Boxers with martial art experience?

Randall "Tex" Cobb, who cracked/KOed "Acorn" Shavers(yep that used to be his nick name) had a black belt in Karate. In fact he left his university for it, and lived in the dojo before ever considerring the kickboxing/boxing debute.

Chris Algieri got a Chinese Kenpo black belt at age 15(He's also a wresling coach).

Also, when Captain Hook isn't chasing little kids, he's had done a purple belt in BJJ for fun.

PS: glad to be back on the forums

 

I think Jiro watanabe was a karateka for a while. Lot of Thai guys who went from MT to boxing

 

Vitali Klitschko was an elite kickboxer.
Marco Huck, before boxing, has trained in taekwondo and kickboxing.
Muhammad Ali has ha black belt in taekwondo.
Chris John trains in wushu kung fu too.
Maurice Harris and Johnny Nelson trained in kickboxing before switching to boxing.
Shannon Briggs trained in 2000s in kickboxing and bjj.
Jeremy Williams has done kickboxing and judo.

 

Hector Camacho had karate background.

 

COnsidering that boxing is a martial art I assume that he means Asian traditional amrtial arts and not stuff like kickboxing and bjj.

And I'm pretty sure Ali's blackbelt was a pure PR thing he trianed with that guy infront of cameras and probably like ocne or twice like that but I doubt he ever really trained TKD more than a few times and earned a blackbelt or there would be more footage of him doing TKD.

kevin kelley does Jeet kun do if that counts as a tma but it probably souldn't just like BJJ and he says he incorprated some of that stuff into his style.

Then again what is a TMA? In reality boxing and mt are also TMA's and they are older than most other martial arts boxing just has no cultural or religious inrpired philsophy and MT has only a little bit of the Thai culture but is mostly considered a sport.
Then again in reality that doesn#t mean that both arent TMAs.

And on the other hand judo and TKD are so focused on being a sport nowadays that they are almost in the MT category which is itself already pretty close to boxing.

Jeet kun do isn't really traditional it's like BJJ basically so it doesn't count either since both only have roots in what most consider to be TMAs.

So inr eality either almost every combat sport/martial art is a TMA or just about none is a TMA

 

Boxing is not a martial art, its a sport. Same with kickboxing. Atleast thats how I see it.

 

How are boxing and kickboxing not a martial art?

 

Roy Jones Jr. has done BJJ?

 

Well you see it incorrectly

 

Dana rosenblat transitioned from kickboxing to boxing with success

 

No way, really?

 

Alexander Povetkin

Jeremiah Graziano

Kyotaro Fujimoto

Ben Edwards

Jarrell Miller

Izu Ugonoh

Marco Huck

Dillian Whyte

 

Matt Skelton

 

All of them, since by definition, boxing is a martial art.

 

I dont know if he was a black belt but he trained with jhoon rhee and that fat fraud george dillman for a while. Supposedly during this time he made a statement that he was going to retire from boxing and pursue training in other martial arts but obviously that never happened

 

that's right, Ali dabbled in other arts and regarded Bruce Lee very highly. He took lessons from Jhoon Rhee I think, and he was a buddy of George Dillman, in fact, i think Dillman once used his old training camp for something or other. My old mentor, Taky Kimura (bruce lee's best friend) used to have correspondence with Dillman, he believed in the pressure points and chi, it was funny because Bruce Lee used to dismiss Chi completely when he was alive. Taky thinks that it was because he didn't want to give away one of his secrets. We had many interesting conversations about just that thing, I've never personally seen things that I consider really metaphysical but I wouldn't discount the possibility. As far as Ali's belts, if he had any, they would surely be honorary belts, Ali also sparred karatemen with pretty good results of Wilfred Sheed's account is to be believed. Joe Lewis claims to have thrown Ali around and that his body was soft like a woman's. Joe talked shit about just about everyone though, he never mentioned that he got kayoed when he sparred some canadian light heavyweight though.

 

it's kind of unusual for boxers to have started with martial arts for the simple fact that martial arts has always been such a capitalistic venture and boxers were almost always poor. I was shocked when i learned Camacho started in Karate, maybe he had access to free lessons or something. anyway, tex cobb, troy dorsey,Pacquiao supposedly, Klitscko brothers. Ray Mancini became a bjj blackbelt after boxing. It's all fighting though, I always though Marvin hagler had a right jab that was exactly like Bruce Lee's "Straight Blast" a verticle fisted power punch that could kayo guys. I doubt he even knew much about bruce, you got two guys from a world apart using the exact same idiosyncratic body mechanics.

 

Soft like a womans body is hard to believe. Ken Norton stated that Ali's abs felt like cement when he punched them. Various opponents stated that Ali was much stronger than believed (not in regards to his punching power but physically in general). Ali trained like a mad man in the 1960s, maybe his body softened up a little due to the long layoff, but the Norton fights happened post-layoff.

Also in what dicipline did Lewis toss him around? Judo? I know he trained karate and kickboxing.

 

Good point...I agree....however this could be considered a thread of those boxers who have mixed their martial arts training and competition.

 

ya, i should have made a point of saying that was joe lewis talking shit, not me. Ali was by most accounts a very strong boxer, outmuscling many guys, even the undeveloped Clay handled Liston pretty well and Ali wore down Foreman with all his wrestling. Joe Lewis said he was using wrestling techniques, i think it was the fireman's carry he said he did on Ali. again, Lewis talked shit about everyone, Bruce Lee included, his ego cost him a Chuck Norris type of career because the role in way of the dragon was supposed to be his. Anyway, lots of those kinds of guys in martial arts, to his credit he did have a little more skill and scruples than most of them.