Which MMA Fighter Should Come To Boxing?

Mark Hunt with more endurance. He shoulder rolls shots and pulls off big counter punches all the time.

 

hmm...

Vitor Belfort... he had good hand speed

 

None, they should stay where they belong.

 

C'mon, he's obviously improved a LOT since then. The loss was 15 years ago and he made his boxing debut when he was still training in muay thai full time and fighting on the Brazilian freestyle circuit. I assure you that if he retired from the UFC right now and focused 100% on Boxing, he'd surprise some people. I'm not saying that he'd win a world title, but he'd definitely be capable of beating some of the guys in the consensus top 20, and even giving some of the top 10ers some problems.

 

Anyone tha thinks a UFC guy could just pop along and get top ten has no clue about boxing at all. There are so many levels to get thro till u even get top 100 . While you onl hear about the top guys there are 1000s of am and pros that never get near top 100. This isn't like mma where u can go pro and get titles almost straight away if your ok

 

It's a weird hypothetical question asked by some one who has never tried to cross from one combat sport to the other.

It's harder than most people think to cross between combat sports and have success. Good technique in one maybe a very very bad habit in another. For example Floyd's side on stance would be the kiss of death in any MT fight even against a C class Thai @ 147. A Muay Thai squared on stance is a problem in boxing etc etc. That being said some fighters have been successful crossing over to other combat sports with arguable the Thais crossing over from MT to boxing being the most successful as with BJJ practitioners or wrestlers moving to MMA. It's very hard to go from boxing to Muay Thai let alone them on to MMA. Too many variables compared to the rather restrained and controlled environment of a boxing ring. Sure a boxer is a scientific fist fighter, but that's just it.....extremely limited in the skills department, limited to offence and defence relating purely to fists. In each of the various combat sports at a proficient level the mission specific fighter will always win i.e. In a Queensbury ring the Boxer wins, in an unrestrained striking ring the MT fighter wins and in the cage an MMA guy wins its a simple as that.

And for the guys saying certain K1 or MT fighters become glass chinned when they switch to boxing is ridiculous and shows they clearly have a lack of boxing general knowledge and more importantly to this thread clearly a lack genuine insight or practical combat experience in this area as no one who's taken a heavy knee, kick or elbow to the head would agree.

A few notable examples to cross over to boxing with massive success & little experience:
Khaosai Galaxy, Samart Payakaroon, Venice Borkhorsor, Seansak Muangsurin, Somrak Khamsing, Yodsanan 3-K Battery, Samson Dutch Boy Gym, Veeraphol Sahaphrom, Pongsaklek Wongjonkam etc etc etc the list is endless all quality Muay Thai fighters who crossed over to boxing and with little or zero Sweet Science experience fairly rapidly became world champions in western boxing.

All the main combat sports are valid and require an equal amount of passion, hardworking & sacrifice for success and I don't believe they compete with each other, there is room for each to thrive. The fans aren't mutually exclusive either. I'm an MT purist but I love boxing and on occasion watch the big MMA bouts. And for the record MMA is booming outside the Western Hemisphere particularly in Asia where new organisations & clubs are popping up everywhere, MMA ain't going anywhere.

Boxing is the sweet science, MT the science of 8 limbs and MMA is a developing science, a work in progress. They are as equally valid as each other & after all they are just children of the same mother.

 

To answer the original question: None. Although, if Kimbo would have came into boxing ten years ago and dedicated himself he might have turned out okay (and I mean O K)

To contribute to the conversation, two points.

First, MMA is on the decline, check the ratings from 3 years ago, as compared to now. It is a niche sport, that will probably turn low key, especially as it pertains to the UFC and it's off-springs here in the United States.

Second, I wrestled Freestyle and Greco-Roman and was quite good (it was an aspiration to go to the Olympics), I also trained in boxing. I have also worked out at MMA gyms. Here's the point.... Boxing requires a helluva lot more training, knowledge, and preparation than MMA. Like I said I have worked out at MMA gyms and really none of those guys could "Wrestle"/"grapple," but that's what they think they're doing. The same goes for the Muay Thai training, the majority of them have no damn clue what real Muay Thai is, if you threw the best guy from the UFC in a real Muay Thai match he'd get F'ed up. Hell if you're a good street fighter you can walk into one of those third rate MMA leagues and become champion and probably with minimal training be decent in a second rate league.

MMA is all about luck. Who catches who with the lucky strike first, or who can take the other guy down and pin down his arms sit on top of him like a little kid and hit the guy that is, no matter how much they've trained, at a severe disadvantage.

I will never consider it a sport until they end the "ground and pound" bull****. In a full contact "sport" that is an unfair and dangerous advantage that shouldn't be aloud. So, if you knock/take a guy down you could say have 15-20 seconds to try and work a submission or you get back up, that would be legit, but as it is it's not.

It also really annoys me how they try to discredit other martial arts due to the ground and pound bull****. Real men fight on their feet bottom line.

It also annoys me how they did James Toney.... Yeah throw him in there with the best wrestler in the company.... Let's make his first UFC fight fair.


anyways.....

 

Next we will see a thread saying:

"Which WWF Wrestler should come to Boxing"

 

The Ultimate Warrior would wreck Klitschko.... j/s:hey

 

I get what your saying Nanaki & I agree with some of it but I think your're generalising quite heavily and I was talking about all three sports at competent level so B & A class up.

As I said before I'm no MMA guy I'm an ex MT fighter whose also crossed to boxing as a sparring partner of an Thai MT fighter who challenged for a world boxing title. So I'm not really the guy to argue on behalf of MMA, but to say real men fight only on their feet and dismiss MMA is pretty disrespectful to a lot of guys that are very disciplined dedicated elite level athletes in their own right who fight with just as much heart and determination as any MT fighter or boxer. I've just as much respect for my MMA cousins as I do my boxing cousins. I guess u just trained in the wrong gyms or on the wrong days.....of course some guys are novice like but that's why their in the gym, to improve. There are plenty of competent fighters in the MMA ranks.

Look most people forget that the US was a late comer to the whole MMA scene as it was to the Muay Thai scene. MMA may very well be on the decline in the US but in the rest of the world and particularly Asia u have more grassroots level MMA clubs than boxing clubs with multiple organisations appearing all over the place which only bodes well for the future. The US is a boxing nation so hence boxing dominates, not the case at all in Asia where they have been experimenting between different martial arts for well over 60 years. MMA is booming in places like Korea, China, Singapore etc

In Thailand even though they have produced many boxing world champs few watch the sport and its nigh on impossible to find a boxing gym unless u visitor one geared for foreigners in tourist areas, a military amateur set up of one of the very very few pro gyms. Needless to say MT is the order of the day as the national sport. 5000 pro gyms and 65,000 pro fighters. However they have two MMA organisations around 15 good level MMA gyms most of which have popped up over the last few years and a steady stream of lighter weight fighters with deep MT backgrounds as well as a an ever increasing flow of foreign fighters trying to improve their striking trust me many of these MMA guys DO know what real MT is! I do agree that most MMA practitioners are unaware of real MT including Anderson Silva but that also goes for 99% of western MT practitioners that train outside Thailand anyway.

And of course luck plays a bigger role in MMA, there are way more variables and weapons in play it's not as restricted as boxing. So there are many more unpredictable situation nod had to prepare for where luck will show its head.

 

If any were to step into a ring v a decent professional boxer they would get clowned.

Can't really name one

 

Now you are showing your MMA ignorance...who is more well known in England? Michael Bisping or Tyson Fury?

Just because MMA is pretty big in North America and America has no great heavyweight fighters at the moment, don't get carried away and say nobody cares about boxing, in pubs the world over, when people say "did you watch the fight last night?" they are talking about boxing, not MMA

but then, I notice you're from Virginia, yes MMA is more popular in redneck areas, where they all run around with TapouT shirts on and have backyard MMA fights and think they are professional ass kickers because they watch UFC, but don't confuse that with "the world"

Don't get me wrong, that's not a slight on Virginia, I like Virginia

 

The MMA guys started it, you just said nobody cares about boxing except for Mayweather, which is completely false, yet you say there's no need for both sports to fight eachother?