This is part I in a series of why the Ultimate Fighting Championship is better than boxing in it's current state. In case you've had your head buried in the sand for past few years, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is a mixed martial arts fighting sport that pits the best martial arts fighters in the world against one another. The UFC started in 1993, and has established itself as the premier forum for martial arts fighters in the United States and the world. You can learn more about the Ultimate Fighting Championship here.
I've been a fan of the UFC since UFC 1, and I've been a boxing fan my entire life. I still am a boxing fan. But the fact of the matter is that boxing has seen its glory days go past, and the UFC is just hitting its stride. There are a number of reasons why I believe this is happening, which I will detail in a series of posts. So, without further ado….
Reason #1 – Unified Title Holder
Quick, name all the title belts in boxing and who currently holds them in the heavyweight division. I thought so. Frankly, it's a mess – IBF, WBA, WBC, and WBO. Not only does each organization have their own champions, but their own rankings as well. Let's look at the current rankings listed on Fightnews.com for heavyweight Nicolay Valuev, the former WBA heavyweight champion and the first Russian professional heavyweight champ. Valuev is currently the #1 contender for the WBA title held by Ruslan Chagaev. However, in each of the WBC and IBF Valuev is ranked #6. (Incidentally, there are no #1 or #2 contenders in the IBF ranking as of July 10, 2007. Am I the only one that thinks that's kind of strange?). As for the ranking of Valuev in the WBO? He's not. That's right, the WBA has him as the #1 contender, and the WBO does not even currently have him ranked. This is worse than the college football BCS.
One of the biggest tragedies this fosters is a lack of the most compelling fights. Why would a current champion, making a lot of money defending his title, fight another champion when he knows he is not the better fighter? Yeah, money talks, and sometimes these big showdowns happen, but all too often they don't and that's a shame. There is a major fight card scheduled for October 13th to have some of the heavyweight champions fight each other in an attempt to create a unified heavyweight champion, and I'm all for that. It's overdue. But it should not be necessary. It just smacks of greed and self-serving promoters. And, as seems to always be the case whenever an effort such as this is in the works, Wladimir Klitschko had to decline due to a hand injury.
The UFC has one champion per weight class. In order to be the champ, you have to beat the champ, mano-a-mano. The UFC is also more successful in getting the champions into the octagon with the top contenders. How many times have we seen in boxing when a champ and the #1 contender can't work out a contract, or some other nonsense, to make their fight a reality? Too many. While anytime there are big-time fighters with big-time egos trying to work out details of a contract or anything else for that matter, there is the possibility that it won't happen. Fortunately for MMA fans, this happens a lot less in the UFC.
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