An Open Letter to Jim Lampley

Dear Mr. Lampley,

Growing up, I always admired you as a broadcaster and commentator. Your insights into the world of boxing have always been, in my view, spot-on. No one calls a fight better than you. In addition, you have the ability to intelligently discuss events and news in other sports as well. You've done an excellent job when guest hosting the Jim Rome show where football, baseball and other sports require your attention. It is for these reasons that I am thoroughly disappointed by your close minded view on mixed martial arts.

It has always been my view that one of the attributes that separates the most intelligent people from the rest is the ability to say "I don't know enough about that to comment". You choose to do otherwise when it comes to discussing mixed martial arts and the UFC. I know this from transicripts of your appearance on the Jim Rome show and, most recently, an interview you did with respected MMA and boxing journalist Eddie Goldman.

There were a couple of issues that you raised as to whether mixed martial arts poses a threat to the health of boxing. I would like to address these individually with the hope of educating you on the subject. My intention is to help you to speak more intelligently on the subject the next time it comes up in an interview. Here are the points you raised in which you are mistaken and why:

1. While UFC PPV numbers have dramatically increased over the last couple of years, boxing PPV buys are up as well. While this is true, the percentage increase in PPV buys for MMA vs. Boxing over that last 2-3 years is not even close. In addition, the number of events that have attracted a large number of buys (say, over 250,000) has dropped. No one will argue that the biggest fights each year will still draw huge numbers. However, in 2006, UFC events have drawn nearly 2,000,000 ppv buys. This means the average buy rate for a UFC event is actually higher than the buy rate for boxing events, even when you consider the De La Hoya vs. Mayorga drew nearly 1,000,000 buys.

2. UFC is decades away, if ever, from having a fight with the economic impact of a De La Hoya vs. Mayweather bout. While it's true that the UFC fighters' compensation is far less than that of top level boxers, this is more a direct result of the sports' youth rather than its increase in popularity. It will take time to see boxing type of pay days for mixed martial artists but they will come sooner rather than later. In a sport that is less than 15 years out of inception fighters are already earning in excess of 1,000,000 per fight. Further, you sight the lack of competitors as a reason for the low pay scale. This is going to change. I firmly believe that the youth interested in combat sports are going to turn to MMA rather than boxing as time passes as indicated by the enormous increase in MMA schools in America.

3. Boxing has a 120 year history and a greater global impact where as UFC has only recently established a foothold in the U.S. Boxing does indeed have global popularity but MMA is equally or more popular than boxing in many areas of the world. Japan is a classic example of this. MMA events in Japan regualrly draw live gates in excess of 60,000. The growth of the sport in America is equalled in Britain and Eastern Europe. Ignoring the rapidity of the growth of the mixed martial arts globally and dismissing its impact on the combat sports shows ego-inspired ignorance.

4.MMA fighters do not have the sophistication in thier hands to hold up against real boxers. This is true only if the two are competing in a boxing match. This is a situation where your lack of knowledge of mixed martial arts technique is blatantly apparent. The fact is, striking in MMA is very different than in boxing. If an MMA fighter stands and delivers the same way as a boxer in an MMA match he will not be the least bit effective. No fan of MMA would begin to suggest that an MMA fighter would be able to defeat a boxer the quality of Mayweather or Barrera in a boxing match. At the same time, boxing people should realize that Mayweather's incredible skills are useless if he's on his back. The point is, while boxers have more sophisticated punching skills, MMA fighters have more sophisticated kicking and grappling skills which are proven to be more effective in a fight than boxing skills alone.

5.The real sophistication in combat sports is fighting with your hands. This way of thinking is totally wrong. Your time working Olympic broadcasts should have taught you differently. In its evoluton, MMA has come to include skills from boxing, judo, wrestling (freestyle and Greco-Roman), and tae kwon do (all of which are Olympic events) in addition to jiu jitsu and muay thai kickboxing. The level of sophistication required to combine all of these disciplines in training is far greater than that of pure boxing. I would encourage you to spend sometime learning the ground game aspect of MMA before making statements dismissing the amount of skill MMA athletes posess.

I would hope that you would put your preconceived notions aside and educate yourself on what is a marvelous sport with tremendous potential. Boxing will indeed be around for quite sometime. However, the sports problems (eg. who is the heavyweight champion these days?) are drawing the younger demographic away and towards something new and exciting. Consider making an effort to be more open minded about the sport or at least make an effort to be more educated about it rather than feebly attempt to dismiss its legitimacy. At the end of the day, as a sports broadcaster, you owe it to the profession.

Will