Muay thai or Boxing

[Paradigm]

Rogan loves to infinitely point out that the younger fighters are in this camp. Rory McDonald, Holloway, etc.

As someone with a very strong background in a specific style, I totally agree that you should go straight into MMA. The advantage I have in kicking because of TKD and TSD over these incompetent MT kickers I fight is because I "wasted" many many years training inefficiently.

Think about Ronda's Judo, she spent what like 20 years or something developing only that? So ya it's devastating, but her striking is abysmal after only a couple years working on it.

It's basically a pure numbers thing. How many years did Machida dedicate to achieve his karate excellence? A hell of a lot more than people like Hollaway have been training at all. People with strong TMA backgrounds tend to spend like 10, 20 years in that sport, and then switch to MMA.

That's two guys out of how many? I still don't think its anywhere near being close to the norm. Lots of parents still put their kids in karate or wrestling or whatever at a young age. I still don't think that many parents are forgoing the dojo or whatever and just signing their kids up for straight MMA classes when they're 5.

Paige Vanzant is probably an example of one of these straight to MMA fighters but how good is she really?

Look at the best MMA fighters of today. They all started training in various disciplines at a young age and are all well-rounded. And their versatility give them a tremendious advantage over fighters who, on paper, outclass them at one aspect of MMA.

Jose Aldo, who went pro at 18, is basically a pure modern MMA fighter with a small background in BJJ who is most famous for his striking and eats wrestlers for breakfast.

Demetrious Johnson and Jon Jones, who only wrestled in high school, had no problems grappling with the Olympians Henry Cejudo and Daniel Cormier.

If we go back a bit in time, there is that karate guy named Georges St-Pierre who has no wrestling credentials, yet double-legged D1 wrestlers on the regular.

And then you have the best MMA fighter ever, Fedor Emelianenko, who is a pure product of combat sambo, a mix of judo and small-gloved boxing which looks a lot like MMA.

Your post is proving my point...they all started young in at least one specific art form.

They didn't just go to a gym and sign up for "MMA classes." All of them trained individual arts and had to combine/adapt them to the sport of MMA.

What I was referring to is guys like Rory that supposedly have no background in any TMA or individual art form...I still don't think its very common.

 

[biscuitsbrah]

That's two guys out of how many? I still don't think its anywhere near being close to the norm. Lots of parents still put their kids in karate or wrestling or whatever at a young age. I still don't think that many parents are forgoing the dojo or whatever and just signing their kids up for straight MMA classes when they're 5.

Paige Vanzant is probably an example of one of these straight to MMA fighters but how good is she really?



Your post is proving my point...they all started young in at least one specific art form.

They didn't just go to a gym and sign up for "MMA classes." All of them trained individual arts and had to combine/adapt them to the sport of MMA.

What I was referring to is guys like Rory that supposedly have no background in any TMA or individual art form...I still don't think its very common.

I'd have to agree. Also it's pretty much only Rory. Holloway was doing pure kickboxing matches for a year or two before doing mma

 

[fluffball]

That's two guys out of how many? I still don't think its anywhere near being close to the norm.

I just didn't feel like listing more. But younger fighters tend to be pure MMA guys. I think at this point you've got former wrestlers, guys that took TKD as a kid and then went into MMA, and then people that started in MMA. Without checking any facts, I would guess if you randomly listed 20 fighters under 25, most or at least half of them would have a "background" in MMA, and the rest would be wrestlers and maybe one former TKD guy.

 

[StopDucking]

Your post is proving my point...they all started young in at least one specific art form.

They didn't just go to a gym and sign up for "MMA classes." All of them trained individual arts and had to combine/adapt them to the sport of MMA.

What I was referring to is guys like Rory that supposedly have no background in any TMA or individual art form...I still don't think its very common.

You're missing the point. What my examples show is that:
1) Versatility wins against speciality.
2) The sooner you go into MMA, the better you are at MMA.

Based on those 2 proven facts, I would recommend somebody who wants to become a MMA fighter to choose MMA instead of boxing or muay thai.

 

[Paradigm]

I just didn't feel like listing more. But younger fighters tend to be pure MMA guys. I think at this point you've got former wrestlers, guys that took TKD as a kid and then went into MMA, and then people that started in MMA. Without checking any facts, I would guess if you randomly listed 20 fighters under 25, most or at least half of them would have a "background" in MMA, and the rest would be wrestlers and maybe one former TKD guy.

I don't have time anymore to watch much MMA out of the UFC, aside for maybe Bellator so I'm guessing I just haven't seen this next generation of MMA only guys yet, since they haven't reached the UFC level yet.

I'm just curious who these guys are, if there are any in the UFC (and you'd assume there would be by this point in time).

Even up and coming prospects like Almeida (Muay Thai), Amirkhani (wrestling) and Garbrandt (boxing/wrestling) all have some individual base.

You're missing the point. What my examples show is that:
1) Versatility wins against speciality.
2) The sooner you go into MMA, the better you are at MMA.

Based on those 2 proven facts, I would recommend somebody who wants to become a MMA fighter to choose MMA instead of boxing or muay thai.

Well, usually when I'm trying to present an argument, I provide examples. So far, nobody in this thread has really named anyone of significance aside from Rory so I'm guessing it just that guys only having an MMA base and not having trained any other arts prior to that aren't that widespread yet in 2016.

Training a bunch of disciplines separately and training MMA as a whole are not the same thing. And yes, of course you will need to have a diverse skillset since this is MMA.

Maybe Stipe is an example of this but I think he was a collegiate wrestler.

 

[fluffball]

Dustin Poirier is another UFC fighter off the top of my head that went straight into MMA. I don't think I'll be able to list a lot of guys just because I don't know everyone's personal history. All I know is Rogan goes on about this "next generation of MMA fighter" about as much as he rants about how amazing leg kicks are or prematurely calls a submission when it's no where close to being completed "That's in DEEP Mike!!"

 

[StopDucking]

Well, usually when I'm trying to present an argument, I provide examples. So far, nobody in this thread has really named anyone of significance aside from Rory so I'm guessing it just that guys only having an MMA base and not having trained any other arts prior to that aren't that widespread yet in 2016.

Training a bunch of disciplines separately and training MMA as a whole are not the same thing. And yes, of course you will need to have a diverse skillset since this is MMA.

Maybe Stipe is an example of this but I think he was a collegiate wrestler.

You're still completely missing the point and you're still dismissing all my examples without providing any reason.

I'm not going to repeat everything I said since you already have a hard time understanding but consider this:
- Demetious Johnson who went into MMA after wrestling in high school is better then Henry Cejudo who went into MMA after going to the Olympics.
- Jon Jones who went into MMA after wrestling in high school is better than Daniel Cormier who went into MMA after going to the Olympics.

It's obvious that those who went into MMA when they're 20 are more succesful than those who went into MMA when they're 30. Based on this information, we can safely assume that the younger you go into MMA, the better you can succeed in MMA, which means going into MMA when you're 10 is better than going into MMA when you're 15 which is better than going into MMA when you're 20.

For some obscure reason, you're telling me "unless you can show me a guy who went straight into MMA after he was born, your whole logic is invalid". That's not how logic works at all.

Let's say you have in your gym a guy who trains 3 days a week, another who trains 2 days a week and another who trains only 1 day a week. The first guy is improving faster than the second who's improving faster than the third. We can easily conclude that a guy who trains 4 days a week would improve even faster. It doesn't matter if I can actually show you somebody who trains 4 days a week, my logic still stands.

 

[Reyesnuthugr]

For a wrestler, train boxing (with a good coach).

reason is- you already know wrestling, you aren't going to be easy to bully around in the clinch, probably the opposite. You might have to learn minimal clinching but you already have the most difficult/useful stuff down, which is having excellent sense of balance and being able to control the other guy in close range.


Besides wrestling, boxing teaches the most useful skills (which are manifested by measurable, observable results) the quickest, imo. Then you can go into kickboxing or muay thai later and it will supplement those things extremely well. The other way around (learning MT/kickboxing first, then boxing) wouldn't work as well from what I've seen.

Of course, it ultimately comes down to your personal instinct what you should do for yourself.