By Marlon Scott | Senior Staff Writer
In less than seven days, sports fans across the world will wake up on Monday morning, Feb. 8, with an empty feeling they will not immediately understand. The feeling will be small early and seem to fade as everyone recaps all the SuperBowl action. However, the feeling will loom large and unforgiving when the realization that football season is officially over sinks in.
I have written about how to combat this feeling before. The only point I want to reiterate from my previous musings is to take refuge in other sports. March Madness is not to far away and the NBA will start filling the primetime slots previously reserved for football coverage.
However, what I want to bring to the attention to those sports illiterate struggling to grasp the meaning of sports culture is one specific sport ascending on the falling remains of a traditional sports staple.
Mixed martial arts is the new boxing.
It is the worst fear of boxing traditionalists. But it cannot be denied, especially in the wake of the latest boxing debacle.
The audience that lived for knockouts by masters of the sweet science is now taking solace in the arms of organizations like Pride, Strikeforce and UFC.
Boxing, perhaps more than any other sport, is celebrity driven. It survives on its brightest stars fighting each other. Now boxing does not have many stars of interest and lately they have done everything but fight each other.
Meanwhile, mixed martial arts fights are coming to a town near you featuring the main events fans ask for.
Detractors of the sport constantly bring up the violence involved in mixed martial arts compared to boxing. What those detractors fail to understand is, to fans, a knockout is a knockout.
Boxing has a strong enough tradition to keep it from fading completely. I would be greatly surprised to find anyone in the immediate future that can generate the same impact a Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson had on the world.
But the argument could be made mixed martial arts is one polarizing icon away from main stream sports success.
Consider the following:
Mixed martial arts is as internationally driven (if not more so) than boxing. It features a talent base from the fields of wrestling, martial arts and boxing. Finally, boxing has one or two stars it promotes in each weight class. MMA has several stars in each weight class who fight constantly.
The good news for boxing is comparatively, mixed martial arts are still in its infancy. While it is stealing boxing’s younger audience, most people are not aficionados. The average person has heard of the sport and has seen perhaps one fight on cable.
Who hasn’t seen a boxing match?
Granted, we are still a long way from a series of mixed martial arts movies comparable to “Rocky.” However, unless boxing starts adapting instead of relying on its history and traditions to keep the sport viable, fans will demand all future fights be fought in an octagon.
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