I was thinking of a forum match that might be more fair between boxers and MMA fighters to meet and produce an exciting match for fans. It's pretty simple and easy to understand. San Shou (Chinese Kickboxing) You can punch, kick, and take the opponent down. No ground work or submissions. Example: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r55mxK2xKc[/ame] How do you think the top MMA fighters would fair against the top boxers. Obviously any MMA fighters such as Cung Le who have done San Shou would have a distinct advantage, but others maybe not as much. A few matches to consider: V. Klitchko vs Velasquez Martinez vs Edgar Pacquiao vs Aldo (or Faber since he has a big name, would be lucrative) Go ahead and ponder some more if you'd like. I definitley added the two boxers with some kickboxing background, lol.
Shootboxing allows for standing submission. I think San Shao is closer to being in between MMA and Boxing.
A lot of them would turn into really boring one sided takedown clinics, not sure how that would be scored. Overeem would probably be the best in the world at this.
Well, one interesting thing that might result from this would be standing subs, unless they are not allowed. I guess this aspect would depend on the sort of gloves.. But otherwise, we could see a lot of Judo, Greco.
In San Shou submissions are not legal, in shootboxing they are. Also elbows are illegal in san shou, and I believe knees usually are illegal as well. In shootboxing you basically have muay thai rules, with the addition of takedowns and standing subs, which as you say are fairly limited due to the gloves, but I have seen standing arm-triangles / side chokes / head and arm chokes, rear naked chokes, guillotines, and at least one sort of kimura looking arm lock.
So how would you see Klitchko faring against Overeem? The MMA fighters will dominate with take downs of course, but fight still comes back up. Eventually they will get tagged. Overeem could probably handle the shots because he's being doing kickboxing for a while so he's used to punches and kicks from elite fighters. Vitali on the otherhand also used to kickbox, so the biggest differential would be the takedowns. How about Pacquaio vs Aldo? I'm sure Aldo has sparred against good strikers, but I can't imagine he's ever competed against elite strikers. He is pretty much the elite striker in his weight division so he hasn't really met anyone who can match him. I would think the key for victory for him would be the leg kicks to slow Manny down. I know Manny used to do kickboxing as well that I'm sure it's polish off the rust. I think if the boxing promoters are smart these would be two exciting matches with enough question marks to make for exciting matches and offer some MMA fighters some deserved money.
I love to see the fight, but the Klitschko's have a hard time selling their boxing matches to the US public. Let alone a kickboxing/MMA match against Overeem who I dont think is really well know in the States. They would make way more money fighting someone like Valuev in boxing, and if it dont make $ then it dont make sense
