I am not going to pretend I do not have a bias here, but I honestly cannot
for the life of me understand who would watch boxing over Mixed Martial Arts
(MMA). I got to watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship with some bro's last
Saturday and it was just so fun, and we digressed on the future of boxing.
- To be a boxer, you have a few techniques you work on for many years:
throwing punches and avoiding punches. In MMA, you'd get your ass kicked if
that is all you knew. You must skilled in stand-up boxing, grappling/wresting,
submissions and also knowing some kickboxing doesn't hurt. Not to
mention you must also be skilled at avoiding all of this also. - Boxing is boring. Again, it is so one dimensional. “Oh look, a punch. Oh
look, a jab.” I can't even tell who is winning half the time. I have to trust
the judges can count correctly and that they can count above a hundred to know
who wins. In MMA, you KNOW who is winning. At least most of the time. The
loser either walks off bleeding, or is laying there unconscious. You just
never know what is going to happen. On Saturday I watched one fighter losing
badly and almost being submitted by an armbar,
then turn around and submit the other guy not 30 seconds later. - Although I won't defend any fighting is good for you, getting hit in the
head hundreds of times by guys that do nothing but train to hit hard has got
to be worse than in MMA where the fights are shorter and the number of punches
to the head are lesser. Many fights end my submission, which yields
*almost* no damage to the fighter. - Boxers are pricks (for the most part). Maybe its the promoter that is the
real prick, but they really seem to be a-holes and borderline criminals. Many
of the MMA guys are friends, and they usually hit gloves at the beginning of
each match, and voice their friendships even after a brutal loss. I look up to
most of the fighters and would love to have them mentor/train my kids (with
the exception of Tito Ortiz, that
punk). - Some people say that MMA is too hard to watch because they don't know what
is going on. Well, Joe
Rogan is usually announcing, and that guy knows his stuff and lets you
know what you may not see. And where as you may already know the boxing
terminology of “stick” and “jab”, MMA has its terms one has to understand.
There are submission moves like:And also positions:
And fighting styles:
- “MMA is too bloody!” Ok, I can give you that. Boxers don't usually bleed
on each other. But if you can keep yourself from hurling, you'll see that if
it will impare the fighters vision, the ref will stop it. - “Boxing is a mans sport. MMA fighters are always on the ground in sexual
positions.” True, it does look weird. But god forbid if you ever get in a
fight and you end up on the ground, you will wish you had a good “guard”
position to keep the guy away from you, regardless of how “stupid” you may
look. Realize that the Jiu-Jitsu style was borne from the fact that most
fights out in the world end up on the ground. So their style handles that. So
while you can defend how stupid it looks, that is the real world. I liken
standup boxing like fighting pre-Civil War. You don't see armies lining up in
long lines and taking turns shooting at each other now do you?
I realize that people may still say, “That's great Scott, but I still like Boxing.” Fine. There are people that still like buying stuff in catalogs, and watching movies on black and white TV's. I won't aim to change their mind. But for those of you that can handle change, can accept something new and exciting, and like to have A LOT OF FUN with their friends, well, to you I hope you enjoy!
Oh, and the japanese event Pride is next week, woo hoo!
5 responses to “Mixed Martial Arts vs. Boxing”
You blog about a very mixed bag of topics. I would have laughed if someone told me this morning I’d be reading about boxing and MMA today. 😉
Keep it up.
You’re hilarious Tim.
I really hope when I am writing this stuff that those of you that don’t know me personally aren’t offended by the craziness of topics. In fact, I figured that programmers would just subscribe to the “programming” rss feed. That makes it easier to not feel bad wasting peoples time that just want to read about code.
I mean, I doubt there are that many people out there that enjoy .net, ultimate fighting, Netflix, drive Prius‘s, enjoy cat pictures, and the occasional stupid joke. So I figure that I would just write whatever is on my mind, and someone out there in the ether would appreciate it providing their search lines up with my posts. The problem with that philosphy is that you may piss off any regular readers because they want to read only one of those topics.
I have noticed that most of the people I read are focused on only a few tracks, and maybe I will follow suit one day. Luckily (or unluckily) I don’t think I have that many frequent readers so there isn’t that many people to worry about.
So my point is…Bare with me if I take a huge turn in logic, I promise to turn back shortly!
Don’t do it Tim….Scott always tries to get people to “bare” with him.
Hi Scott,
I found your article accidently while searching for something else. As an MMA practioner I enjoyed reading an unbiased review of MMA. Most viewers find such UFC and Pride events uninteresting once the fight hits the ground, as they do not understand the submission element of groundwork and how quickly someone can lose a fight by tapout.
As I’m sure you are already aware, the serialised “Ultimate Fighter” aired on Spike TV has made huge inroads in bringing MMA to the masses. At one point during the finale over 10 million Americans tuned in to watch Stephan Bonnar fight Forrest Griffin. The UFC has already commissioned a second series, and such fighters as Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell are doing excellent work in promoting MMA.
With DSE bringing their Pride fighters over to the US in the not too distant future, I look forward to big things from MMA in 2005/ 2006. Looking forward to the Pride MW 2005 GP too… 🙂
Thanks,
Dean
Hey Dean,
Great info. I am *just* starting to get into it. I have watched MMA for years with friends that are into jujitsu and am starting myself at a place by my house in LA. In fact, I am picking up my gi today *grins*.