Why inexperienced A level athletes (basketball,strongman...) go to BOXING instead of MMA (UFC)??

I think that raw athletism plays much bigger role in mma than boxing. If you are much stronger than your opponent ability to grab a hold of him is huge advantage (that doesn't require alot of technique). But in boxing your main advantige is nullified.

If you just want to beat someone, or prove how tough you are, I think it is much easier to do in mma. Not to mention it is also much more similar to real fight, which gives you more of the bragging rights :)

Exemplars of raw athletes in mma are Ngannou, Hunt, Filipovic, Brock, Randleman...

Most obvious exemplars of unsuccessful athletes in boxing to me are Nate Robinson (A+++ NBA athlete) and Mihail Koklayev (one of the strongest people ever). They both got KTFO in boxing, but if they fought against same opponents again in mma i think that they would have much better chance. (If someone can post links of both fights that would be great, I'm on my phone so couldn't do it)

Thoughts my sherbros?

boxing looks easier and doesn’t look as scary as mma to the untrained eye.
 
Solid bro science, except the studies are real. Oops.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26327287/

https://ejmas.com/jcs/velazquez/Death_Under_the_Spotlight_2011_Final.pdf

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/aaon-cbi122019.php

This is just an editorial, but it’s a good summary of the findings:

https://themmaguru.com/boxing-or-mma-more-dangerous/

Please feel free to refute with your opinion though.
From the third link:
"
For the left thalamus area of the brain, the average volume at the beginning of the study was 3,773 cubic millimeters. The current boxers lost an average of 145 cubic millimeters (mm3) in volume per year, compared to a loss of 100 mm3 for the MMA fighters and a gain of 43 mm3 for the non-fighters.

The retired boxers did not show changes in those areas of the brain. Instead, they showed brain volume loss in the areas of the left and right amygdala and the right hippocampus. These are areas of the brain that are affected in diseases such as Alzheimer's and CTE.

For the right hippocampus, the average volume at the start of the study was 2,350 mm3. The retired boxers lost an average of 43 mm3 per year, compared to a gain of 10 mm3 for the non-fighters.
"

Holy shit.. Normal people are gaining 1% brain volume a year. Boxers and MMA fighters are losing 4% of their brain volume a year. I didn't know the brain damage from boxing and MMA was that bad.. I think I'm going to stop training (serious) and take up another sport after reading that.

Thanks though. The 2 studies you showed only show that boxing kills more brain cells. I agree. I just don't think that killing brain cells past a certain point results in more brain damage.
 
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I never get the notion that A-level athletes ‘pick’ a sport.

Athletes don’t generally pick what sport to play.

You play what is culturally acceptable, easily accessible, what your peers play, and what you enjoy playing.

If you’re in the US and play basketball or American football, you’ll accentuate the athletic abilities that the US public favour and be deemed A-level. If you do just about anything else, you’ll accentuate the athletic abilities needed for that particular sport and be considered not A-level.
 
Boxing is definitely more taxing on the brain, but I don’t think that’s of much consideration for the type of ‘celebrity boxing’ we see now, with basketballers, strongmen etc, and the ultimate A-level athlete, Youtubers. They’re typically there for a couple of fights and then to get out.

Boxing, in the UK at least, is just hard. It’s more brutal than MMA in the sense that the gyms and coaches are mainly throwbacks to the 1970’s and you’ll spar hard. Every. Single. Day.

MMA gyms in the other hand, generally younger coaches/more forward thinking. You’ll still spar, but the grappling element means you can vary the intensity of that sparring much easier than you can in boxing.

So the short answer is I have no idea. It makes more sense to me for a strongman to go into MMA. For a basketballer or Youtuber, it doesn’t make much difference imo. I do think to the untrained eye boxing looks easier to do - pretty much every bloke I know who hasn’t stepped into a ring reckons they’d be pretty handy at it, or at least above average. They can’t say the same about the grappling aspect of MMA because they have no idea what’s going on.
 
I think that raw athletism plays much bigger role in mma than boxing. If you are much stronger than your opponent ability to grab a hold of him is huge advantage (that doesn't require alot of technique). But in boxing your main advantige is nullified.

If you just want to beat someone, or prove how tough you are, I think it is much easier to do in mma. Not to mention it is also much more similar to real fight, which gives you more of the bragging rights :)

Exemplars of raw athletes in mma are Ngannou, Hunt, Filipovic, Brock, Randleman...

Most obvious exemplars of unsuccessful athletes in boxing to me are Nate Robinson (A+++ NBA athlete) and Mihail Koklayev (one of the strongest people ever). They both got KTFO in boxing, but if they fought against same opponents again in mma i think that they would have much better chance. (If someone can post links of both fights that would be great, I'm on my phone so couldn't do it)

Thoughts my sherbros?
Too much to learn
 
Boxing is definitely more taxing on the brain, but I don’t think that’s of much consideration for the type of ‘celebrity boxing’ we see now, with basketballers, strongmen etc, and the ultimate A-level athlete, Youtubers. They’re typically there for a couple of fights and then to get out.

Boxing, in the UK at least, is just hard. It’s more brutal than MMA in the sense that the gyms and coaches are mainly throwbacks to the 1970’s and you’ll spar hard. Every. Single. Day.

MMA gyms in the other hand, generally younger coaches/more forward thinking. You’ll still spar, but the grappling element means you can vary the intensity of that sparring much easier than you can in boxing.

So the short answer is I have no idea. It makes more sense to me for a strongman to go into MMA. For a basketballer or Youtuber, it doesn’t make much difference imo. I do think to the untrained eye boxing looks easier to do - pretty much every bloke I know who hasn’t stepped into a ring reckons they’d be pretty handy at it, or at least above average. They can’t say the same about the grappling aspect of MMA because they have no idea what’s going on.

I agree with what you said, but just have something else that bothers me - didn't that strongman had a coach (or Nate while we are at it). Shouldn't his coach told him that he doesn't have ANY chance in boxing, but they might find more success if they focus their energy to MMA?
 
This dude. Fucking monster. Super athleticism. Olympic gold medalist. Set a world record at 19. Think he'd be a decent signing? In terms of athleticism and mobility there aren't many built like top weightlifter. Haven't seen much of his fights tho.

 
It's as simple as this.....................................a lot people think anything to do with wrestling/JJ or just in general fighting on the ground, all parts of the MMA game is nothing more than some gay homophobic act. That is why they go box many more times than not. A lot of people work on very simple mind set..............shit, a lot of people on here think fighters are ducking other fighters all the time. They can't even understand these guys choose to get locked in cage for living, they aren't an afraid.
 
This dude. Fucking monster. Super athleticism. Olympic gold medalist. Set a world record at 19. Think he'd be a decent signing? In terms of athleticism and mobility there aren't many built like top weightlifter. Haven't seen much of his fights tho.


Unfortunately he is to old i think. If he was younger he could be special! But it's HWs, maybe he can cheat the time for couple of more years...
 
Unfortunately he is to old i think. If he was younger he could be special! But it's HWs, maybe he can cheat the time for couple of more years...
Yeah I was thinking that too but like you said its the heavies. Also he's a superior athlete. Lots of old fighters have alot of injury accumulation. I mean kolecki does too from weightlifting but in terms of knowing your body and recovering from injury I think he's good. I would dare to say, that outside of crazy gymnasts that this guy probably has some of the best functional movement out of any athlete in the world.

Functional movement counts for alot because outside of impact/submission injuries id say most injuries are from bad movement and people not knowing their bodies well.

Shit I've been out of the training loop for a while but I think all NFL players have to pass the functional movement screen with a certain score or theyre placed on the injured list. First move in that test is overhead squat.

Ramble over.
 
because they will make more money there, ppv share etc.
 
They dont go to boxing over MMA exclusively. Brock, Hardy, Meathead, Hershel Walker, Jose Canseco and Pudz had MMA fights, former high level rugby player James Haskell is supposed to be fighting in Bellator at some point too.
 
It's pretty simple. If you are a strong, skilled athlete outside of martial arts, you would want to fight a non-grappler in MMA, but a good grappler in boxing. You want to negate their skills, obviously.
 
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