Why is boxing still producing bigger stars than MMA?

Anthony Joshua...is not a house hold name

All the stuff that you wrote around this was a complete waste of time, because this was the point.

But thank you for explaining to me that SOME people in the US know who AJ is. I really needed that clarified.
 
There's only like 5 big names not exactly a who's who(Fury,Paul,Usyk,Tyson,Canelo)

?

Gervonta Davis alone is bigger than anyone in MMA right now by a country mile.

Again, living in a MMA bubble is not healthy.
 
There's been an extraordinary amount of stupid things said in this thread.

But saying Anthony Joshua was a bigger star than Floyd and Conor in 2017 has to take the crown.

AJ is a mainstream star in the UK and the UK only. People on the street in the US, Canada, Australia do not know who he is.
Completely idiotic comment, Anthony Joshua is Nigerian heritage (220 million people in Nigeria), he’s not only big in the UK he has a huge fan base in the African diaspora community and continental Africa AND a global boxing fan base. You’re both overrating Canelo’s star power and underrated AJs reach. Don’t open your mouth if you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
 
It's always been like that with boxing. 5-10 guys is a lot. Most sports do not have 5-10 guys who can trickle over into mainstream media.

There aren't really 10 guys in MMA who are like that. Not at the moment at least.
Stop it. Literally all of our casual friends could name 20+ current MMA fighters. And they'd know a ton more with a few prompts.

Nobody knows any but a handful of boxers.
 
Stop it. Literally all of our casual friends could name 20+ current MMA fighters. And they'd know a ton more with a few prompts.

Nobody knows any but a handful of boxers.

Are you in Europe or South America?
 
Are you in Europe or South America?
I'm in Canada and when I mention there's a fight on and my friends ask who's fighting there's an 70% chance they know who the fighter is, or at least know somebody they've fought.

UFC fighters in general are much more publicly known than all but a handful of boxers.

Unless it's tonight's card. I don't even know anybody on this card.
 
?

Gervonta Davis alone is bigger than anyone in MMA right now by a country mile.

Again, living in a MMA bubble is not healthy.
If you honestly believe this you should consider the possibility that it's you who is living in a bubble.
 
thats silly

as a businessman dana white wants his fighters to become bigger
it means more money more fame to the ufc
more stars = more money more fame

simple as that

your post doesnt make sense

Keep telling you that ;)
 
I'm in Canada and when I mention there's a fight on and my friends ask who's fighting there's an 70% chance they know who the fighter is, or at least know somebody they've fought.

UFC fighters in general are much more publicly known than all but a handful of boxers.

Unless it's tonight's card. I don't even know anybody on this card.

I should have added Canada as well, Canada is an outlier in North America due to television rights with TSN and now SportsNet with the UFC.

Look at US and Worldwide trends with the biggest UFC fighters vs the biggest boxers, it’s actually not even close. I’ll post them when I get some time tomorrow.
 
If you honestly believe this you should consider the possibility that it's you who is living in a bubble.

Which UFC fighter has sold out every arena he has been in over the last few years, has gate records at Barclay’s, gate record in Capital One Arena (for everything, beat out the Rolling Stones), 21M gate in Vegas (higher than anything the UFC has ever done anywhere ), sold 1.2M PPVs last April. Gets 50M views on his Mitt videos on IG (not even Conor gets this many impressions on IG). Brings out A list celebrities etc.

I mean, it’s really not even a question.
 
Which UFC fighter has sold out every arena he has been in over the last few years, has gate records at Barclay’s, gate record in Capital One Arena (for everything, beat out the Rolling Stones), 21M gate in Vegas (higher than anything the UFC has ever done anywhere ), sold 1.2M PPVs last April. Gets 50M views on his Mitt videos on IG (not even Conor gets this many impressions on IG). Brings out A list celebrities etc.

I mean, it’s really not even a question.
Whatever you say dude. Without any source for all I know you are making up numbers.

The UFC sells out almost every card.

If we are talking fan base, one easily verifiable data point is Instagram followers. Davis has 7M or so. That's pretty good, but there are a dozen or so UFC fighters with more.

To think that Tank Davis is more famous than Conor McGregor is absolutely laughable. Sorry dude. That's jokes.

Gervonta Davis has an estimated net worth of $10M. This guy is a giant crossover superstar?

Okie dokie.
 
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Stop it. Literally all of our casual friends could name 20+ current MMA fighters. And they'd know a ton more with a few prompts.

Nobody knows any but a handful of boxers.

Uh...because they are casual fans of MMA. Obviously. The average person is not a casual fan of MMA...

I have casual friends who can only name MMA fighters too. Obviously people who do not watch any combat sports other than a few UFC PPVs with their friends will know more MMA fighters, do you know what a casual fan is?

You're bubbled if you think the average person can name 20 active MMA fighters. That is actually hilarious.



Boxers are much bigger than guys in the UFC. I've lived in several different countries and I could talk to a 100 guys who watch sports and they would not know any fighters other than maybe McGregor, if that.

If you really think the average person knows who Colby Covington is (which based on your statement of your friends knowing "20 MMA fighters" would include someone like that), then you have no hope. Someone like Naoya Inoue is infinitely more famous even if none of your friends know who he is.

Next you will tell me that you have friends who are casual fans of hockey, and they can name 20 guys who play hockey but do not know who Mbappe is, therefore, hockey players are more famous than football players. The same exact logic.
 
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Wait wtf, Garcia got $50m and Haney at least $35m? That's what google is telling me... Wtf lol. I'm sure Steve Erceg and Pantoja will get paid similarly for their fight!

Honestly have a hard time believing Ryan Garcia is that big of a star tho, Boxing just pays way better. UFC would give Garcia like 100k and (maybe) ppv points.

Edit: apparently Garcia vs Haney only did 200k ppv buys lmao. That makes Garcia and Haney much smaller draws than Izzy, Oliveira, O'malley etc..
 
Uh...because they are casual fans of MMA. Obviously. The average person is not a casual fan of MMA...

I have casual friends who can only name MMA fighters too. Obviously people who do not watch any combat sports other than a few UFC PPVs with their friends will know more MMA fighters, do you know what a casual fan is?

You're bubbled if you think the average person can name 20 active MMA fighters. That is actually hilarious.



Boxers are much bigger than guys in the UFC. I've lived in several different countries and I could talk to a 100 guys who watch sports and they would not know any fighters other than maybe McGregor, if that.

If you really think the average person knows who Colby Covington is (which based on your statement of your friends knowing "20 MMA fighters" would include someone like that), then you have no hope. Someone like Naoya Inoue is infinitely more famous even if none of your friends know who he is.

Next you will tell me that you have friends who are casual fans of hockey, and they can name 20 guys who play hockey but do not know who Mbappe is, therefore, hockey players are more famous than football players. The same exact logic.
Inoue and Covington have similar followers on ig with 1.3m and 1.1m. Also in Colby's case most people hate him so wouldn't want to follow the dude.

Both have many videos with several million views on YouTube, Inoue has more views but most of the videos of Inoue are his fights and Colby Covington fights suck balls, the most viewed Colby videos are of his antics.

We can't compare how they've done on ppv because Inoue hasn't been on PPV.

For the living in several countries and nobody knowing anybody but Conor Mcgregor, you gotta specify which countries really. My wife has zero idea who Inoue is but knows guys like Paddy Pimblett and O'malley because they show up on Youtube and shit, like they are mainstream enough to appear on YouTube shorts for people that don't watch fighting at all. Sean Strickland too.

Now the country I'm talking about rn is Korea. Dong Hyun Kim, Korean Zombie and Choo Sung Hoon (aka Yoshihiro Akiyama) are massive stars here but if I ask my wife to name a Korean boxer she can't. If I asked who Garcia, Haney, Gervonta Davis etc.... were she would have no clue. Doesn't know any boxers outside of guys like Pacquiao, Canelo, Ali, Tyson etc.. So yeah it really depends on what countries you are talking about. There are some countries that have a big boxing culture (Mexico) for example and some that don't.

Edit: do you think the average person can name 20 active boxers either? They might not even be able to name 1 lol. Maybe Canelo. I guess Mike Tyson if you count him as active since he's boxing Jake Paul. Or I guess Jake Paul too if you count him as a boxer.
 
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I grew up with boxing yet these days I can name many UFC stars and some MMA stars and only a couple boxers.
 
I should have added Canada as well, Canada is an outlier in North America due to television rights with TSN and now SportsNet with the UFC.

Look at US and Worldwide trends with the biggest UFC fighters vs the biggest boxers, it’s actually not even close. I’ll post them when I get some time tomorrow.

Uh...because they are casual fans of MMA. Obviously. The average person is not a casual fan of MMA...

I have casual friends who can only name MMA fighters too. Obviously people who do not watch any combat sports other than a few UFC PPVs with their friends will know more MMA fighters, do you know what a casual fan is?

You're bubbled if you think the average person can name 20 active MMA fighters. That is actually hilarious.
I literally was playing a stream of Fury vs Ngannou and had a casual friend who knew who neither were, know who Overeem was when I mentioned Ngannou had KO'd him. Which was what, 6 years ago by that point?

UFC fighters are far more conetionally maintstream, themselvesor by a degree of separation, than all but a handful of boxers are.
 
Whatever you say dude. Without any source for all I know you are making up numbers.

The UFC sells out almost every card.

If we are talking fan base, one easily verifiable data point is Instagram followers. Davis has 7M or so. That's pretty good, but there are a dozen or so UFC fighters with more.

To think that Tank Davis is more famous than Conor McGregor is absolutely laughable. Sorry dude. That's jokes.

Gervonta Davis has an estimated net worth of $10M. This guy is a giant crossover superstar?

Okie dokie.

A) IG followers can be bought. Actual likes and impressions on posts can not.

Show me an MMA fighter on Instagram with this many views from one clip (48M +) over the last 5 years including McGregor. Not going to happen.



Capitol One Arena Gate record



1.2M PPVs and Gate at Vegas


Meanwhile you’re coming at me with a sportslens article talking about sources lol.

Gervonta Davis made 40M against Ryan Garcia alone after PPV points and Gate.

This is exactly what I mean when it comes to bubble.
 
A) IG followers can be bought. Actual likes and impressions on posts can not.

Show me an MMA fighter on Instagram with this many views from one clip (48M +) over the last 5 years including McGregor. Not going to happen.



Capitol One Arena Gate record



1.2M PPVs and Gate at Vegas


Meanwhile you’re coming at me with a sportslens article talking about sources lol.

Gervonta Davis made 40M against Ryan Garcia alone after PPV points and Gate.

This is exactly what I mean when it comes to bubble.

You can believe whatever you want. In the real world, most people have never heard of Gervonta Davis.

If you actually think Davis is a bigger star than McGregor, I don't know what to tell you. It's a ludicrous thing to think.
 
You can believe whatever you want. In the real world, most people have never heard of Gervonta Davis.

If you actually think Davis is a bigger star than McGregor, I don't know what to tell you. It's a ludicrous thing to think.

Doesn’t really mean anything to me. I’m just telling you what’s out there and what’s popular as you weren’t aware.

McGregor fights once every 3-3.5 years which has had a negative effect on his popularity IMO. Tank fights twice a year and has a larger impact these days and in pop culture. Remember, he still hasn’t fought since the big Garcia event in 2023. So June is going to be fireworks.

Here are his earnings from 2023, even this is probably underreported. Showing at 43M here.

 
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