First of all, let me just say that I realize there is a degree of deliberation behind everything you say publicly; you're a promoter at heart, and as such you're not in the business of selling truth, you're in the business of selling fights. I just wanted you to know that I'm aware of this important distinction, so as not to be mistaken for some random lout of the general rabble who gets their panties in a bunch every time you open your mouth.
I obviously understand why you're attacking the upcoming Floyd-Marquez card since it's in direct competition with UFC 103. By attacking you get media attention, you provoke discussion and hype, and you reach out directly to boxing fans that might be upset with the current status quo of the sport. However... The attacking strategy comes with a price: You bring attention to whatever it is that you're attacking.
Boxing needs no help from you in its slow but steady decline towards irrelevancy, in fact, it's doing splendidly on its own in that regard. MMA, on the other hand, has established itself as the #1 fighting sport with excellent potential for even further growth. You're bigger than boxing.
Basically, you're giving them free PR for little gain, and by acknowledging the competition you open up the door for the Bob Arum's of the world to get attention on their own with retarded homophobic comebacks. You may have rightly welcomed that fight 5 years ago, but you don't really need it today. Even if you did, you definitely don't want to come off as clueless by calling yourself a boxing fan and then "forget" the name of Marquez, and while UFC obviously has done a great job putting together fights that people want to see (thank you!) I think dragging up PBF-Pac invokes Fedor-Brock more than anything else, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
At the end of the day, you come off as insecure and threatened, while giving your biggest direct competition headlines.
Fuck all that. Remember, you're bigger, act like it. You could have gotten plenty of attention just by speaking about your own product. Vitor returning is a big thing for those of us old enough to remember the crazy excitement surrounding his fights back in the day - who can forget that crazy flurry of punches that demolished young Wand? That's the kind of shit new fans and people on the fence need to hear about - you have a fucking fantastic product, sell it.
If you need to mention boxing at all, you should try to instill the impression that boxing is dying, not that you're fighting it. You want to lament the organizational problems of the sport and how you hope it gets sorted out before it's too late, that you feel sorry for the fans about the current state of the sport, and how it's a pity that some of the actors in the sport have become so threatened and isolated that they feel the need to make baseless attacks to garner attention, and then you do some name-dropping instead of name-forgetting. This way you come off as the bigger person, as you should, and you get to tell a story that will resonate with boxing fans because it's true, which in turn should increase the chance of them becoming more sympathetic towards your product.
Oh, and you're welcome. :)
RaepChoke - FRATIs your name Dana White?
TTT for Dana and paid UFC shills
TTT
RaepChoke - Dan Black here.Well, then you needn't trouble yourself reading all that stuff, potentially hurting your feeble brain in the process, I was addressing Dana White. ;)
RaepChoke - Good luck with that.Aren't you aware that 90% of the posters on this site are paid UFC shills? :o
While we wait for Dana to chime in, here's a theory: Haullport is a double agent. His McCarthian approach is a deliberate ruse to undermine the credibility of the existence of real shills by being too over-the-top to take seriously. Discuss.
HarlemSavoy - I think you did a good job stating the obvious. Thank you. :)That's the thing. You should think it was obvious to anyone, but if it had been, then there wouldn't have been a need for writing it...