Some people may say that boxing and fighting are the same thing. Both athletes wear gloves and compete in the boxing ring according to their weight classes. There are referees, commentators, presenters and placards. Boxing and fighting are not just "boxing with shoes on, fighting barefoot". Not only many ordinary people can't tell the difference, in fact, even many practitioners of fighting events are stupid and unclear. But this article will explain clearly from the inside out that the two are worlds apart. Only by knowing where the gap is, can we find the problem and solve it.
Firstly, it briefly introduces three international mainstream fighting sports: boxing, kickboxing (also known as free fighting) and MMA mixed fighting. The "beating" mentioned in this article mainly refers to kicking boxing. It distinguishes the gap between fighting and boxing from the perspectives of rules and history, boxer's income comparison, industry status and market prospect, not to praise boxing and belittle fighting, but to help fighting understand their differences, thus turning diaosi into Gao Fushuai. My original intention of being a boxer network is to meet many boxers and understand their hardships. On the contrary, you can't get the recognition and reward you deserve to realize your own value. Let everyone deeply understand the differences and let the market of the fighting industry really open.
I hope that through this article, everyone can understand why the fighting at this stage is "nonsense"!
First, there are three pillars of the rule and history fighting movement.
First, boxing. This is a well-known traditional project with a long history, which is almost known to all ages. Simply put, the rule is that only fists are allowed, and you can't kick or fall with your feet. It is forbidden to hit the back of the head and crotch. Boxing is also an Olympic sport. There are many famous boxing stars, such as Tai Sen, Ali, Mayweather and Pacquiao. Now there are China boxing champions Zou Shiming and Xiong, both of whom are famous boxing stars.
Modern boxing originated in Britain in the18th century, when gloves were not worn. There are no rules and time limits until one of them loses the ability to continue the game. From 65438 to 0880, the British Amateur Boxing Association was formally established in London, and boxing began to spread around the world. The first British Championship was held in 188 1. WBA was established in 1962. It is the earliest professional boxing organization among the four major professional boxing organizations. To sum up, boxing has a history of hundreds of years.
Second, taekwondo or translation is called free fighting. This sport originated in Japan, and it was a Japanese karate and muay Thai competition in 1960, which was improved by the Japanese. Kickboxing, as you can see from the English name, the rule is probably "kickable boxing". You can use fists, legs and knees, but it is forbidden to throw and elbow (this is also the rule to distinguish Muay Thai), and it is also forbidden to hit the back of the head and crotch.
The earliest boxing organizations WAKO and WKA were founded in 1976, while the world-famous boxing event K- 1 was founded in 1993. Popular boxing events in China, such as Wulin Wind, Kunlunjue and the legend of heroes, are dominated by boxing events. In other words, the history of kicking boxing is about 50 years.
Third, MMA mixed fighting. This is the fastest-growing sport at present, and most of them are cage fights, and some of them follow the traditional four-corner rope circle. Rules are the most open fighting sport. Athletes wear mittens and can use fists, legs, knees, elbows, wrestling, ground fighting and fighting skills. It is also forbidden to hit the back of the head and crotch.
Although the rudiment of MMA can be traced back to ancient Greece, the establishment of MMA in the true sense originated from 1993 "UFC" in ultimate fighting championship, USA. In other words, the history of MMA movement is only 20 years, but it is the fastest popularization.
Summary: Boxing has a long history of more than 100 years, which is well known to women and children. Kicking boxing has a history of 50 years, while MMA(UFC) has only 20 years. However, the development speed and popularization speed of MMA are faster than kicking boxing. The fight (kicking) was caught in the middle awkwardly. Its history is not as long as boxing established before MMA, and its development speed is not as fast as boxing.
Second, income comparison.
How to see the market value of a sport? Look at the income of athletes! Athletes have many fans, high attention, great market value and high income. The following is Forbes' ranking of global athletes' income from 2065438 to May 2005.
Forbes top 20 15 100 athletes /list/2/# tab: overall.
Forbes official website ranking screenshot
TOP- 10: The first and second place are the creators of boxing champions Mayweather and Pacquiao, the third place is the football superstar Messi who led Barcelona to win La Liga, the fourth place is Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo and F 1 quadruple champion Vettel, and the other F 1 car king Alonso ranks sixth and sixth. MLB Major League Baseball stars Clayton Kershaw and Justin ranked ninth and tenth. Another boxer, heavyweight champion Kritchenko, ranked 63rd.
Among the ranked 100 athletes: football 15, basketball 18, rugby 16, baseball 27, tennis 7, F 1 racing 6, golf 6, cricket 1, track and field/.
Although 100 is the highest-paid athlete in the world, none of them are MMA and fighting (kicking). However, in the 20 15 Forbes women athletes' income list, the UFC women's champion ronda rousey ranked eighth. She is also the first MMA(UFC) athlete to make the Forbes list. In addition, in 20 13, Forbes announced that the income of Georges St. Pierre, the champion of UFC welterweight, was conservatively estimated at120,000 USD. The current UFC featherweight champion McGregor's single appearance fee has also reached 1 10,000 US dollars.
Summary: the income of boxing world champions can be listed on Forbes list, with the highest annual income of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Even if there are no ordinary champions on the list, it is normal to pay hundreds of thousands to millions for a single appearance. The annual income of UFC champion is as high as10 million dollars, and one has already made the list. The UFC champion's appearance fee is several hundred thousand dollars, and the highest is one million dollars. If you add sponsorship endorsements such as PPV sharing, the income of UFC champions will be easily one million dollars. The fighting (kicking) champion has never won the Forbes list in these years, and he has never earned millions of dollars in a game.
Third, the industry standard boxing and chaos boxing
Athlete information statistics: Boxers, as long as they are registered professional boxers, can be found in every game. When and where, who the opponent is, the result of the game, how many rounds ended in a few minutes and seconds (KO or decisive), and what the score was, all have detailed records, which can be found by anyone, even if only one game was played. Most MMA(UFC) athletes can also find the record information of all competitions. On the contrary, playing (kicking) is rather chaotic. There is no authoritative competition or organization to count the competition data of fighters. Many fighters can write as much as they want. It is an open secret that some famous domestic competitions falsely report their achievements and champions. All kinds of "fake champions" emerge one after another, including fake names, fake nationalities, fake records and fake titles. As we all know, many foreign fake boxing champions have been hanging out in China for a long time. Basically, none of the domestic fighting incidents is 100% true and correct.
Screenshot of China boxing champion bear record information
Champion's gold belt and title: The gold belt of boxing world champion generally refers to the gold belts of four major professional boxing organizations (WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF). You can't take the gold belt of boxing casually. From the first fight of the boxer, the boxer can get the ranking of points every time he wins or loses, and gradually get the chance to challenge the champion according to the ranking. There are only a handful of champions in the world who can combine the golden belts of the four major professional boxing organizations into one. There are many organizations in the fighting (kicking) project, and you can get many gold belts in one day without challenging the ranking. Even the competition system adopts the hodgepodge elimination of amateur championships, and eight or four people from several countries are defeated and eliminated at one time. What's more, they directly find two people to compete for the "world champion" gold belt at one time. The proliferation of gold belts is a common phenomenon in the fighting world. Take Australian boxing champion john wayne Parr as an example. He has nearly 30 gold belts in various competitions and organizations, and there are many professional boxing champions like this.
Take Zou Shiming as an example. In the first four rounds of his professional boxing, his opponent's record, strength and ranking were all open. The number of rounds, the players' record level and Zou Shiming's ranking in the next competition are all upgraded again and again. Every time he wins, his ranking goes up and his social status goes up. Slowly hit the top of the international rankings, and finally play 12 round to challenge the champion. Xiong is the only "world champion" recognized by all domestic media at present, because he is a first-class world champion. The golden belts of various organizations in the fighting circle are meaningless by comparison. Many boxing champions won gold belts after two random matches.
Competition frequency: For boxing and UFC athletes, the professional record is about 50 games, and it is normal for many boxers in the fighting world to have more than one or two hundred games. Why are boxing and UFC players less competitive than boxers? Boxing and UFC players are not sure about the time and place of the next game unless they finish this game. Because the result of each competition is related to his ranking and the increase of appearance fee. Fighting, on the other hand, many boxers haven't fought in February, but the competition in March and April has been confirmed. At the beginning of the year, many boxers' competition schedules will be directly filled throughout the year, and there will be competitions almost every month, or even several competitions a month. Because today's victory or defeat has no influence on the next game. So many famous boxing champions in the fighting world are very famous, but the appearance fee has reached the bottleneck.
Boxing and UFC athletes can't directly fill the competition schedule. In addition, the higher the opponent's level, the equal strength, so every game will have a long training period. Because there are too many competitions, in order to ensure the smooth progress of many competitions in a short time, many of them are fake boxing or vegetable abuse performances, because they can continue to "perform" tomorrow without being injured today. Therefore, many fighting stars start to fight fake fists or abuse vegetables, and winning or losing will not affect the appearance fee, so there is no need to compete with the masters.
Summary: Boxing industry standard, MMA mixed fighting industry is also relatively standard. However, the fighting (boxing) industry is chaotic and fake boxing matches are rampant. In the end, the more boxers participate in the competition, the more gold belts there are, and the appearance fee and strength level have reached the bottleneck.
Fourth, the attention of mainstream media.
Media recognition is a very important link. Boxing, as a century-old project, has naturally been recognized by mainstream media all over the world.
For the international mainstream sports media ESPN, Fox Fox and Yahoo, besides basketball, football and baseball, boxing and MMA also have separate parts. Every important boxing match and UFC match will be reported by the mainstream media on the front page or even the headlines. There is no classified section for kicking boxing, let alone making headlines.
ESPN, the most professional sports media in the world, has boxing and MMA classification.
The vertical professional media of boxing and MMA are also a dime a dozen. There are many vertical online media such as Boxrec, FightNEWS, Sherdog, MMAFIGHTING, etc., with frequent reports and timely and comprehensive updates. However, there is basically no professional vertical media for kickboxing. Some domestic competitions often take the rankings of two foreign soccer websites (Liverkick and kickboxingplanet) as examples. When you open these two websites, you will know that they are nothing more than personal websites. The so-called ranking is not authoritative at all, and many boxers' information and achievements can't be found, because there is really no professional kicking media, which is barely authoritative.
Authoritative boxing media boxrec screenshot
Summary: Boxing has a long history and is naturally recognized by the mainstream media. Although MMA is very new, the industry norms have developed rapidly, and it is also a project recognized by mainstream media. Fighting (kicking boxing) is very embarrassing, because the industry is not standardized, the organization of the event is mixed, and it is not recognized by the mainstream media so far. The dirtier the mess, the smaller the population, and the vicious circle. It also leads to the development of boxing competition organization and the lack of mainstream media attention.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) Market Status and Future
Profit model: how does sports make money? This question is difficult to answer. Different regions and industries have different methods. Taking UFC and NBA as examples, the profits of top-level events are: first, tickets; Second, PPV pay TV, third, advertising sponsorship; Fourth, other peripheral products. In China, tickets can hardly be sold, and there is no PPV pay TV (the TV station collects money instead, so it is lucky to broadcast for free), and the surrounding products are another scene. The rest is only a profit point sponsored by advertising.
Last year, with favorable policies, many domestic events, large and small, emerged one after another. In the past, most of the competitions were invested by local tyrants who liked to fight. Because the industry itself is a niche, the event itself is also a very unprofessional garbage event, and it is even more difficult to get sponsorship only by one profit point. Therefore, many investors eventually became sponsors, and the final profit point of the event became the investor's money. Now that the policy is favorable, these one-off events seize the opportunity and call them "series", "league" and "world tour", and use the media to report those brand events that are boasted every day. In fact, just listening to these names has exposed the unprofessional nature of the event. If the one-time event becomes a long-term event, it still cannot solve the profit problem.
From the international market: Needless to say, the boxing market has been explained by the billion-dollar "divine punishment". However, with the retirement of Pacquiao and Mayweather, there are fewer and fewer top boxers, and the ratings of champions are not as hot as that of Tai Sen. The attention of boxing in the world is getting lower and lower, which has always been a concern of all boxing circles. The ratings and PPV rankings of UFC in the United States have always been high, and the income of UFC stars is millions or even tens of millions of dollars every year. The competition style of UFC is also in line with the tastes of contemporary people. Fighting (kicking) is sandwiched between boxing and UFC. K- 1, once the top fighting event, closed down in 20 12, and South Korea's Jin Jianyi didn't improve after buying K- 1. The newly established K- 1 in Japan has become a small local event. Glory has a low frequency of competition so far, and it is difficult to survive.
Domestic market: Boxing has developed for a long time in China. From Xiong, Zou Shiming and China, boxing lovers have been cultivated, and the ratings of major boxing competitions are also very high. But boxing is just boxing, a simple sport. In contrast, fighting (kicking boxing) is not standardized in the industry, but as China with martial arts culture, fighting is even more interesting. There can be different kinds of martial arts exchanges, such as Sanda, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Karate, Tai Ji Chuan, and so on. The combination of fist and fist is more ornamental, more in line with the taste of our people, and with some patriotic hype, people are more willing to watch. Therefore, although the professional level of Sanda King, Wulin Wind, Kunlun Jue and the legend of heroes is not high, the attention of ordinary people is not low.
Summary: Boxing is a sport with a long history, standardized industry and clear market. The champion is worth tens of millions or even billions of dollars. MMA is mainly UFC. UFC events are professional and standardized, and the annual income of UFC champions is as high as 10 million US dollars. The MMA market is similar to basketball, and it is the monopoly of NBA and UFC. Fighting is a niche event, with chaotic industry, rampant gold belts, numerous unprofessional events and unknown market.
Opportunities against the market
China's fighting industry seems to be thriving, but it is actually entertaining itself. Just like the popularity of Muay Thai in Thailand, the glory of K- 1 in Japan is only a small project popular in its own country. At present, it is very difficult to become a top event like UFC or a "god retribution" of hundreds of millions of dollars in boxing. K- 1 and glory in international taekwondo events have not found a way out, and domestic events have followed K- 1 and glory. Although some domestic fighting events have been aided by investment and capital, it is still futile if the following problems cannot be solved: first, fighting itself is still a non-mainstream minority project; Second, the industry is not standardized; Third, the activity itself is not professional enough; Fourth, there is no profit model. The most terrible thing is that there is no successful case to learn from.
Of course, the loneliness of boxing and the rise of UFC also show that there are still great opportunities in the fighting (kicking) industry. Just because K- 1 and Glory can't find a way out of top international fighting (kicking) events doesn't mean that others can't find a way out. As an instinctive sport derived from animal genes, fighting will continue to attract more and more people with its wonderful and hot appreciation. Boxing can pay hundreds of millions of appearance fees to create a world champion, and fighting is totally possible. It's just that no competition organization in the fighting world really knows how to run this business, and people who know how to play this game need to share this big cake.