In Combat Sports Controversy Creates Cash

It’s no major secret that the phrase “controversy creates cash”, infamously coined by former pro-wrestling promoter Eric Bischoff, is no less relevant today than it was 10 or so years ago.

There’s a lot of scope to suggest that the phrase has become significantly more relevant during the past 3 years, bridging from covering just pro-wrestling, to all forms of ‘combat sport’. Whether you feel pro-wrestling falls under that bracket or not is up to you. However, at the end of the day whether it be MMA, pro-wrestling or a boxing event, the promoter of said event is attempting to profit on the idea of two competitors coming to blows.

Wednesday’s press conference between Dillian Whyte and Dereck Chisora came to an abrupt ending with Chisora launching a table at Whyte and his team, the two have been in what many would describe as a ‘feud’ for a while now, with verbal insults being thrown at just about any point possible and even a rumored headbutt was thrown during an interview for Sky TV’s ‘The Gloves Are Off’ series. Obviously in-reflection these antics don’t reflect kindly on the sport of boxing, however they have certainly captured the attention of the public, during a week leading up to a PPV that was initially predicted to do relatively lacklustre numbers, now looks as though it’ll do relatively well.

There’s a suggestion to be made that the UFC’s Conor McGregor has opened the realisation to many a fighter in the way to publicize and sell a fight, the public love a character. Whether he’s calling out and trash talking his or her opponent or it’s just the manner in-which they portray their lifestyle. The public love to invest themselves in something or someone and McGregor has certainly taken advantage of this and run with it. It appears everyone else in combat sport is now just catching up with the idea that this is a format that works.

Understandably you can make the argument perhaps in this specific example that Chisora has had a few incidents like this, however if you take an overall look at the last few Matchroom boxing PPV’s you’ll notice that they’ve started to utilise the same formula as McGregor and the UFC to market their fights and successfully British boxing back into the public eye. The recent Bellew/Haye press conference came to blows, Frampton and Quigg’s bout saw a war of words leading up to the fight and several of Anthony Joshua’s recent opponents have all had some form of backstory that has led to ‘heat’ with Joshua.

Perhaps it’s a mere coincidence that the revival of British boxing has occured near enough side-by-side with McGregor’s career, but even if you look prior to McGregor being one of the most successful PPV draws ever, you can look at the original Cormier vs Jones bout which was built and sold on both the skill of both competitors involved and the feud between them. McGregor has singlehandedly taken this formula to a point and amplified it.