Consort,
thank you for your well thought out response.
And thank you for the compliment.
I often get a little too harsh and sarcastic in my responses on this topic but I do still try to develop whatever point I'm expanding on. That said, I really should just type out and save a long response to both Mercer/Kimbo and Jimmerson/Royce so I can just copy and paste it into each thread...
On topic, as I mentioned, it's easy enough to construct a decent argument as to why under MMA rules an MMA fighter should nearly always win. You can use logic... the "uppercut as they shoot" defence may work at high levels (off the top of my head Brock Larson was finished by Brian Foster due to this recently and there are other examples) it still remains a fairly high risk/high reward tactic. On the ground itself a boxer with little to no idea what they're doing will of course struggle against a competent grappler. Even standing the addition of elbows, knees and kicks brings extra dimensions to the game that a boxer is unaware of. Again, these aren't perfect arguments; Pedro Rizzo who carries some of the best leg kicks in MMA was brutally knocked out by Roman Zentsov when Roman countered a leg kick with a hook and Mark Hunt managed to survive on the ground well against both Fedor and Yoshida (if not Barnett), but they're a start.
You can add what limited empirical evidence we do have, but some of it is counter intuitive. Chris Lytle has an impressive in numbers but limited in reality boxing record which never attained the heights his MMA career has. In truth his MMA career (despite a 29-17-5 record) is far more impressive than his 13-1-1 boxing stats and he started boxing after making his MMA debut. Marcus Davis had a 17-1-2 boxing record before he quit the sweet science to take up MMA... but again, despite an average looking record (17-6) his MMA career has been far more impressive than his boxing one with an MMA career that has him as probably one of the top 20/25 fighters in the world in MMA's deepest division, a height he never came close to reaching in boxing, despite being past his physical best at this point.
The problem is essentially this: scary as it is James Toney and Ray Mercer are probably the two best boxers to ever take part in an MMA rules competition despite both being years and about 40lbs (or more in Tony's case) past their best (with Jeremy Williams being the closest to a prime top level boxer taking part in MMA). It may make people feel good to talk about Butterbean (who let's remember has some good MMA wins over decent competition and has been competitive in some of his loses), Nishijima et al but would an MMA fighter that far from his prime really do any better? Coleman had a heroic last stand against Bonnar and Funaki had a (possibly worked) win over Minowaman, but outside of that I can't think of many.
So you have to try to expand other points: Matt Skelton was an average at best K1 HW who has since competed for a version of boxing's HW title while being well past his sell-by-date. The weakness of the division and the fact Skelton only really fought at domestic UK and European level prior to his shot weaken the point but it remains. Top kickboxers who have tried MMA have had limited success: for every Cro Cop there's a Leko, for every Anderson Silva there's a Dekkers. The K1 vs boxing bouts fall into the same problem that boxers MMA bouts do: old, past their prime, drug addled fighters doing it for a pay-cheque. But kickboxing has a smaller talent pool than boxing and we've seen limited kickboxers have remarkable success.
What does sometimes get me about the debate is this prototypical "MMA fighter" that appears. Whenever people discuss this bout the MMA fighter becomes a jack of all trades with the mental game to back it up. His striking will be good if not exceptional, able to throw decent kicks to the legs, body and head and use dirty boxing/MT when in close. His wrestling will be good as will his grappling and, just as importantly, he will have no mental lapses. He will stay on the outside throwing leg kicks until eventually he shoots for a take down, works position and then locks in a submission.
Reality isn't like that.
1) Despite advances not all MMA fighters are well rounded. Even the best. BJ Penn's kicks are terrible even if he does have good (for MMA) hands and decent wrestling and incredible BJJ. Anderson Silva's wrestling is poor, Shogun's wrestling is limited as is his striking at times (the win over Machida non-with-standing) etc etc. Brock won't start throwing high kicks and Rampage won't start looking for a gogo-plata.
2) The mental aspect. Fighters don't always fight in a way that's best for them. Cro Cop stood with Hunt when he should have taken him down for the (likely) win. Manhoef slammed Yoshida... twice. Fedor dived into Werdum's guard, Barnett tried to stand with Rizzo the first time etc etc. In Sylvia vs Mercer Sylvia did what he did best... and it truth what he could... pump the jab, land stinging leg kicks and look for his right hand. It didn't work...
Despite what Kid says none of us here really hate MMA or truly think that every time (or even most of the time) a half-decent boxer and MMA fighter match up the boxer will win. We understand the changes the rules make and how adaptation will be hard.
We also have respect for MMA fighters. For all of Kid's (and others) points we know that Maia would never be a top boxer just as Wlad and Vitali are unlikely to have ever won the Mundials or ADCC even if they'd swapped sports and trained exclusively in it for nearly their entire lives. Maia followed the market to where his skills could best be financially rewarded... from grappling to MMA, just as Skelton, Wlad, Vitali and others went from kickboxing to boxing. The market and the structure of boxing means it will reward it's fighters better: which basically means if you're a fighter (and that's the key point... it takes something special to make your living through being beaten up) with decent standup you'll probably look to boxing to make a career... and if that doesn't work, you'll go to somewhere where you can... be it kickboxing, MMA or being a celebrity trainer (as Jeremy Williams is now).
Take Kid's posts with a grain of salt. He's been involved in MMA since the early days and honestly... from what I pick up he does like it. He's sort of trolling with his complete hater posts, partly because they're fun to write, partly because so many people on the other side of the debate are idiotic and partly because he can bring out some classics... his post going through the many sexual misdemeanour's of wrestling coaches is an instant classic and my second favourite post on Sherdog. Enjoy them for what they are and debate the serious points he does bring up.