Which is better: MMA or Boxing?

I prefer MMA. I might change my mind but I havent really watched a great deal of Boxing, i thought Floyd Mayweathers last fight was a tad boring.

@ Bogatozo

What do you think MMA fighters should be doing in regards to boxing ?

 

MMA has been around for 20+ years and boxing has been around for hundreds of years so yeah i expect boxing yo be a bit more refined

 

You thought Cotto-Mayweather was boring? :huh

If you haven't watched a great deal of boxing, then check out Rios-Alvarado, Salido-Lopez 2, Marquez-Pacquiao 5, and Guerrero-Berto, all top candidates for fight of the year. Each of those easily more exciting than any MMA match I've ever seen. That comes down to taste and personal preference of course, but those options are a good place to start.

What MMA fighters should do is simply learn how to box. They're not boxing in there, just throwing punches and trading. No head movement, poor parrying skills, flat-footed and linear movement, no lateral set-ups, the punches are wide as hell and slow, and they're mostly arm punches with no pivot powering them. I understand the need to be square in order to defend take-downs, but that doesn't mean they have to fight like cavemen when standing up.

 

darts is the best. There is no room for any other sports. A campaign should be started to end all sports accept for darts.

 

Sure we all know striking in MMA is the weak link and we know without doubt boxers are the best boyz around with their hands, but this idea being a better boxer would make stand up in MMA better is a giant red herring.

Boxers have little idea how to defend against the kick, elbow, knee or how to survive in a stand up clinch. Their inbuilt bobbing & weaving, weight distribution & foot positioning as well as their heavily drilled combos will only get them into situations they can't control or handle. Any way, the fundamentals of how to throw the various punches are all taught in good quality Muay Thai gyms, albeit there are few of these in the States, but a few do exist.

In other words boxers although great with their fists & exciting to watch are hopelessly ill equipped to deal with multi limb strikers and would only weaken the overall level of striking in MMA not enhance it. For the exciting, technical and experienced striking it seems everybody craves in MMA you need more top tier MT crossovers, but I doubt that will ever happen in a major way cos as Mali already noted their all to busy playing darts.

 

This makes sense in principle, but boxing as a core principle can be complimented to function well. Not too long ago Machida (I think) was starting to look real average when put in front of a guy who could simply jab. It's an underrated set of skills IMO. I don't see how it would decrease the quality of striking.

 

How many of these threads can we possibly endure :twisted:

 

Boxing is an art and science. Not everyone can make it into boxing and can claim they are a professional fighter.

While MMA has very good fighters that are really trained well, if you go to a regular gym and see all these regular joe looking buff meatheads, they claim they are mma fighters w/o credibility.

See the difference? You claim to be a pro boxer, you will get checked and scrutinize via boxrec or boxing organization websites if you are really a pro so not many fake wannabe does it, but with mma, you have one that worksout with big muscles or that wears affliction shirt and all of a sudden they claim they are mma fighters lol.

 

Both are good but Boxing has the better fighters in terms of quality and in terms of toughness. Like this Dos Sanots guy. He wins the title claims to be the best fighter and loses it what 3 fights later and is dropped in round 1?

Klitschko is the heavyweight champion of the world. He has been champ for 10 years not only 3 fights.

This guy Dos Sanots says he's gonna beat Klitschko but he gets dropped by a wrestlers punch? Come on!

MMA has good athletes but they cant hold a candle to boxers in the toughness department.

A boxing champion is usually great. A UFC champion seems to be only slightly better than everyone else in UFC with Silva being the exception.

 

Tell that to bollox to Ramba Somdet!

 

A young Vitali Klitschko would be a beast at the mma scene if he teached a decent take down defense. The guy was a world class kick boxer before he started boxing

 

No where near it. Back then you had more organisations with HW Championship belts than you did fighters!

The western style of kickboxing he was practising was unrecognisable to what was being formulated in Japan at the time through the early K-1 scene. Post the 60s & 70s adoption of Muay Thai into their karate based kickboxing the next big Japanese development was the early 90s K-1 HW Grand Prix which basically formed the early stages of what we all refer to as Kickboxing now, which is a heavily hand orientated version of Muay Thai without the clinch and elbows, unlike the oldskool powerless ,above the waist, full contact Karate, Vitali was deploying.

World Class.... He wouldn't been able handle the likes of Aerts, Hoost, Hug or any of the other bid dogs of the time, he'd have been considered a novice by comparison.

 

Maybe he is the exception or maybe he has just never been hit on the chin by an actual proper puncher.