UFC vs. Boxing

I love watching UFC and we always have a big thing for the pay per views but sometimes the inevitable question comes up...is it better than boxing? I would have to say it depends on what your definition of better is. There's no arguing that mma is more physical than boxing. You use your entire body and all 4 limbs to strike with. Boxing limits you to throwing punches and nothing else. Boxing also gives you one "big" fight every blue moon. I use the word "big" to describe a fight between people that are popular to not only the boxing community but to the casual fighting fan. I think that if you lined up 20 of the most popular UFC stars and 20 of the most popular boxing stars (currently fighting, not retired) then more regular people would be able to name more UFC guys. Now UFC isn't giving someone a 30 million dollar payout for a main event fight like Floyd Mayweather demands but I do believe it gives you more quality fights on one card than a boxing pay per view. It's also hard to say which sport could do what the other sport does better. I mean if you put Chuck Lidell in a HBO special with Mayweather then I would have to give it to Mayweather but if things are reversed then I cannot pick any boxer over any UFC guy. Some people say "those UFC guys just lay on eachother or stay in one position on the gound for most of the fight". How many times during an average boxing match does the referee have to step in when a guy is tired and simply reaches out and pulls the other guy in and holds him for as long as he can to catch his breath? That is definitely not as acceptable as two mma fighters locking in a submission battle. Even though there isn't much movement they are still working. Popularity is the biggest thing that the UFC has on it's side. There's no arguing that a huge boxing pay per view is going to draw more viewers but the UFC is putting on more pay per views and drawing pretty impressive numbers. In August of 08 ufc.com had more than 800,000 total U.S. unique visitors. boxrec.com was the closest boxing site to that and it had about 100,000 unique visitors (according to compete.com). There's also no hiding that boxing has simply lost some of it's luster over the years. When the supposed best pound for pound fighter in the history of the sport starts making cameos and getting into fights in professional wrestling then you know something's wrong. The same professional wrestling that is losing some of it's best young talent to the mma ie: Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley. In this argument I just can't find a leg for boxing to stand on. Pay per view sales have declined, there are less world wide known boxers, boxing really isn't as appealing to the younger demographic, you don't get as many pay per view events per year. I do believe that boxing could have a huge resurgance if there was some young talent that came in and produced a new generation of famous boxers. Someone that the 18-25 year olds are going to be interested in.

...but honestly, what are the chances of that happening?

thanks for reading.