Tonight marks the first head to head battle between popularity declining boxing and newly popular UFC. There has been a large debate about which sport has a larger following. With the decline in interest in boxing and the sudden popularity rise of UFC, the question is raised, which sport is more popular? The answer could all depend on how you define more popular. You could compare yearly pay-per-view sales. You could compare merchandise sales. For today the best comparison will be tonight’s pay-per-view sales. UFC has a card featuring Rich Franklin and the return of Vitor Belfort and boxing has a card featuring its number one fighter, Floyd Mayweather vs. Juan Marquez.
My prediction for tonight is that boxing will have higher pay-per-view ratings than UFC. Numbers don’t lie, but they can be misleading. To be honest a Floyd Mayweather fight should out sell a UFC card that doesn’t feature any of UFC’s top five fighters. Floyd is the best pound for pound fighter of this era. He has an undefeated record of 39-0 (25 KO’s), finishing every fighter put in front of him. I think most people are anticipating Mayweather to win tonight pretty easily. After all, this fight is the warm up for the fight everyone actually wants to see, Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao. So while Floyd will probably out sell UFC, it is not exactly a fair fight.
I think the numbers that people should pay attention to are UFC’s pay-per-view ratings for tonight, compared to their average pay-per-view ratings. If there is a significant decline, then boxing still has hope. But if the numbers are about the same as the average, then that leads me to believe that not even a Floyd Mayweather fight could affect UFC sales, on a mediocre card…Not good for boxing.
I guess the only question left is which pay-per-view will you be watching tonight?
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