Has Boxing Become A Feeder Sport?

It pains me to say this as I am a big boxing fan, but the question popped in my head when Doug Fischer, the excellent quote:

So why am I writing about a 21-year veteran?

Toney’s a real fighter. Yes, he’s a shadow of the marvelous middleweight who took on all comers in the early 1990s, but when he says he’ll fight anybody, anywhere, anytime -- even after 83 professional boxing matches -- you can believe that he means business.

And when he says that he’s going to beat Couture, a 5-to-1 betting favorite, you can at least believe that he

And to be honest, I’d rather write about Toney than spend any amount of time pontificating on or complaining about the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao negotiations.iter over at The Ring, went and visited with James Toney and gave us this comment: believes what he says.

Boxing has fallen and fallen hard.  its nearly impossible to watch top talent fight without forking over $50, its even more impossible to find good fights on DVD, and its the hardest thing in the world to figure out who the champions are as they are scattered across four or five different sanctioning bodies.  And on top of all that, the structure of match-making through different promoters and purse bids makes it next to impossible to see the top fighters fight until it is sometimes too late.  Farce fights like Roy Jones vs. Bernard Hopkins 15 years after anyone cared was just a vehicle to fuel Hopkins' ego.  Then we have the disgrace that is the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations.  In MMA, these two guys would be chomping at the bit to fight each other.  In MMA, guys like BJ Penn are willing to move up in weight just to fight the best even if they get crushed - and come out better for it.  The MMA structure is centered around the UFC, and this linear system with one boss who controls the purse, not only are top matches made but fighters are motivated to impress the boss.  But even in Strikeforce, they strive to bring in the top fighters they can find - witness Strikeforce Nashville. 

Toney's entry in MMA, along with welterweight Ricardo Mayorga and cruiserweight BJ Flores, is more about finding top flight competition and a way around the Byzantine world boxing match-making than it is about proving boxing is better than MMA.  That may be the conventional narrative, but in reality the reason why guys like Toney and Mayorga are really getting into MMA is because of the way boxing works.  Its a broken sport at its all-time low in popularity.  Yes, people will by a Pacquiao or Mayweather fight, but the sport isn't talked about anymore.  I would dare to claim that MMA is starting to get more mainstream sports coverage than boxing.  Fighters like Georges St-Pierre, Chuck Liddell, and Brock Lesnar have or are becoming someone household names in sports and the UFC has created an atmosphere where nearly every one of their shows is a can't-miss, while boxing spits out one can't-miss fight a year.  

The only thing going on in boxing that is truly interesting and delivering is Showtime's Super Six World Boxing Classic.  The usual turf wars have broken out here and there, but the tournament has been well done and has done something that hasn't been done in a long time . . . ensured top fighters do nothing but fight other top fighters.  And yet the names are still mostly foreign to average fight fans.  Another failure of boxing as a sport . . . its inherent ability to shine a light on its failures in hopes of a blockbuster instead of focusing on an outstanding concept with great fighters fighting great fights.

So with guys like Toney and Mayorga and Flores making the leap into MMA, is it a sign that MMA is the next evolution in combat sports?  Is it now the ultimate challenge in terms of fighting?  MMA has become dominated by fighters who can master several disciplines, and striking being on of them.  Will boxing now become a feeder sport where in the next 20 years its most talented young talents will eventually end up in MMA similar to top-flight wrestlers, submission fighters, and Brazlilian jiu-jitsu practitioners?  Not only these fighters, but top trainer Freddy Roach has opened his gym and his expertise to helping MMA fighters like Anderson Silva, Tito Ortiz, BJ Penn, Georges St-Pierre, and Andrei Arlovski.  Howard Davis, a former Olympic medalist, teaches boxing at American Top Team. 

Boxing won't die.  It won't.  Like baseball, its woven into our national sports culture.  And nothing will ever beat the spectacle of a big fight . . . 13 rounds of pure aggression.  I dare someone not to stand up for Carl Froch vs. Mikkel Kessler, Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto, or Floyd Mayweather vs. Oscar de la Hoya.  But how often do these fights drop?  Once, twice a year?  Right now, MMA has taken over the young male demographic where future boxers may come out of.  Its traditional base in Hispanic and African-American community is being challenged as the UFC push Rashad Evans and Cain Velasquez. 

If boxing somehow doesn't fix itself, the next James Toney who's 20 years old right is more interested in MMA than in boxing.  Boxing is a grueling way to make a living, taking three or four fights a year each a grueling 10-12 rounds.  MMA is three to five rounds that in many ways is a lot safer.  As the UFC grows, its clear it is at the expense of boxing.  And because the organization of boxing today resembles the combat sports equivalent of the Holy Roman Empire, they seem helpless to stop this. 

You watch, as MMA grows and grows boxing will be relegated once again to just "another discipline" unless its top fighters can take a lesson from what those seven super-middleweights on Showtime are teaching.  Fans are tired of bloated records of guys like Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr being given tomato cans for five years and instead look to see if a fighter like Andre Ward can run a nonstop gauntlet through the top fighters in his division with nary a can in between.  The selfishness of both Pacquiao and Mayweather to put money and pride a head of the sport that has given some much is turning it quickly into the minor leagues of combat sports.

(I've posted this on my diary at Bloody Elbow to get the MMA perspective)