Fighting for Relevance

by Richard Diaz
Love of Sports Correspondent

Ultimate Fighting Championship and EliteXC have attempted to regale audiences in the past couple of weeks. Although UFC 84 was somewhat uninspiring, the EliteXC Kimbo Slice disaster was surprising to watch on live network TV.

Granted, the pathetic imitation of a MMA event was the most watched ever, with a viewing audience of 6.5 million people. That said, it might be time for this entire sport to return to its appropriate position in the sports hierarchy - below boxing.

Prior to these events, it’d been widely acknowledged that the sport was in danger of losing its mainstream appeal. In short, UFC 84 was totally unimpressive, and this weekend’s UFC 85 looks to have a meek fight card. Then there was the Kimbo debacle, which totally did away with the myth of MMA being purer than boxing because fights couldn’t be fixed.

This Saturday presents an opportunity for viewers to choose between UFC 85 and a couple of boxing matches. Returning to the hierarchy point, this is the time for MMA to sprint back to their cult following. This is the time for them to realize that they are to boxing what AFL is to the NFL.

We love boxing because it’s ingrained within American culture. Joe Louis had an impact on World War II. Muhammad Ali has been an inspiration to generations of Americans. “Rocky” won an Oscar®. By comparison, Kimbo Slice is nothing more than a modern version of Mr. T. While I pity the fool who believes that he’s the new face of MMA, I can’t help but realize that there’s no other candidate for the position.

Boxing has Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya. Boxing has Manny Pacquiao and Bernard Hopkins. Boxing even has young up-and-comers in Julio Caesar Chavez, Jr. and Andre Berto, both of whom will be more widely known than 95% of MMA fighters within the next few years.

So as the weekend approaches, I can’t help but give up some big time Love for boxing.

I’m looking forward to watching Vernon Forrest defend his title for the second time. Forrest berated his opponent, Sergio Mora, during their teleconference last week. He angrily told Mora to “come and fight and I promise they’re going to take you out on a stretcher.” It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the ring, mostly because Forrest has been so over-the-top in proclaiming that Mora won’t follow in the footsteps of other Contenders alumni. You might recall that Alfonso Gomez and Brian Vera both had upset victories, which led to comparisons for the upcoming fight between Forrest and Mora.

Before that contest, there’s a highly anticipated rematch between welterweights Carlos Quintana and Paul Williams. Albeit an undercard fight, I wouldn’t be surprised if it stole the show.

Aside from the festivities on Showtime, HBO is also televising a double-header. Headlining that card is middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik against Gary Lockett. There’s a heavy inclination that this is a warm up for Pavlik before he moves up in weight class, but we all know how quickly a fight can change when a fighter looks past his opponent, (cough, De La Hoya versus Sturm, cough).

Whether or not that fight ends up being a one-sided affair is impossible to predict. However, much like the Showtime event, there’s an undercard match that’s got the potential to outshine the main event. In this case, it’ll be junior featherweight titlist Daniel Ponce De Leon taking on unbeaten Juan Manuel Lopez. It could be a great demonstration of a boxer taking on a puncher, and if you’ve never seen either of these two fight, I’d recommend you tune into HBO around 10:00PM EST.

So, here’s to boxing. It’s America’s first and favorite fighting sport, and is ingrained within our culture and history. More importantly, its success isn’t owed to a brilliant marketing machine that worked overtime to make the world believe Kimbo Slice was something other than the next coming of Big Bob Sapp.