Question about the standard of women's boxing

After watching Holly Holm get completely out-boxed by a muay thai fighter, I'm curious as to how female boxing stacks up. I don't watch WMMA usually and never watch women's boxing, but I thought the outcome was interesting. I remember boxers like Laila Ali and Ann Wolfe and assumed that although obviously the purses were much lower, there would be enough of a talent pool and enough interest to ensure some level of quality.

But a male muay thai champion would get destroyed if a fight primarily involved boxing vs a legit boxing world champion, so clearly the difference between female boxing professionals and their muay thai/WMMA counterparts is a lot narrower than the men. Curious as to why that is. Is women's boxing not much more popular than women's kickboxing?

 

Also, I'm aware that both boxing and MMA fans' initial reactions is for their panties to bunch up any time the two sports are mentioned together and turn any discussion immediately into a sh*tfight, but I'm not trolling. I would have thought Holm would be a much better boxer than the other girl, but she was clearly the inferior boxer and this surprised me.

 

Holly kickboxed a bit and is a former professional boxing world champion but Shevchenko is a world class multi-time Muay Thai and kickboxing champion with professional boxing experience as well. Shevchenko tried boxing as a pro but only ever had a couple bouts (she's 2-0). She was a Russian amateur national champion in boxing as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Shevchenko_(fighter)

http://www.ufc.com/fighter/Valentina-Shevchenko

She started many combat sports at age 12 and had her first professional MMA fight in 2003 (now 13-2 as a pro). This is MMA, not boxing or Muay Thai/Kickboxing. I'm not surprised she was able to outbox Holly Holm at all. She's just about done it all. In Muay Thai, at the IFMA World Championships, she beat Joanna Jedrzejczyk by decision 3 times. Joanna is arguably the best female striker in MMA and is a multi-time Muay Thai kickboxing world champion herself.

She also naturally practiced Sambo (probably Combat Sambo but could've also been Sport) and wrestled. Holm made it look easy counter-punching Rousey because it is easy to do, Ronda charges straight in and leaves herself wide open. Shevchenko ended up out counter-punching Holm herself as her best work in terms of boxing in their fight last night. She has experience in amateur and professional level boxing from the East and West and is decorated as hell in so many different combat sports from mostly striking to grappling. She's done hand fighting in numerous forms since she was 12, not just boxing.

 

Valentina is legit, she is about as credentialed as you can get in different combat sports.

 

Good reply.

Very informative. Explains the outcome.

 

Holly's problem in mma is that she doesn't commit to anything because she is afraid to be taken down. She looks like she has little to no faith or confidence in her grappling ability. She pulls punches and doesn't want to lead because of this. The only fight she has truly looked good in while in the UFC was the Ronda fight and Ronda made it easy on her by charging at her recklessly making is easy to counter her.

 

Good post, but I was aware that she was a decorated star in multiple disciplines. All things considered, it wasn't her kicking that won her the fight, it was pure boxing counters. I'm surprised she didn't compete in boxing more often based on that, as I would have thought there was more money in it. But maybe that's where I am wrong.

 

The range is different in mma. Holly had to close the distance past the legs to get in punching range, that's an additional 2-3 feet.

 

Yeah, it was Shevenko's counter punching skills that really did the job for her last night. But, she made Holm think about other stuff too. She gave her some different looks. I was watching the Crawford vs Postol PPV last night so I didn't catch the entire fight but saw a few rounds and then the highlights. I'm going to go back and watch the fight in full.

Female professional boxing (and WMMA) is definitely lower in terms of talent (depth) than men's but that's to be expected given how long men have been able to compete in sanctioned bouts and how many were willing to in order to make a living. Women had many roadblocks in the way as far as getting their fights sanctioned but they do have a history in boxing that goes way back. What they didn't have though, until recently, is the best pool of talent rising up from the amateur ranks' world stage. As of 2012 at the Olympics, now they do. Prior to 2012 there was no female boxing at the Olympic Games. It wasn't until 2001 that they even had the women's amateur boxing World Championships, which was the highest level of international competition on the world stage for them to compete in until they were finally allowed to compete at the Games.

*Had to make some edits here and reword some things.

 

Personally, I've said it many times, I haven't seen too many female fighters who are even as good as a decent amateur male. I've never liked womens boxing and really just wish it would go away.

 

i just posted this in another thread, but here is maureen shea talking about the skill of mma fighters compared to the boxers

4:00 mark she starts to talk about the skills specifically

 

Nice video.

Great interview. That lady deserves respect.

 

goddamn, good thing she can fight, she'd make a man want to punch her right in the puss.

 

It seems like women's mma has progressed more in the last 5 years than women's boxing has in the past 20-30.

 

Mexico is the only country where womens boxing is actually legit. All other countries including America half the girls are trashy poor girls who get convinced to have fights.

 

The only thing with less talent than WMMA is women's boxing.

I think the Olympics will slowly change that.

 

That's impossible to say really.

 

I can't name a women's boxer. I also never heard of Holly Holm until she was in talks to fight Ronda. So, I'd say that overall the level of women's boxing is likely to be fairly low.

I have seen standouts though, in highlights. So there must be some talent there.

 

ive seen the majority of Holms mma fights

she is mostly a kicker