I watched FridayNight Fights last week and I thought they were joking. But Briggs tried K-1 and won? Why isnt this every brought up in Boxer vs. Kickboxer posts in Kickboxing board? Just thought it was interesting.
Because he fought Tom Erikson in K-1 who's neither a boxer or kickboxer. If anything bring up Botha beating Aerts and JLB and giving Bonjasky everything he could handle under K-1 rules.
Hmm, thats kind of dumb in K-1's part. Which brings me to say. Why the hell did Shannon Briggs try it? Guess they kind of set it up for him to win for publicity on both sides? I do think we're reaching an age where people trying other Combat sports is becoming less and less apperant. I hope anyway. The way a Boxer trains there is no way he would be able to compete with a Kickboxer just because of the leg kicks alone. Boxers have skinny legs, for the most part, and its done for Boxing purposes and to help them move quicker and have better foot movement. If boxer trained his legs like KickBoxers do they wouldnt be as great Boxers. Thats just the truth in my eyes anyway. Surely there are exceptions. But yeah.
I agree, but it depends on the boxers style. If you sit back and try to be a counter puncher, your gunna get your leg broke. But what about a Tyson style, come forward and immediately close distance. You can only time one kick on the way in, if you miss it could be your ass. Also, plenty of boxers have big legs. Ali, had tree trunks for legs. It's not brain surgery to left your knee to check a leg kick, if your train for leg kicks, a boxer(and or mma) can exchange(time) a leg kick for a right hand.
Yeah but wouldnt you agree that a Boxer spends so much time perfecting his craft in Boxing that it becomes very difficult to transition? Sometimes I think its harder to transition than start from scratch. Its like learning a language. Its better to start learning Spanish young than try to learn it when you've only spoke English since the age of 24. Where I think Boxing is more useful than Kickboxing would be if lets say 4 thugs try to jump you or something. Its not like you can take one of them down so the others kick you while you're down. It's not like you can throw high kicks like inthe Bruce Lee movies as if they're going to attack you one by one. Throwing punches at all angles against several attackers is your best chance. Atleast I believe so
Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you bro but you have to remember with higher competition comes higher reward(more money). I dont think a bunch of untrained has-beens sent over to Japan to make the Japanese look better than yankees is the "mean" of what a top boxer could due against a kickboxer if properly trained. I think if you trained someone like David Haye to deal with low and high kicks for one year or even 6 months he would put cro cop in the hospital. And yes, I agree about the street fighting scenario.
A seasoned boxer is much MUCH more prepared and the transition would be far easier as opposed to someone starting from scratch. There have been numerous fighters with boxing backgrounds go into K-1 and beat the kickboxer. One recent example would be K-1 Max in 2007. I dont recall their names but the boxer didnt attempt one kick and beat the living pulp out of the kickboxer. I think alot of people have a tendency to overexaggerate each discipline. I think if you get top-tier boxer to transition to kickboxing/Muay Thai that it wouldnt be long for him to be fighting in some meaningul fights and possibly winning. Hands are an extremely important characteristic that is often times underappreciated.
Thank you, but alot of these newer fight fans don't understand that because they think two feet, two hands vs. only two hands means kickboxing is better than boxing. Would'nt be funny to laugh at the cro cop nuthuggers if he had to fight David Haye in K-1.
Erickson was actually landing very hard leg kicks. they had a great snapping sound to them for a guy who is not a kickboxer. but Briggs literally couldnt miss with the few punches he needed to throw and the KO was pretty easy. doesnt reveal anything. Briggs was actually training for mma at one point as well. this was years ago. one of the sites back then said that word was he looked pretty good. but like most things with Shannon Briggs, he didnt follow through and make the most of his talent. He didnt do it in boxing, why would he do it in k1 or mma? in his defense he has pretty serious asthma, but I think at some point it became more of a mental hindrance than a physical one. Hes just not a mentally strong fighter and wasted a lot of talent. and before someone lists his accomplishments, dont bother- Briggs could have done much more
Some good points have been made here. Basically they are two different sports. It's not only about the leg kicks, but you have another stance, you look into another angle, the distance is different (kick has more reach), you need to have to learn to have the reflexes to block those kicks ... Cross training is the best you can do. Ray Sefo and Mike Bernardo are examples of two fighters who did both sports successfully at pro level. If you want to switch sport, you will definitely need enough time to prepare. Briggs is a good example, he claimed he was training kickboxing for quite a while, yet he didn
Sorry dude, Sefo wasn't a successful boxer. Most people wouldn't call a 5-1 record a successful boxing career.
Briggs was training with American Top Team before his K-1 stint. They mentioned it on their website and were even going to have an American Top Team boxing branch. From the sounds of it Briggs grappling wasn't bad and one of the quotes I remember was that he was "strong as a bull" and that he was able to use pure strength to get out of some subs. That's all I ever heard about his mma. Next thing you know he was mentioning K-1 fights, but as stated above, his 1st fight was against a wrestler not a kickboxer. Not to take away any credit that should go to Erickson. As a matter of fact he posted on this forum some years back after that fight and was humble as hell about it. Even amongst the backdrop of some idiots (me!) deriding his performance in that fight.
For their sake hopefully that 1million signing was backed by a guarantee of a fight with Briggs within a specified period of time. Just seems like a risky thing of ATT to do. Does anyone still have the pictures that were posted on sherdog back in 02 that showed Briggs grappling?
Yes he did "beat" Koaklai. He was losing the fight untill he put a fore-arm in Koaklai his throat and he followed it up with a big left hand to score a down in the clsing seconds of the last round ... Good for Botha ... too bad for Koaklai. YouTube - Kaoklai vs Francois Botha part 1/2 YouTube - Kaoklai vs Francois Botha part 2/2
