The way things are going, you wouldn't bet against MMA being the dominant global fight sport in 50 years' time. Hell, it might be the only global combat sport by then. Designed to find the most dominant fighter on the planet - whatever their skill set - MMA has the potential to render other combat sports irrelevant.
Boxing's predominance is certainly under threat. Professional boxing has been ailing for a long time. Its rich history and rare kind of sporting poetry won't be enough to keep MMA at bay.
Genuinely memorable boxing bouts are few and far between these days, buried under a mountain of dross.
The biggest boxing occasions still capture the imagination - as Shane Cameron's title fight against Danny Green will - but it is a rare contest that doesn't require interest levels to be maintained via a punch-drunk playbook of pre-fight publicity tricks.
Thanks to the skills of David Tua and Cameron there has been a revival in New Zealand, but even those successes owe much to the canny efforts of promoters such as David Higgins and Dean Lonergan.