There’s too little of it, it has been in the hands of a small, closed corporation of promoters for too many years. These promoters control not only the matchups, but also, many might say, their results. Well, everything grows old, and, growing old, changes in essence.
Prizefights were, from the 1700s, staged in England as illegal, highly popular events. In this country, immigrant kids (starting with the Irish and Jews) in the 1920s took to the professional ring as a ticket out. And instruction in boxing was a matter-of-fact part of growing up in America until the 1960s. Much of the populace that watched the hugely popular Gillette Friday Night Fights on TV understood the tactics and strategy of the fighters, and appreciated the rigor with which they trained, and the strength, stamina, and will necessary for an amateur three-round fight, let alone a professional 12- or 15-round fight.
In the ’60s, boxing became less popular (reawakened briefly by the comet, Muhammad Ali). The Club fight and the Smoker disappeared from the American scene. TV viewers saw fewer fights, understood them less, and so the sport was prone to exploitation by promoters through phony matchups, thrown fights, skewed decisions, and so on.
Enter the dragon.
Canny promoters, perceiving the national ossification and corruption of boxing, began to stage a different contest. This contest is called, generically, mixed martial arts.
The idea was and is to let each fighter bring whatever skills he could into the arena—striking, kicking, grappling—and let the best man win.
