog about this topic I said that the major difference between MMA and Boxing is the depth of the sports boxing has 2 or 3 big cards a year that rely on 1 big fight with a weak undercard while the UFC has 10-15 big time cards every year with 3-4 great fights per card. Also boxing relies on a few stars like Mayweather Mosley and Pacquiao to make their sport while the UFC has tons of stars including BJ Penn, Kenny Florian, Rashad Evans, Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva, and 2 time Canadian athlete of the year and Under Armour spokesperson Georges St. Pierre. The UFC is also expanding itself to new markets where it is insanely popular, such as Australia, Abu Dhabi, Vancouver, and Boston, while Boxing is not expanding at all. In fact in Vancouver the UFC sold out a weak card by UFC standards in thirty minutes. Another difference between the two is that UFC puts great cards on free TV and is on TV weekly with the reality show the Ultimate Fighter, boxing rarely has any great fights on free TV. If you want to see how fast MMA is growing the most popular weekly chat on ESPN.com is MMA live host Jon Anik's chat. Also MMA Live in the less two years went from a experimental internet show to a weekly mega hit to a part of the ESPN 2 weekly line up starting this thursday.
Now there has been a lot of discussion about MMA and how mainstream it can get after the Strikeforce: Nashville debacle where there was a melee after the main event. Let me make it clear to people this is not true MMA, Strikeforce is a second rate promotion that has maybe 10 fighters who could compete in the UFC and one of their best fighters, Jake Shields, is about to be in the UFC. They are just the next victim in a line of promotions that tried to challenge the UFC and failed (Elite XC, Affliction). While some of the fights on that card and fighters in that promotion are great they are mismanaged horribly. If you wanted to see true MMA you should try and watch the Leonard Garcia vs. Chan Sung Jung fight from WEC 48 or the Jose Aldo performance from that same card. If the UFC ever gets a network TV deal with a network like CBS people will get a true feel for what MMA is actually like.
Also this week many people in this area had their hearts broken once again by the Washington Capitals who choked away a 3-1 lead and a President's Trophy winning regular season to lose to the 8 seed Montreal Canadians in 7 games, game 7 was at home. This marks this teams 3rd game 7 home loss in the past 3 years, in that time they have only one 1 series. This team needs to change they need get tougher, they need strengthen their defense, and they need to settle on a goaltender. My idea is to trade either Semin or Backstrom for a strong defensive defenseman and either get a top flight goalie or let Theodore walk and give Varlimov the reigns. Another option is a coaching change as the Habs wanted it a lot more then we did they blocked 4x as many shots in game 7, got to most of the loose pucks, and were more willing to get dirty and rough then the Caps. When the Caps finally showed some heart, passion, and urgency they scored an ugly goal, their 1st of the game. This team needs to make some big changes or they will become the Suns of the NHL. Now that the Caps are out my hope is anyone but Pittsburgh or Philly wins the Cup.
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