I use the argument of, name 5 fighters from each respective sport. Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Ray, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquaio UFC: Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir, Kimbo Slice, Fedora, Chuck Lidell. Which list is more notorious? BOXING ALL THE WAY.
lol wtf some weak ufc fighters. i mean kimbo slice really? it should be MMA not ufc. Royce Gracie, GSP, BJ Penn, Anderson Silva just saying your argument sucks and you picked some bad MMA fighters.
I don't mind UFC but man, almost every UFC fan I know is a gigantic douche bag!! As long as the fighters are standing I enjoy it. As soon as they start rolling around on the floor, it is game over for me. I enjoy hand-to-hand combat, but once it becomes sweaty torso to sweaty torso combat, or crotch to crotch combat, I get very uncomfortable.
You have a century of boxing history vs. a few years of UFC history, you can't make that argument. If you don't understand jiu-jitsu, of course you're not going to like it.
A lot of people love fighting. Just as a lot of people love big hits in football and flagrant fouls and fights in basketball. Contact is fun to watch. No homo.
It's interesting that your list of boxers were almost all boxers of the distant and maybe not-so-distant past and your list of MMA (or UFC as you'd like to call them) shows you know little of its best fighters.
I like the time-frame of a UFC / MMA fight better - only the championship fights go 25 minutes, normal fights are 15 minutes max, and many mma fights have a max of 9 minutes. I don't want to sit down for a 12 round boxing match where the judging of every round is suspect. Plus the current heavyweight champ makes fights look like crap - and all the various organizations / belts make owning a belt a joke.
Im a huge fan of both Boxing and MMA but would definitely rather watch a big boxing event like Pac vs cotto or Mosley vs mayweather or Pac vs mayweather or mosley than say, Fedor/lesnar or Anderson Silva/Machida, though id LOVED to watch those matches too. While it may be true that ufc cards would probably be a whole lot more entertaining on the whole, boxings main event would likely provide greater value, in terms of length, action and nuances. A great boxing match like Pac vs Marquez II, cotto vs margarito, barrera vs morales etc provided 45 minutes of drama, action, anticipation, momentum swings etc that has yet to be matched by a great MMA fight. MMA fights by nature, tend to be shorter, more one sided and abrupt. A great boxing match too me is like watching game 7 between two great teams in the NBA finals with its tug and pull, while a great mma match is akin to watching the last two minutes of that match, short, sweet and to the ending all too soon. Despite all that, I'd have to pick UFC as the better option at the moment, for one simple reason... YOU GET THE MATCHES U WANT. With the shutdown of PRIDE, mma fans can watch almost all the matchups they want and yearn for (aside from Fedor v Lesnar/couture & silva/machida) I've loved boxing since the early 90's and its been great entertainment, but it's also been a huge frustration as fighters pick and choose their opposition, great matches arent made and there are simply too many great fights missed. One of my favorite fighters was Roy jones jr, but hes probably one of the best examples of this. Instead of really choosing to be great he chose to fight weaker opposition instead of fighters like McClellan, Nigel benn, frank nunn, chris eubanks, and of course never rematching with Bernard hopkins. Today we have Mayweather doing the same thing, avoiding cotto, margarito and mosley for the past 4 years... I'd pick Boxing as the better option if it could make mayweather fight mosley and the winner & loser match cotto/pacquiao. I'd pick boxing if i'd gotten to see Paul williams vs mosley or mayweather or cotto anytime the past 2 years. I'd pick boxing if I'd gotten to see Pacquiao marquez III and cotto/mayweather instead of the farce that was last nites match. Sadly I dont think, we'll ever see Mosley v Mayweather (atleast not until mosley shows signs of slowing down or until hes 45) or Mayweather vs Pacqiuao or cotto, nevermind paul williams. So give me shogun vs machida, lesnar vs carwin, silva vs belfort and rampage vs rashad, it might not be the ward/gatti trilogy, but atleast it tries.
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Sorry to bump this thread, but at first I would have agreed that MMA is much more exciting and I would have preferred it over Boxing. But the "playing it safe" in MMA is about the most frustrating thing to sit through. I would rather watch 2 boxers out there playing it safe. It seems that the trend in MMA has shifted more to wrestling and grappling lately. I will use the Donaire vs Rigondeaux as an example. Although it wasn't an action packed fight and quite possibly boring to many people, I still found it very enjoyable. I can't say the same thing for a "boring fight" in MMA.
Mayweather's fighting style in boxing = GSP's fighting style in MMA They're both "boring and not exciting" unless if you're a fan of both GSP and Mayweather.
