Like many boxing fans, Dana White was looking forward, in early May, to the so-called Fight of the Century—Floyd Mayweather, Jr., vs. Manny Pacquiao. Reached by phone, a couple of days before the bout took place, White called it a “massive mega-fight”; he had bought his own tickets, for seventy-five hundred dollars apiece, even though he doesn’t typically attend fights as a paying customer. White is the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or U.F.C., the leading organization in mixed martial arts, a cage-bound entertainment that has, over the past two decades, become a worthy competitor to boxing in the battle for the affections of America’s combat-sport fans.
White has a longstanding interest in boxing, as well as in M.M.A.: one of his early ventures was a clothing line, Bullenbeiser Boxing Gear, that sponsored Mayweather for his first professional fight, in 1996. So when he discusses boxing these days, he speaks equally as a long-suffering fan and as a business rival. As Mayweather vs. Pacquiao loomed, White’s excitement was tempered by frustration and amazement at the chaotic way the match had been promoted; behind-the-scenes disagreements delayed the release of tickets, which weren’t put on sale until nine days before the fight. “As usual, the boxing guys get so greedy,” White said—by ruthlessly angling for maximum profit, the promoters and other organizers had alienated the fans, and each other. “I think this thing will break the pay-per-view record,” he said. “And once the fight’s over, it’s going to break the lawsuit record.”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/ultimate-fighting-versus-boxing?intcid=mod-yml
As it happened, the fight, which Mayweather won easily, was both an impressive display of boxing technique and, most fans seemed to agree, a disappointment. (A story in this week’s magazine, “The Best Defense,” tells the tale.) Just as White predicted, it was a pay-per-view smash, with at least 4.4 million buys, a new record, bringing in triple the amount of revenue as the previous record-holder. And there were lawsuits, too: dozens of them, filed by fans who accused Pacquiao of misleading them by not disclosing a shoulder injury that, he said, prevented him from being his best. Not long after the fight, White was interviewed on Power 106, the Los Angeles hip-hop station. Jeff G., one of the hosts, noted that the fight had been “lacklustre” and said, “You know who really won that? U.F.C.” He said that compared to boxing, with its anticlimactic mega-fight, U.F.C. had “crazy momentum.”
“Thanks—everybody’s saying that,” White responded, now sounding much more like a rival than a fan. “You know where I didn’t win? I bought eight tickets to that fight.”
Other observers, however, suggested that, because it drew such a huge paying audience, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao could hurt the U.F.C., at least in the short term. The U.F.C. is promoting an enticing pay-per-view broadcast for Saturday night, U.F.C. 187, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, in the same arena that hosted Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. Kevin Iole, who covers both boxing and M.M.A. for Yahoo Sports, suggested that the executives at U.F.C. had already lowered their expectations. “The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will hurt them badly,” he wrote, predicting that only about three hundred thousand people would order the broadcast. (That would be a relatively low number, considering the relatively high profile of the fighters involved.)
Boxing and M.M.A. have often been viewed as competitors—sometimes by the principals themselves—even though it seems plain that the two sports are not, in fact, engaged in a zero-sum battle for fans. Plenty of fans enjoy both, and plenty enjoy one while finding the other barbaric (in M.M.A., you are allowed—encouraged—to hit your opponent when he or she is down), or distasteful (think of the brutally repetitive nature of some boxing matches, with opponents exchanging hundreds of blows to the head). Fight fans, keenly aware of the wider world’s general disapproval and disdain, can be surprisingly censorious when drawing fine distinctions between different forms of unarmed combat. But because boxing and M.M.A. are run so differently, comparisons can also help fans of each sport appreciate what they’ve got, and what they lack.
In the hours after Mayweather-Pacquiao, White expressed a common reaction, particularly among those accustomed to the speed and unpredictability of M.M.A.: he had been hoping for more action. “I thought Manny would come after him more,” he said. “I thought Manny was going to let the hands fly more than he did.” In the U.F.C., White is known for his willingness to criticize fighters, even winning ones, who fail to entertain; fighters can also earn fifty-thousand-dollar bonuses for exciting performances. Boxing doesn’t have a boss to browbeat fighters who disappoint, or a system to directly reward ones who excel. (Boxers aren’t generally paid extra to win, or to look good, though of course those do both might be able to demand more money for the next fight.) And it is often the case that the biggest boxing matches—Mayweather’s, in particular—are not always the most exciting. Boxing fans hungry for action, which is often a euphemism for violence, got more of it in the weeks after the big fight. The following Saturday, on HBO, Saúl (Canelo) Álvarez laid a quick but brutal beating on James Kirkland. The Saturday after that, also on HBO, a couple of élite boxers, Gennady (Triple G) Golovkin and Román (Chocolatito) González, scored scary and impressive triple-knockdown wins: Golovkin made his opponent quit, mid-round; González battered his opponent so comprehensively that the referee was forced to intervene. The sprawling and messy landscape of boxing offers no shortage of action; the trick is knowing when and where to look.
series backed by Waddell & Reed, the asset-management company. P.B.C., as it is known, has broadcast arrangements with NBC and CBS, as well as a number of cable networks; starting July 11th, P.B.C. will take over boxing programming on ESPN, replacing “Friday Night Fights,” a long-running boxing and boxing news show. Both on television and live, the P.B.C. events are slick and relatively glamorous—the idea, plainly, is to turn fighters into stars. In the short term, this means more and higher-profile boxing matches, which should be good news for fans. But it’s hard not to wonder about the growing influence of Haymon, who doesn’t speak to the media; the world of boxing is a contentious one, but that conversation may grow muffled if many of the most prominent voices are working for the same organization. (Many U.F.C. fights are broadcast on Fox or Fox Sports 1, which provide plenty of well-produced shows but not much in the way of critical coverage.) As one blogger pointed out, the demise of “Friday Night Fights” also means that “casual fight fans will lose the only impartial boxing news source on TV.”
White has a longstanding interest in boxing, as well as in M.M.A.: one of his early ventures was a clothing line, Bullenbeiser Boxing Gear, that sponsored Mayweather for his first professional fight, in 1996. So when he discusses boxing these days, he speaks equally as a long-suffering fan and as a business rival. As Mayweather vs. Pacquiao loomed, White’s excitement was tempered by frustration and amazement at the chaotic way the match had been promoted; behind-the-scenes disagreements delayed the release of tickets, which weren’t put on sale until nine days before the fight. “As usual, the boxing guys get so greedy,” White said—by ruthlessly angling for maximum profit, the promoters and other organizers had alienated the fans, and each other. “I think this thing will break the pay-per-view record,” he said. “And once the fight’s over, it’s going to break the lawsuit record.”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/ultimate-fighting-versus-boxing?intcid=mod-yml
As it happened, the fight, which Mayweather won easily, was both an impressive display of boxing technique and, most fans seemed to agree, a disappointment. (A story in this week’s magazine, “The Best Defense,” tells the tale.) Just as White predicted, it was a pay-per-view smash, with at least 4.4 million buys, a new record, bringing in triple the amount of revenue as the previous record-holder. And there were lawsuits, too: dozens of them, filed by fans who accused Pacquiao of misleading them by not disclosing a shoulder injury that, he said, prevented him from being his best. Not long after the fight, White was interviewed on Power 106, the Los Angeles hip-hop station. Jeff G., one of the hosts, noted that the fight had been “lacklustre” and said, “You know who really won that? U.F.C.” He said that compared to boxing, with its anticlimactic mega-fight, U.F.C. had “crazy momentum.”
“Thanks—everybody’s saying that,” White responded, now sounding much more like a rival than a fan. “You know where I didn’t win? I bought eight tickets to that fight.”
Other observers, however, suggested that, because it drew such a huge paying audience, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao could hurt the U.F.C., at least in the short term. The U.F.C. is promoting an enticing pay-per-view broadcast for Saturday night, U.F.C. 187, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, in the same arena that hosted Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. Kevin Iole, who covers both boxing and M.M.A. for Yahoo Sports, suggested that the executives at U.F.C. had already lowered their expectations. “The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will hurt them badly,” he wrote, predicting that only about three hundred thousand people would order the broadcast. (That would be a relatively low number, considering the relatively high profile of the fighters involved.)
Boxing and M.M.A. have often been viewed as competitors—sometimes by the principals themselves—even though it seems plain that the two sports are not, in fact, engaged in a zero-sum battle for fans. Plenty of fans enjoy both, and plenty enjoy one while finding the other barbaric (in M.M.A., you are allowed—encouraged—to hit your opponent when he or she is down), or distasteful (think of the brutally repetitive nature of some boxing matches, with opponents exchanging hundreds of blows to the head). Fight fans, keenly aware of the wider world’s general disapproval and disdain, can be surprisingly censorious when drawing fine distinctions between different forms of unarmed combat. But because boxing and M.M.A. are run so differently, comparisons can also help fans of each sport appreciate what they’ve got, and what they lack.
In the hours after Mayweather-Pacquiao, White expressed a common reaction, particularly among those accustomed to the speed and unpredictability of M.M.A.: he had been hoping for more action. “I thought Manny would come after him more,” he said. “I thought Manny was going to let the hands fly more than he did.” In the U.F.C., White is known for his willingness to criticize fighters, even winning ones, who fail to entertain; fighters can also earn fifty-thousand-dollar bonuses for exciting performances. Boxing doesn’t have a boss to browbeat fighters who disappoint, or a system to directly reward ones who excel. (Boxers aren’t generally paid extra to win, or to look good, though of course those do both might be able to demand more money for the next fight.) And it is often the case that the biggest boxing matches—Mayweather’s, in particular—are not always the most exciting. Boxing fans hungry for action, which is often a euphemism for violence, got more of it in the weeks after the big fight. The following Saturday, on HBO, Saúl (Canelo) Álvarez laid a quick but brutal beating on James Kirkland. The Saturday after that, also on HBO, a couple of élite boxers, Gennady (Triple G) Golovkin and Román (Chocolatito) González, scored scary and impressive triple-knockdown wins: Golovkin made his opponent quit, mid-round; González battered his opponent so comprehensively that the referee was forced to intervene. The sprawling and messy landscape of boxing offers no shortage of action; the trick is knowing when and where to look.
series backed by Waddell & Reed, the asset-management company. P.B.C., as it is known, has broadcast arrangements with NBC and CBS, as well as a number of cable networks; starting July 11th, P.B.C. will take over boxing programming on ESPN, replacing “Friday Night Fights,” a long-running boxing and boxing news show. Both on television and live, the P.B.C. events are slick and relatively glamorous—the idea, plainly, is to turn fighters into stars. In the short term, this means more and higher-profile boxing matches, which should be good news for fans. But it’s hard not to wonder about the growing influence of Haymon, who doesn’t speak to the media; the world of boxing is a contentious one, but that conversation may grow muffled if many of the most prominent voices are working for the same organization. (Many U.F.C. fights are broadcast on Fox or Fox Sports 1, which provide plenty of well-produced shows but not much in the way of critical coverage.) As one blogger pointed out, the demise of “Friday Night Fights” also means that “casual fight fans will lose the only impartial boxing news source on TV.”
