Mercer KO'd Sylvia in 9 seconds

its good that something like this happens.

as mma has grown over the last couple of years its fanbase and commentators have become increasingly critical of boxing. hell most mma fans and writers think of boxing as a couple of guys punching each other with pillows on the fist. hell mike goldberg even went as far as to state "you know roy jones jr. respects forrest griffins hands".

if im exclusively an mma fan what makes this mercer victory particularly painful for me is the fact that mercer is almost 2 decades past his prime and is absolutely shot to bits, meanwhile sylvia is a top mma heavyweight(though im sure most in the mma community will now claim that he was never that good, these same people thought he was awesome win fedor beat him, thus making fedor a god like figure)

boxing along with traditional martial arts have been gettin trashed for too long. hopefully boxing stock will go up with mma fans, practitioners, commentators etc with mercers win over silvia, much like karate's stock soared after machida's win over evans.

ps you should see some of the reactions on the mma forums over this, absolutely freakin priceless.

 

In his prime Tyson was offered to fight Royce Gracie, but it never happened. Tyson was also offered to fight Bob Sapp and Rick Roufus, and it never happened. I dont think Tyson wanted no part of it.

 

Mike offered to fight Sapp under Queensbury rules. The fight was nothing more than hoopla and never materialised. Mike was a succesful boxer. Why would he waste his time in MMA??!?!?!?1

 

of course he wouldnt fight gracie at the time, nobody knew who the hell he was back then. im sure alot of people from the martial arts community back in the late 80's early-mid nineties were challenging mike tyson. if im mike, why would i take these challenges? i have nothing to gain monetarilly or legacy wise, only the respect of a few MA practitioners.

 

fact of business....Tyson would get his ass kicked, even if he lost 80 pounds and got down to 220 pounds....this fight was a FLUKE....mark my words, the next MMA opponent Mercer faces will make Mercer submit!

 

Oh, man I can only imagine. This should settle the debate about which is a better sport. A shot boxer blows away one of the top guys in this WWF-style farce. Pretty much seals the deal.:yep

 

Look dude, its more to it then that cat being done as you keep saying...every single MMA fight I have ever seen fight throws wide looping punches, vs a boxer that will get you knocked the **** out as it did in this case. Watching from the back you barely saw Rays arm, then BOOM..

BTW you do know that Ray is about 50 years old dont you:hey And is beyond shot...What happened was a top MMA fighter got knocked out by a 50 year old former boxer that was never even a champion, merely a top contender.

 

Zakman. Only my second post here but I have to reply to you. I have been a huge boxing fan for nearly 30 years BUT I also watch MMA. They are completely different sports so stop trying to make out one is better than the other. Comparing MMA to Professional Wrestling is also ill-informed. There is no comparison. I am astounded by the amount of negativity on this and other forums towards MMA. Not everyone has to like it but lets have intelligent conversations about combat sports. I would have thought that everyones top concern at the moment would be th impending Setanta crisis which would affect Boxing as well as UFC and ITV's decision to stop broadcasting boxing at the end of the year.

 

Interesting. You must be around my age, I've been following boxing for about 30 years myself. Here's the deal - this stuff is encroaching into the boxing market, and that is bad for the sport. The kids are getting attracted to this garbage - (why I don't know, I'd rather watch paint dry than watch a couple of guys roll around on the ground - and it's a danger to my beloved sport of boxing. You have people like that JERK Dana White trashing boxing, and then all these punk kids who wouldn't know Sugar Ray Robinson from Sugar Ray Leonard touting this **** as better than boxing. It's even polluting my boxing websites and boxing magazines!! Believe me, there are good reason boxing fans are POd about this ****.

 

One thing that is funny about this thread is that a lot of the boxing fans seem to think that the MMA fans in this forum are heartbroken over this and feel their sport has been diminished somehow.
But most of the people on here who enjoy MMA are first and foremost boxing fans. Why would anyone who isn't a boxing fan be on ESB anyways? I like both boxing and MMA, and don't really care what happened in this fight. It's not going to stop me from enjoying either sport. Nor will it change my opinion on which sport is better. Because I don't make judgments like that anyways.
When Kimbo beat Mercer I read nothing into that either.

Granted, if there were hardcore MMA fans bashing boxing before this fight, then I hope they are eating crow today. Because I hate when people bash boxing who know very little about the sport. Especially when boxing skill is a big part of MMA. Similar, I hate when boxing fans make uneducated criticisms about MMA. No one says you have to like a sport, but if you're going to express an opinion on it, at least do some research.

And there's one really easy way to avoid talking about MMA on this forum. Don't visit the MMA section. Granted, sometimes MMA related threads get started in the boxing section, but they usually get moved pretty quick. (although this one could have been in either, so it's an exception).

 

Thing is, as far as the 'rasslin' talk is concerned, Lesnar and Choi and Lashley and others involved in MMA today, though having pro wrestling experience, they were at one time durable, capable, world level amateur wrestlers---there is no questioning that---the best example I can think of in case of martial arts/boxing may have been Gene LeBell in the 1950's or 60's taking on Milo Savage in a mma match. LeBell, though a professional wrestler, was also a world class Judo competitor, and Savage was a world ranked middleweight boxer. LeBell beat Savage via choke out in the 2nd or 3rd round.

As far as calling some of these pro wrestlers fake, I point to Dan Hodge. Now that was a man years ahead of his time---as he was both an Olympic medalist in amateur wrestling and later crossed over into boxing, until losing to Nino Valdes, retiring saying that boxing was a corrupt and too political---then he became a professional wrestler. Hodge, every now and then, would do boxing matches with his fellow wrestlers, such as Ronnie Garvin and would knock them out quickly. To a degree, I suppose he is a fore runner to what mma competitors would be today.

Fact of business, at least in today's media, Lesnar and Lashley get the push more so than others because they are more known to the public than most of the MMA stars, as they have been on network tv for years as pro wrestling stars. They are more noticable, marketable, than say a Chiek Kongo or whomever you wish to name.

Its kind of like how boxing is now, when you ask the public 'Do you know who Wladimir Klitschko is?' and most people who dont follow the sport couldnt tell you---but they know who Holyfield and Tyson and Foreman are! Remember the talk of Holyfield-Tyson 3 not so long ago? Had that match went ahead, its a given that those two, though passed their best, probably would have drawn in bigger ppv numbers than Klitschko/Ibragimov did. Why? Because the public knows who they are---same as they know Lesnar and Lashley---and while they may have been given the push sooner than they should have in MMA [Lesnar won the UFC title in his 3rd match ffs, when he should have earned his way there] they are in FACT true athletes in every sense of the word.

 

My god, it was K-1 who wanted no part of Tyson/Sapp. Sapp was K-1's posterboy, he would have got absolutely smashed. Sapp was a fake fighter, Tyson was a real fighter.

It wouldnt have even been competitive. It would be a god damn fatality.

 

A 48 year old boxing legend KO'ing Tim Sylvia is a fluke. Thats gotta be the dumbest thing ive ever heard.

Mercer KO'd Sylvia because hes a better striker than him even at the age of 48.

Who cares if Mercer gets submitted in his next fight, the guy doesnt even train, hes 48 god damn years old, is washed up, past his prime, slow, uncoordinated. He just shouldnt be fighting.

Whats hilarious is that MMA/Sylvia tried to cash in on Mercers name and than they change the rules of the fight 2 days before the bout which is chicken ****. And Mercer made them pay.... in a big way. Good on Mercer.

 

This is what boggles my mind. Did Sylvia actually think a win over a 48 year boxer who is far removed from his prime was going to be perceived as a big victory? I think most people would dismiss such a victory because of Mercer's age. It was a no win situation for Sylvia.
The fact that he lost in such quick and devastating fashion just makes it worse for him.

 

If that was the case, why did K-1 after that run in with Sapp, promote Tyson for a while?