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That only proves my point that boxing is a better base. Even guys who have trained to kick aren't doing it much, they're fighting more like boxers with some kicks thrown in. Despite the low level of boxing, guys still prefer to use their hands. That's why when guys like McGregor and Garbrandt come in who actually have a boxing background, they steamroll entire divisions. And neither of those guys has the greatest boxing background either.
Boxing and wrestling are the core of most MMA fighters' games. For most guys, everything else is icing on the cake.
If your point is that a hands heavy attack is more effective for MMA than a kick heavy attack, I'll agree with you. I'm just not classifying everyone who throws a lot of hands as a boxer, especially if they didn't come from a boxing background. Jose Aldo, GSP, those are guys who can box but who are not boxers. And I also think that looking at the current state of the belts is a pretty bad measure of whether any style is going to be universally dominant, if you'd looked at who the champs were in 2014, you might well conclude that kickboxing was really what you needed, as Werdum, RDA, Aldo, Jones, and DJ were all champs (some very dominant) who relied heavily on kicking, clinching, and knees. Garbrandt and Conor have definitely shown the power of having strong boxing, but I don't think we should succumb to recency bias in thinking that their success somehow means boxing is the 'answer' to MMA striking, any more than BJJ or wrestling have allowed people to effortlessly dominate like they did during their heydays as dominant strategies. I do think we can say that in general it's more important to have good hands over good kicks, but if you see people going full Nate Diaz and investing only in boxing you'll certainly see those same people get their legs kicked out from under them or get their faces kneed off in the clinch if they neglect those aspects of training. Which goes back to what I originally said and maintain, which is that the best sort of striking style for MMA is probably Dutch KB since it incorporates a lot of what makes boxing effective without incorporating strategies that will get your head taken off (repeatedly rolling very low under punches when knees are legal), and giving you some additional weapons with simple kicking and clinch (as well as defenses against those tactics). I expect Saki, for example, to do just fine in the striking department, whereas I think if you took someone like (since it's topical) Floyd Mayweather he'd just get shit kicked by anyone with a decent KB background. Saki definitely prefers his hands which will serve him well, but he's able to deal with the full gamut of striking whereas someone using pure boxing stances and tactics would have a lot of trouble defending kicks or takedowns.