"Its harder to become an elite boxer than an elite mma fighter"

factually false. mma is the elite combat sport and ufc champions possess 10000x the skill most world champion boxers do. (charles martin lol)

Trolls lacking creativity these days.
 
It's 100% true for the same reason it's harder to become an elite gymnast than an elite MMA fighter: it's been around much longer and has much more infrastructure.

Look at Francis Ngannou: he's been training for 4 years and already he is ranked #6 in the UFC, which IMO constitutes an "elite" MMA fighter. He could be fighting for the world title before this year is out.

You just don't see that in pro boxing. Guys get weeded out.
 
Wrestling is much easier to learn than boxing.

Do you speak from experience? I remember just dabbling in both, and I felt that Wrestling felt more natural for me to learn and came easier to me. Boxing was a little difficult for me to learn because it just felt unnatural to me. But to me the more physically demanding was wrestling, I just felt spent after every practice.
 
Wrestling is much easier to learn than boxing.

Learn maybe not master. Guys on the world level have been competing since they were kids. You won't see a guy start wrestling in his 20s and go anywhere like wilder
 
Learn maybe not master. Guys on the world level have been competing since they were kids. You won't see a guy start wrestling in his 20s and go anywhere like wilder
That's because by that age they are adults and want to make money

No athlete with any potential will just do it for free at that age
 
That's because by that age they are adults and want to make money

No athlete with any potential will just do it for free at that age

Not the point, it would never happen. World class wrestlers in Iran and Russia and similar countries are superstars. Regardless of how much they make it would never happen in wrestling.

Hell even American wrestlers struggle on the world circuit competing against guys who have wrestled freestyle their entire life despite the similarities of folkstyle
 
In MMA you only really need to be okay at a bunch of different things with one "specialty" which will allow you to differentiate yourself; this is what has allowed for mediocre boxers and MT guys like Silva and Connor to effectively dominate the standup game and guys like GSP to grapplefuck their competition for years on end. It's a sport of inclusion wherein the required level of mastery for all its constituent components is significantly lower than in a specialized sport like boxing and any weaknesses in your game can be mitigated by crutching heavily on your strengths. What I mean by this is that you don't need to be a good wrestler, a good striker and a good submission artist to be successful in MMA, in fact you could be a terrible striker, a terrible wrestler and a good grappler and be UFC champion (I'm looking at you Honda). In boxing you have to be at the bare minimum good at all aspects of the sport with at least one area where you excel to even be considered a contender and this is due to the depth entailed by a sport of reduction. In MMA you could conceivably achieve a competitive familiarity with the ground as well as the striking game even if you are not especially talented or athletically gifted and oftentimes you can get by without any serious, nuanced knowledge of either aspect which is required to simply be competitive in boxing or really any specialized martial art.

Another way to think about is crossfit versus it's constituent components; the average games competitor does not possess strength or endurance beyond what's achievable by a regular person with a few years of training. And while it's impressive that they can run a few miles and also do some ugly cleans afterwards I guarantee you that maybe one out of every 100 "elite" level crossfitters is even genetically capable of achieving the same level of mastery in marathoning/triathloning, or even approaching world record numbers in weightlifting or powerlifting.

TL;DR: MMA sets the bar lower for each of it's constituent elements which means that there are fewer barriers to entry into the sport and the skill ceiling is significantly lower because all these elements lack depth.
 
Not the point, it would never happen. World class wrestlers in Iran and Russia and similar countries are superstars. Regardless of how much they make it would never happen in wrestling.

Hell even American wrestlers struggle on the world circuit competing against guys who have wrestled freestyle their entire life despite the similarities of folkstyle
GSP started wrestling late and beat top wrestlers
 
In MMA you only really need to be okay at a bunch of different things with one "specialty" which will allow you to differentiate yourself; this is what has allowed for mediocre boxers and MT guys like Silva and Connor to effectively dominate the standup game and guys like GSP to grapplefuck their competition for years on end. It's a sport of inclusion wherein the required level of mastery for all its constituent components is significantly lower than in a specialized sport like boxing and any weaknesses in your game can be mitigated by crutching heavily on your strengths. What I mean by this is that you don't need to be a good wrestler, a good striker and a good submission artist to be successful in MMA, in fact you could be a terrible striker, a terrible wrestler and a good grappler and be UFC champion (I'm looking at you Honda). In boxing you have to be at the bare minimum good at all aspects of the sport with at least one area where you excel to even be considered a contender and this is due to the depth entailed by a sport of reduction. In MMA you could conceivably achieve a competitive familiarity with the ground as well as the striking game even if you are not especially talented or athletically gifted and oftentimes you can get by without any serious, nuanced knowledge of either aspect which is required to simply be competitive in boxing or really any specialized martial art.

Another way to think about is crossfit versus it's constituent components; the average games competitor does not possess strength or endurance beyond what's achievable by a regular person with a few years of training. And while it's impressive that they can run a few miles and also do some ugly cleans afterwards I guarantee you that maybe one out of every 100 "elite" level crossfitters is even genetically capable of achieving the same level of mastery in marathoning/triathloning, or even approaching world record numbers in weightlifting or powerlifting.

TL;DR: MMA sets the bar lower for each of it's constituent elements which means that there are fewer barriers to entry into the sport and the skill ceiling is significantly lower because all these elements lack depth.


This
 
In MMA you only really need to be okay at a bunch of different things with one "specialty" which will allow you to differentiate yourself; this is what has allowed for mediocre boxers and MT guys like Silva and Connor to effectively dominate the standup game and guys like GSP to grapplefuck their competition for years on end. It's a sport of inclusion wherein the required level of mastery for all its constituent components is significantly lower than in a specialized sport like boxing and any weaknesses in your game can be mitigated by crutching heavily on your strengths. What I mean by this is that you don't need to be a good wrestler, a good striker and a good submission artist to be successful in MMA, in fact you could be a terrible striker, a terrible wrestler and a good grappler and be UFC champion (I'm looking at you Honda). In boxing you have to be at the bare minimum good at all aspects of the sport with at least one area where you excel to even be considered a contender and this is due to the depth entailed by a sport of reduction. In MMA you could conceivably achieve a competitive familiarity with the ground as well as the striking game even if you are not especially talented or athletically gifted and oftentimes you can get by without any serious, nuanced knowledge of either aspect which is required to simply be competitive in boxing or really any specialized martial art.

Another way to think about is crossfit versus it's constituent components; the average games competitor does not possess strength or endurance beyond what's achievable by a regular person with a few years of training. And while it's impressive that they can run a few miles and also do some ugly cleans afterwards I guarantee you that maybe one out of every 100 "elite" level crossfitters is even genetically capable of achieving the same level of mastery in marathoning/triathloning, or even approaching world record numbers in weightlifting or powerlifting.

TL;DR: MMA sets the bar lower for each of it's constituent elements which means that there are fewer barriers to entry into the sport and the skill ceiling is significantly lower because all these elements lack depth.

Very nice explanation, I agree with you on most of what you said. But what did you mean by " all these elements lack depth"???
 
GSP started wrestling late and beat top wrestlers

That's not wrestling, in a pure freestyle wrestling match he'd get ragdolled. And who are these top wrestlers he's beaten? Koscheck? lol
 
Not the point, it would never happen. World class wrestlers in Iran and Russia and similar countries are superstars. Regardless of how much they make it would never happen in wrestling.

Hell even American wrestlers struggle on the world circuit competing against guys who have wrestled freestyle their entire life despite the similarities of folkstyle
I agree wholeheartedly, I tried wrestling after boxing and martial arts, it was easier to learn a lot of things but so many other things just seemed to get me injured and also, the mentality when you get older, you just don't want to learn, at least I didn't, I didn't really like being that close to another man, i wasn't comfortable with it. Anyway, it was another factor in my not competing in mma (amongst a host of factors), the coach I had was pure grappler and I know one thing, teachers tend to duplicate themselves in their students and I knew my strengths would never, never be grappling. Easier to learn, simpler, less coordination needed but I just knew I'd never be great at it.
 
So bork laser becomes UFC champ but it's easier to win at boxing? Gotcha
 
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