Why do we see more MMA / Kickboxers going into boxing but not vice versa?

We saw this 15-23 yrs ago with Francois Botha, Ray Mercer, Prince Williams and Ray Mercer. Botha defeated K-1 fighter Le Banner in K-1, gave Remy Bonjasky two close fights, did very good. Mercer KOed Tim Syliva in an MMA fight, but got destroyed by street fighter Kimbo Slice in MMA.

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My general observations are that the money is significantly better in boxing and I would think they prefer being only punched with boxing gloves even if they end up knocked out. Boxers are effectively specialists and likely have little chance to even compete unless they have any relevant experience in the other disciplines that go into the other combat sports. Crawford for example is apparently decent at wrestling and has some respectable skills on the mat, nobody thinks that combined with his legendary boxing credentials would see him as a contender in mma unless he committed to it for several fights. He isn’t wrestling during a boxing match whilst Verhoeven is literally kickBOXING and training long term with Peter Fury.

 

Because money

 

I think the main reason why boxers dont want to fight in K-1 or Kickboxing, is they fear they could end like this:

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The chances are high. Thats what many fans think Rico would do to Usyk, AJ, Itauma, Zhang, Kabayel etc. should the fight him in Kickboxing, he would destroy them one-sided with lowkicks like Ignashov did with Arthur Williams back then.

Or Mercer quitting after getting one high kick from Bonjasky.

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You can see in that Mercer clip how he drops the left arm out to block the kick at a level where an arm would be expected to travel, just ingrained muscle memory that isn’t going to go away. To be fair slowing it down there is a slight feint beforehand from the guys arm so that leaves Mercer needing to decide in half a second whether a jab or a kick coming behind it is more dangerous.

 

Joke question. MMA fighters and kickboxers have all the tools needed for boxing even if they may missing some of the finer things…

Boxers are missing 1/2 or more of the tooks required for kick boxing, thai, or MMA.

 

Yes. He tried to block Musashi s kicks too, but couldnt do it so well.

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Imo if a kickboxer fights here like Musashi, its very difficult for a boxer to defend against that.

 

Micheal Lerma got deatroyed vy Akiyama aswell.

 

Crawford built his “wrestling rep” off some video of him wrestling his friends in his back yard…

Sick of hearing this, an amateur grappler would tap him out in short order.

 

He does a much better job when they’re coming straight into the centre of his body position, I like how he tried to take his head off in sheer frustration at one point.

 

yeah maybe decent isn’t the right word in a competitive sense he has irrelevant wrestling skills but has slightly more potential to adjust to mma if he committed to several fights over several years or something idk.

 

It's a pretty simple answer, if you assume the fighters would be paid the same.

Kickboxing/MMA incorporate the Boxing skillset.
Boxing does not incorporate Kickboxing/MMA skillsets, besides boxing.

I'd be intrigued to see how boxers would do in a pure boxing match against MMA fighters in the octagon tbh, I think even that would be a struggle, because they're always fighting in an enclosed space in a regular boxing ring so they wouldn't know how to make use of the space like a regular Octagon fighter would.

 

Money and health risk?