What A Difference A Game Makes

by Siren1927

UFC 2010 Undisputed was released to widespread critical acclaim and fanfare from fans and journalists alike this week. Is it a coincidence that it has been released just a few days before the biggest grudge match in UFC history airs on PPV? Of course not.

Fight Night Round 4 was to be the jewel of the boxing series, the first fight night in three years. It was eagerly anticipated with fan forums buzzing with wish-lists, unconfirmed roster rumours and overall game play changes.

Then EA dropped their bombshell, there would be no button configuration in the game. Those fighters you would normally associate with the fight night series and boxing in general would not be included in the retail version of the game. Instead, should you want to own Oscar De La Hoya, James Toney (middleweight version) or Bernard Hopkins you would have to pay a combined total of around $15. Also there is no Floyd Mayweather, no David Haye, in fact there are very few of the top current crop of boxers in the game. Can you imagine UFC not having Lesnar, GSP and BJ Penn? Of course not because that would be stupid.

So on top of alienating 50% of its users by removing button configuration, EA also forced people to pay an extra $15 for content that should have been included at retail. Needless to say it was not the success it should have been. Eventually EA patched in a button configuration but it was far too late for most fans, including myself.

I am not even commentating on the Online game play, it was non-existent at time of release, EA used the fans as beta testers.

The commentary in Fight Night is tedious and repetitive, once you have played the game with around 8 different fights there is nothing that you have not heard at least twice. Couple that with the ESPN plugs and it becomes unbearable. There is no education from the commentators, they don’t really explain why one fighter has changed his game plan, or why someone has almost exclusively worked the body. They don’t explain the nuances of the sweet science, and one wonders if EA really care about the state of the game.

Compare that to UFC 2010. The first thing you notice when playing the game on the PS3 is the exclusive movies. Low and behold there you find some of the biggest fights in UFC history including two legendary wars. UFC 2010 is the undisputed winner.

The whole UFC game is one big promotional tool. The game itself is a pretty good game to be honest. THQ have integrated online fight camps, where you can meet up with online friends and train together to improve both of your fighters. THQ run online tournaments where you can earn actual prizes, which range from signed memorabilia to a UFC mug. Even if you lose in the first round, you still earn credits. Enough of which will eventually allow u to purchase UFC memorabilia.

The whole game is designed to promote the UFC product, no detail has been left unchecked. You get the feeling that Zuffa ordered THQ to spare no expense. They see the bigger picture, a great UFC game that hooks non-UFC fans eventually leads to more PPV sales and much more exposure. In order to bring in new fans, you have to have an outstanding product. Zuffa understood this and reacted accordingly.

Possibly the biggest promotional aspect of UFC 2010 is the commentary. Every move is covered with the utmost accuracy. When you counter an opponent the commentators explain how and why it happened. The commentary is intended to educate fans and ease them into the MMA world.

Zuffa saw exactly where EA had failed, and trod on a different path. UFC will no doubt get an extra few hundred thousand PPV buys for the next few months. It will die down eventually, but if this game permanently increases UFC PPV buy rates by 50,000, the game did its job.

Maybe it's time that Top Rank and Golden Boy got together and worked out the gaming industry for themselves, instead of allowing EA Sports to just make some money now and again. Don King attempted with his Prizefighter game, but it didn't take-off. With the marketing brilliance of both leading promotional companies, could they finally give something back to the fight fans?

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Kimbo: “Sliced” from UFC, so where to now?

by Green Machine

Even if you’re not an MMA fan of any sort, you can’t avoid hearing about Kimbo Slice.  Slice, in his few years of popularity has went from bodyguard, to street fighting “legend” to mixed martial artist, and now to purgatory.  In case you haven’t already heard, Kimbo was cut from the UFC roster (so says Dana White) after Saturday nights TKO loss to Matt Mitrione. “What does this have to do with boxing”? you ask?  Nothing on the surface, but it makes me wonder if we’ll be seeing Kimbo join our beloved sport now that he’s failed twice in the MMA circuit.

Last year prior to his appearance in “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 10, it was rumored that Slice was taking up boxing and leaving MMA behind.  Some were supportive, some were indifferent, and some were laughing their asses off.  Sure, the guys good with his fists and has a good punch, but that’s never a guarantee that he’ll do even remotely well as a professional boxer.  We’ve seen it before, we’ll see it again, and it never looks pretty.  So what are the chances?

As it stands now, I can see it happening.  Slice has suffered two embarrassing losses in his short MMA career and now has no where to turn.  He’ll never be taken seriously in mixed martial arts again (if he was at all) so unless he’s content with fighting for a fringe MMA promotion, boxing is all that’s left.  Unfortunately boxing fans won’t take him seriously either and he’ll more than likely be hard pressed to find a promoter that will put any serious effort into building a career for him…but it can be done.

Kimbo seems like a genuinely nice person, who wants nothing more than to make a good living for his family and do well in combat sports.  Unfortunately passion isn’t always enough and already into his 30’s, success as a fighter of any sort is remote.  Even with the sorry state of the heavyweight division these days any C level boxer that can move his feet will embarrass him even further, having him end up as the latest version of Tye Fields.

I seriously wish Kimbo well in what ever field he chooses to pursue and hope he’s successful.  Whatever your opinion of him as a fighter, he deserves respect for getting the cage and will be deserving of more respect if he chooses to give boxing a go.  How’s he’s viewed afterward remains to be seen.

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Debunking the Myth of UFC Dominance

by Paul Magno

Two weeks a month boxing fans have to withstand a barrage of attacks from fans and representatives of the UFC. The week before a UFC PPV and the week after, we'll hear: "Boxing is dead...Boxing is dying...Boxing is losing its ground to MMA...MMA is the combat sport of the future...etc, etc..."

Most of the so-called legit media take the story and run with it, not really knowing or caring whether the story is true or not. It just makes for a good headlines and it justifies their own ignorance when it comes to the sport of boxing..

Also, helping spread boxing's obituary is the ever-accessible, ever-outspoken Dana White, head honcho of the UFC and de facto voice of MMA. White is a soundbite machine and he spends a good portion of each interview ripping apart all things boxing while declaring MMA, and the UFC specifically, as the antidote to all that's ailing combat sports.

White will talk about the lack of star power in boxing, the corruption and the general degradation of interest in the sport. He'll talk until his segment is up and then post it all over the internet for even more to hear.

He'll never mention the fact that his company probably only has one or two fighters, to be generous, remotely recognizable to the average person on the street. One wonders who would draw more attention on a busy street corner in downtown Chicago, the threesome of Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Bernard Hopkins or the MMA trio of Georges St.Pierre, BJ Penn and Lyoto Machida...The answer to that is obvious.

White's claims of corruption in boxing are, unfortunately, not too far off. But what he fails to mention is that, while his own iron fisted control over his company prevents a lot of controversy in areas of scoring, it opens up just as many questions when it comes to proper fighter rankings and issues regarding fair wages and benefits.

The biggest fallacy in the "Boxing's Dead/MMA Rules" line of thought has to do with the very essence of the way both sports do business. And it's in this discrepancy that we truly discover that boxing is not dying at all and that MMA is not really ruling.

First, it should be made clear that MMA, as a sport, is most definitely not taking over the world. As a matter of fact, the UFC is the only Mixed Martial Arts company that is able to make a real profit and the attempts to branch off into Europe and Latin America have yielded mixed results, at best.

Boxing, on the other hand, has enjoyed great expansion in the international market.

Recently, over 60,000 fans packed into a soccer stadium to see Wladimir Klitschko defend against Ruslan Chagaev and a packed arena in the United Kingdom saw Amir Khan win his first world title. All across Europe and Asia stadiums and arenas are being packed for boxing shows; TV ratings are also through the roof. Even previously dead markets like Russia, Turkey and China have hosted boxing events with great success and are exploring future boxing-related events.

In the United States, boxing is not as prominent as it once was and stars do seem like they're harder to come by, but this is only because the rest of the world is catching up to the talent and skill level of US fighters. Now, it's just as likely to see a meaningful title defense in Europe as it is in Las Vegas.

However, it should be pointed out that attendance has generally been good at boxing events in the US. For instance, a weak card in Newark, New Jersey with the questionable Tomasz Adamek-Bobby Gunn main event, drew over 8,000 fans and the Vic Darchinyan-Joseph Agbeko card in Florida drew over 9,000 while, on the same night, the mega-promoted UFC 100 drew over 10,000 in Las Vegas.

A dominant UFC should've crushed two marginal boxing cards in secondary markets, but it didn't, at least not at the live gate.

But let's get back on track and look at the way the UFC does business compared to the way boxing does business. The myth of UFC dominance gets blown to pieces when we focus on just how small the UFC actually is in terms of ability and/or desire to create new, fresh programming.

The UFC has very little live action on TV. Most of their exposure is through their reality show or through various highlight and countdown shows. It's easy to give the impression of a high quality product when only highlight packages of the best fights are aired.

When you look at it, the entire TV presence of the UFC is aimed at promoting their upcoming PPV. Essentially, most UFC programming is along the lines of an infomercial, whipping their fans into a frenzy for the next show.

Now, as a way of comparison, let's take boxing and fit it into the UFC model.

Before doing enything else. we'd have to eliminate most of the live boxing programs from HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Versus and the Latino stations. Substitute the live shows with Boxing's Greatest Hits and endless Countdown shows.

Now, take all that live action that would've been on cable TV and put it on one mega PPV per month, making it so that if you want to see live boxing, you have to order the show.

Take the month of August as an example. The boxing PPV for August (We could call it Boxing #1: Heat Stroke, or something equally catchy) would feature the following televised bouts:

Roy Jones vs. Jeff Lacy
Timothy Bradley vs, Nate Campbell
Juan Diaz vs. Paulie Malignaggi
Nonito Donaire vs. Rafael Concepcion
Juan Urango vs. Randall Bailey
Robert Guerrero vs. Malcolm Klassen

How many PPVs would that card sell if there were almost literally no way to see boxing aside from ordering the event? Would a card like this sell more than the average UFC PPV of 450-600,000? The answer would be a resounding "yes" and August is not even a particularly strong month this year in terms of competition.

The UFC churns out more PPV shows and they are very good at marketing their shows to the max, but only a media manipulator like Dana White could turn less product and a smaller demographic base into signs of the UFC's domination.

As the next UFC PPV approaches we will be forced to hear more cries of "Boxing is dead" and we will for sure see and hear Dana White on ESPN and on various sports talk shows across the nation. White will blather on about how boxing is dying and the UFC is taking over and the misinformed host will go along with the attack, not knowing enough about boxing to offer any sort of intelligent rebuttal.

But, just one time, it would be refreshing to see a host fire back at White and touch on the points that this article has touched upon. It's time boxing started standing up for itself because a lie told often enough, one day, may become reality.

Boxing is not dying and the UFC is not killing it.

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