Old head boxing fans loathe MMA , but less technical boxers always put butts in seats

[nastyleft]

Well many pro boxers have a hundred amateur fights before they make the pro ranks. They still might have 30 fights with an 0 before they have a title fight.

Some people who hate MMA and love boxing use the "he's only had a handful of fights and now is champ, MMA is easy" argument, I think it's dumb but people do say it. MMA and boxing are quite different but really they're both the largest combat sports in the public realm so it's natural comparisons are made.

I think theres a lot of misconceptions that boxing purists dont like mma when in fact most of us do. Its the whole combat sport thing that keeps us watching. Just as much as Im not impressed with the overall striking prowess of most of the guys in MMA, I am every bit as impressed with the other attributes they bring to the table. As far as who would win in a street fight, I still believe to an extent, its a toss up, and depends on who the two guys are that are fighting. A brawl is a brawl afterall.
Again, Boxing has more history hence much more depth, and that why it takes guys so ong to make it to the "top" versus the smaller talent pool in MMA. How my guys have 100+ amateur MMA fights before turning pro?

 

[mozfonky]

Lately, I watched an old Chuck Norris movie and watched him work out on the bag, his form was fantastic and I was surprised at how skilled he looked. I have also seen Bill Wallace and Joe Lewis in the ring, they look pretty good too. I bring this up because all those guys were late starters as boxers but they had really good technique, I can't understand why the mma guys look so bad with the boxing, just horrible. I assumed it was the late start but if all those other guys could do it, they should be able to do it too. They just haven't put in the work.

 

[mozfonky]

I think theres a lot of misconceptions that boxing purists dont like mma when in fact most of us do. Its the whole combat sport thing that keeps us watching. Just as much as Im not impressed with the overall striking prowess of most of the guys in MMA, I am every bit as impressed with the other attributes they bring to the table. As far as who would win in a street fight, I still believe to an extent, its a toss up, and depends on who the two guys are that are fighting. A brawl is a brawl afterall.
Again, Boxing has more history hence much more depth, and that why it takes guys so ong to make it to the "top" versus the smaller talent pool in MMA. How my guys have 100+ amateur MMA fights before turning pro?

that's true, not only do they usually not have many amateur fights, it's very common for the top guys to have less that 20 fights in a whole career. MMA is a whole different fanbase and demographic. how they see life (and fighting) is completely different than boxers. How many boxers are famous for being paranoid, distrustful, antisocial? the mma'rs are usually like overgrown highschoolers, in the gym mostly to be around their buddies than to fight. Also, although it's changing, I believed that mma'rs were desperate for attention for whatever reason because there was no money and no real respect to be had.

 

[nastyleft]

Lately, I watched an old Chuck Norris movie and watched him work out on the bag, his form was fantastic and I was surprised at how skilled he looked. I have also seen Bill Wallace and Joe Lewis in the ring, they look pretty good too. I bring this up because all those guys were late starters as boxers but they had really good technique, I can't understand why the mma guys look so bad with the boxing, just horrible. I assumed it was the late start but if all those other guys could do it, they should be able to do it too. They just haven't put in the work.

Yeah, Bruce Lee was pretty tight in the technique category too. you hit the nail on the head. These guy now a days in MMA just dont put the work in. I dont think they respect the Martial Art or pureness of fighting EFFECTIVELY to be bothered with punching correctly with the least amount of effort but maximum output. I'd doubt most of them now are even real martial art practitioners. They're mostly just guys that want to punch on their way in and submit guys anyway possible, and thats all they learn. What we see lately is, its all about the better athlete that wins the MMA matches.

 

[aries]

I love both MMA and boxing and I have a few issues with some of the points brought up so far. First I don't think it's fair to say that MMA'ers don't put in the work when they have to train all these different elements, kickboxing/muay thai, wrestling, BJJ and boxing. Of course they aren't going to be as good as pure boxer but they are training so many discliplines.

And the other arguement about Randy Couture being at the top despite losses has as much to do with the match making in MMA and the fact that the UFC has most of the talent as anything to do with a shallower talent pool. Guys can come into the UFC with perfect records like Michael Bisping fight nobodies like boxers do early in their career but then lose them in the UFC because of the big step up in competition. Bisping went on to lose a further 6 times but eventually won the championship. He got that opportunity because the UFC allowed him to keep getting eliminator shots. That wouldn't happen in boxing because there is no organisation that can make it happen like the UFC.

So in boxing the zero after your name is really important. In MMA it doesn't matter nearly as much. Take Conor for instance, he already had two losses on his record when he fought in the UFC. It didn't matter that his record wasn't perfect because they realised his potential. And he went on to prove that they were right. In boxing you can have 20 fights and 0 losses having fought cans, in MMA that isn't very likely as if you were any good you'd be fighting in the UFC by that time and you'd probably end up with a loss.

 

[Sharkey]

Canelo got more popular after his loss too.

Pacquiao, Canelo, Cotto, Oscar, Trinidad, Tyson, Holyfield, Leonard, Duran, Hagler, Hearns, Mancini, Arguello, Ali, etc., etc. All these fighters either maintained or improved their popularity after having suffered losses in boxing. In fact, off the top of my head, it's hard for me to think of a single popular fighter over the last few decades who's popularity took a hit after suffering a loss save for maybe Chavez Sr, although his long undefeated record was used as a promotional tool as much, if not more than any other fighter in recent times. Even then that's just measuring Chavez' dip in PPV sales after suffering a loss.

 

[mraa1]

Because "rockem-sockem" boxing looks way better than the equivalent mma slugfest. Good punches being thrown, decent technique torque and posture. A semblance of fighting style shows with two guys that trained in boxing. And their lack of defense is what makes it exciting, because you have decent looking haymakers connecting constantly.

In most mma:
Two guys masquerading as punchers, throwing garbage off balance kitchen sink type stuff, with low connect ratio and sloppy delivery is just plain annoying to look at.

wand v. stann comes to mind. don't understand why everyone was nutting over that fight. it was just an ugly ass drunken brawl.

 

[Sharkey]

Orlando Salido and his 13 losses while also continuing to be offered title fights says hello.

 

[Shoemaker]

Lately, I watched an old Chuck Norris movie and watched him work out on the bag, his form was fantastic and I was surprised at how skilled he looked. I have also seen Bill Wallace and Joe Lewis in the ring, they look pretty good too. I bring this up because all those guys were late starters as boxers but they had really good technique, I can't understand why the mma guys look so bad with the boxing, just horrible. I assumed it was the late start but if all those other guys could do it, they should be able to do it too. They just haven't put in the work.

The gym I used to go to was mixed. Lots of boxers and lots of mixed martial artists. But the mixed-martial artists rarely sparred with the boxers. A couple of the higher level guys would, but a lot of them seemed to favor sparring with each other lightly but using MMA rules (hoping that some of the knowledge would spread I guess). I always got the impression that they figured that was "good enough" to round out their skill set.

The guys who worked with the boxers tended to come from a muay-thai background more than wrestling/jui-jitsu. Though one guy was a wrestler and he wound up being a pretty damn good boxer too, really good inside.

 

[Crccr]

4 million

4 million dicks drilling your mom?

 

[RandomUser12]

Gatti is a poor example. People who loved him weren't so much boxing fans as they were simply Gatti fans. The guy sold out the Boardwalk Hall nine times in a row, regardless of who he was fighting. You think any of those people in attendance had a clue who Gianluca Branco, Thomas Damgaard or Alfonso Gomez were? Gatti fights in Atlantic City were events.

Not sure what that gif is supposed to highlight, either. He's got an opponent seriously hurt and in a position to be finished - not uncommon for boxers to lose poise in that sort of situation, particularly in front of an amped up, packed out arena cheering you on. They're humans at the end of the day.

 

[Sunfish]

4 million dicks drilling your mom?

Steve back it up or I'll not be a good poster.

 

[mozfonky]

The gym I used to go to was mixed. Lots of boxers and lots of mixed martial artists. But the mixed-martial artists rarely sparred with the boxers. A couple of the higher level guys would, but a lot of them seemed to favor sparring with each other lightly but using MMA rules (hoping that some of the knowledge would spread I guess). I always got the impression that they figured that was "good enough" to round out their skill set.

The guys who worked with the boxers tended to come from a muay-thai background more than wrestling/jui-jitsu. Though one guy was a wrestler and he wound up being a pretty damn good boxer too, really good inside.

I used to think a guy would have a hard time learning past 18 but I've been proven wrong by a couple guys I've known. It's harder and they may never get as natural as someone who started earlier but it does happen and can be done. I just think the mma'rs, at least the ones I knew just don't work hard enough, that goes for the martial artists I was around before that too, couldn't give a fuck whether they were doing things right or not. Yet they'd act all tough at the drop of a hat.

 

[mozfonky]

As far as brawls in boxing being popular I think the top brawlers have a lot more skills than what we're seeing in MMA. MMA just looks ugly, at least to the trained eye.

 

[robjenkins2]

The biggest issue is that the majority of mma fans don't respect boxing like they should and the majority of boxing fans don't respect the other martial arts like they should. Even though time has shown that they all can basically beat eachother.

 

[Marc A]

Big talent pool fight more "cans "
Smaller talent pool fight less and fight less "cans "


We will see once there is a larger talent pool how that effects the short lifespan of mma careers

 

[Marc A]

As far as brawls in boxing being popular I think the top brawlers have a lot more skills than what we're seeing in MMA. MMA just looks ugly, at least to the trained eye.

No need to think

They do

 

[mozfonky]

I'm

No need to think

They do

I'm trying to see it from the perspective of a unknowledgable consumer. The guys from the 20's look bad to us today but I doubt anyone thought so at the time.

 

[mozfonky]

also, i've been researching the early guys, bill wallace, Lewis and Norris. Many people have written off those guys' prospects as in the same league as todays fighters. I'm not so sure. Reason being is, as I mentioned, they seemed to take more care into what they were doing, they were more dedicated it seems and, this is a big one, they also were either well versed in some sort of grappling or wide open to the idea. Chuck Norris, surprisingly, has said in interviews that he took up Gracie Jiu Jitsu after being choked out by Helio in the 80's. He was way ahead of the curve, I still have a magazine from the late 80's where he called the Gracie style the most realistic for streetfights. I don't want to argue whether that's true or not, I'm just pointing out that those guys would have been at least prepared for mma style of fighting. You wouldn't know it looking at the films of the comps they had in the 70's, they do look horrid for the most part and you could see why it was so easy to believe that Bruce Lee could easily handle them.

 

[Crccr]

Steve back it up or I'll not be a good poster.

I still don't know who Steve is plus you started it