It depends how you look at it. Yes on a professional level against a martial artist who is sparring constantly and fighting matches, sure a boxer has fewer tools and is effective only in the punching range. However if you take 99.999% of guys off the street who recreationally train in boxing or other martial arts, I would bet on the boxer every time and expect the boxer to win 9 times out of 10.
Why? Because boxers, even recreational, train very hard compared to other martial artists and spar. Every lesson includes a lot of sparring. That's how you learn in boxing, sparring. Actual fighting. With actual proper hitting, not just fake hitting like happens in karate, taekwondo etc. You also learn a lot getting hit. You learn to control your emotions and fear. I'm an amateur boxer but also learn BJJ. With my BJJ, and it's a Gracie affiliated school, we roll a lot and try and make it realistic as possible with takedowns. But you still don't really get hit as you come in for a takedown. You learn how to avoid a kick, punch or knee and every now and then we kit on pads and the other guy really tries to knee you hard but we don't do it often. Not every lesson. Whereas with my boxing, we spar all the time. Of course it's controlled, we have head gear and we're not trying to always take each other's heads off but you get hit a lot and you get used to it.
I was training with one of our top BJJ guys who is a brown belt which is a very high level. So I suggested that with our sessions to make it a bit more realistic. So I donned some 16 oz gloves, he put some boxing head gear (not the full face cage we normally use when simulating full on takedowns against a striker) on and I had to get ready for him to take me down. He's very good and took me down a couple of times. However the first time I fooled him with a half punch and he rushed in, I lowered down and clocked him with a low hook to the side of the head he was totally shocked. I didn't even put a lot of heat into the punch and I'm also not a big puncher and weigh 165 lbs and this guy weighs closer to 190 lbs. He rips his head gear off all red in the face and wants to make sure everything is ok, that his temple isn't swelling etc. WTF.
I've seen this time and again with so many different martial artists. I was sparring this Hapkido double dan black belt and he had great kicks, and kicked me so hard through mid section pads once that I actually wondered if he broke one of my ribs. But the first time I clocked him on the nose, he has to stop. His nose wasn't even bleeding, he just couldn't see as his eyes were watering so much and he freaked out that his nose was broken when there was nothing in the punch. They're great until they get hit. Boxers even at just club level and non-competing are ok with getting hit. Of course a really hard shot makes you sh*t your pants and shocks you. But if you were to throw someone into a street fight and he wasn't a professional, just recreational level, the boxer would stand the best chance most of the time.
