Boxing: The Most Underrated Discipline In Mixed Martial Arts

 

What happened to wanting to see a guy get punched in the face and hit on his butt? It seems that today perhaps we have softened. More often, it may be the case that you hear someone say, "You need a takedown to win this round and the fight." Wrestling is a dominant skill, to be sure, but it seems that many today are ignoring the art that has the potential to finish the fight faster: good old-fashioned classic boxing.

Recently my boxing coach was forced to quit my MMA gym. The politics behind this is not important, but this action has inspired me to write about the underutilization of this fighting discipline. As a boxer, it is very ข่าวมวย. No, this is not an article on MMA vs. Boxing. It's not about Randy Couture versus James Toney. It is about the use or lack of boxing skills within the sport of MMA.

I recently attended a Muay Thai Kickboxing tournament. As an amateur boxer, with experience training in Muay Thai and Jiu-jitsu, I saw clear opportunities to score or finish the fight losing. They were the kinds of opportunities a classically trained boxer would have recognized and seized upon. Do you want to be dominant in the ring? Learn classic boxing.

As I was watching these fights, I saw the participants back off, leading to them getting caught on the ropes or in the corner. In boxing, this is a cardinal sin. Your body recoils, your blows advance. Net force is much less when moving backwards compared to the fighter stalking forward and striking forward. The great fighters don't retreat, but turn and fight back. The best chance you have to score points in any combat sport is while your opponent tries to score against you. Very few fighters outside of Chuck Liddell have been very successful in scoring points while backing down in retreat.

What's even more frustrating to watch in fights is that once caught in a corner, the opponent doesn't take advantage of it. Often times, the fighter is more concerned with jumping over the fences than with securing position and keeping the opponent trapped in the corner or against the cage. For a standing fighter, this is the equivalent of a ground fighter's mount.

The control of the ring is for a boxer as the basis for a fighter. Many MMA fighters pose as boxers, but in reality they have simply learned enough to survive. Very few have classical training. Therefore, it is very common to see a wrestler have his opponent return to the cage and in pursuit, out of control, the opponent simply chooses a side, slides out of the cage and escapes to the center of the ring. A true boxer is under control. Protect all angles, cutting the opponent and eliminating all escape routes.

The triangle theory in boxing states that the boxer must side cut his opponents. This is the key to ring control. Using angles effectively forces the opponent to move according to what you do, rather than allowing him to move where he wants to go. This also causes the fighter to expend energy, having to constantly reestablish his position and posture and keep him constantly on the defensive. A defensive fighter has a lower chance of scoring points and knocking out his opponent. The opposite is true for the fighter who uses controlled aggression.

Another underused boxing skill in MMA matches is the idea of ​​keeping your hands up and your elbows close to your body. Since they only use 4 oz. gloves, and fighting for a maximum of 15 to 25 minutes, one would think that this would not be a problem in MMA. Boxers raise their hands in 12-16 oz. gloves for more than half an hour. The best proof example that this ability could improve a fighter is Roy Nelson vs. Junior Dos Santos. On paper, this is a UFC fight that I think any true fight fan would have predicted a first-round knockout in favor of Dos Santos. However, "Big Country" came a long way. He didn't do much on offense, but he used great boxing defense as a buffer to keep himself safe from Junior's devastating offensive boxing abilities. His hands were up throughout the fight, deflecting Dos Santos' blows. Roy probably kept his hands too high as it left him open to kicks and body punches, but the point is, he used the defense of classic boxing and managed to fend off one of the most destructive forwards in the UFC heavyweight division. .