This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
@PutAHelmetOn ((Because I'll cite back to this in my reply to you))
This is less true than you think it is in modern fight sports.
Average Purse for Boxing By Weight Class:
🔹Heavyweight: $20M
🔹Bridgerweight: $1M
🔹Cruiserweight: $3M
🔹Light Heavyweight: $5M
🔹Super Middleweight: $25M
🔹Middleweight: $2M
🔹Jr Middleweight: $3M
🔹Welterweight: $10M
🔹Super Lightweight $5M
🔹Lightweight $15M
🔹Super Featherweight $1M
🔹Featherweight $1M
🔹Super Bantamweight $4M
🔹Bantamweight $1.5M
🔹Super Flyweight $2M
🔹Flyweight $500K
🔹Jr Flyweight $1M
🔹Minimumweight $200k
You clearly see that Super Middleweight (168#) tops the charts, and that lightweight and welterweight are both vastly higher than any of the weights between Super Mid and Heavy.
For the UFC, the top ten highest paid fighters of all time includes four heavyweights, but also two lightweights top the list and it also features middleweights and welterweights. In the UFC in particular, among fight fans HW is often seen as a bit of a sideshow, with a shallow talent pool and sloppy fights; the biggest stars and best fights have normally been between 155# and 205#, where the fighters tend to land at "normal male" heights of between 5'9" and 6'2".
That's what more fans are tuning in for, rather than the Universal Championship at HW.
Historically in Boxing the Heavyweight Championship was the ne plus ultra of sports, but back then your heavyweight champions were Rocky Marciano at 5'10" 190#, and Mohammed Ali at 6'3" 226#, a big fella but not a mass monster by any means. I'm on the bigger side for my BJJ gym, and I'm a few pounds bigger than Marciano; the biggest couple guys in the gym are significantly larger than Ali.
The problem might be talent pools: basketball and the NFL soak up too many of the really athletic big fellas. Jalen Carter or Micah Parsons might be HW contenders if they had trained for it, but they make twice that fight purse a season in the NFL; and forget what guys like Lebron and Luka make in the NBA without getting hit in the head too often.
The correlation between weight and purse is 48%, which seems high enough to confirm the theory that heavier is more prestigious. There is also a mild bias in favour of the "classic" weight classes over the more recently added fine-grained ones, although the difference ($7.1M vs $5.6M) may not be statistically significant depending on the number of fights making up the averages.
That's not really a useful way to examine weight classes relative to @WhiningCoil 's assertion that HW is the prestige weight class. HW is the "open" class that any fighter could enter if they were better, they're the "real" champion, any other weight class whether at 200# or 125# is a "fake" champion by comparison. The assertion made wasn't "people like watching bigger fellas" it is "people like watching the 'real' champion, not a 'fake' champion protected by weight class regulations."
The real pattern you see is that fans like watching fights with great champions and great challengers, they like seeing great athletes compete against other great athletes, regardless of weight. This holds throughout boxing history: HW was big when you had multiple challengers passing the belt around in the Ali-Frazier-Foreman era, and decayed when the Klitschko's dominated it; Leonard, Duran, Hagler, and Hearns made middleweight great and their fights are still legendary today. Mayweather has the biggest three purses of all time. It's how it works.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link