I’m a huge boxing fan. And an MMA fan. But perhaps not to the same extent as Boxing. and I’ll get to why in a second.
Combative Sports, seeing talented practitioners display their excellence is a draw, is compelling. That’s why organizations make money, networks make money, athletes make money, because it is a compelling attraction, that people will pay to see.
It appeals to us, to that part of us that lifts, when adversity meets will. There is something inspirational in it, in any athlete at their best.
Whether that is Jimmie Connors on the tennis court, or Sugar Ray Robinson in the boxing ring, those places where will meets adversity, and people come out on the other side as champions and victors… it is rousing.
However combative sports adds an additional layer of danger, in that unlike the goal of tennis or baseball or football or soccer or even rugby, where the goal is to get the ball past your opponent (and I understand these sports, all sports, can be incredibly dangerous, incredibly violent, can be potentially damaging); combative sports, inflicting damage is the goal.
In combative sports the goal is to damage the other person. Not to kill, or cripple, or maim, but enough to get them to submit or to lose. Winning in combative sports defined most clearly by being able to knock out or submit your opponent and have an early night. Now many fights go the distance with no one being knocked out or submitted, but those are potentially even more damaging as you have had people dig deep and go multiple rounds to the finish, trying to knock out or submit the other.
And nothing says highlight reel, like the knockout.
Do a search on youtube for best knockouts of 2019, and you will see that place where will meets adversity, and one person walks thru that door, and one person falls at it.
It is a rousing place for the athlete, and the audience. Look at the crowd or yourself during a great knockout.It impresses, and it rouses.
So I being human, am as guilty of being roused by those drums of wills colliding. So I like combative sports and knockout highlight reels as much as the next person.
But especially with the rise of MMA, and pound and ground, my ‘like’ is becoming more tinged with concern. Because for all the compelling nature of combative sports, we want these people not to be seriously injured or killed for anybody’s entertainment or money.
And I think Boxing has grown a lot in its history to reduce it from its bare knuckle bloodbath war of attrition origins, to the place where you have gloves of a certain weight, and mouth guards, and rules, and a ref there to enforce the rules, and doctors, and corner people, and yes blood baths do still occur in boxing, but boxing has improved greatly to reduce the risk of people getting maimed and killed for a paycheck.
I think MMA, because it is geared to offer us ‘real’ combat, widens the potential zones of attack, and therefore zones of damage. And a lot rides on the ref. Because if boxing’s goal is to knock an opponent down, most boxers know to pull away at that point where the person is down, and the ref gets to give a standing eight count etc; MMA has a more ill-defined goal.
In MMA when the person is down, that is when for the fighter.. the fight begins, and any MMA fight, the fighter on top is pounding away on the person with maiming and potentially killing hammer blows, not because they want to maim, or kill, but because that is the ‘sport’,… you hit until the ref stops or opponent submits. Now a concussed opponent will not be able to submit, so it falls on the ref to quickly keep people from getting destroyed or killed.
It is a potentially disturbing sport, that runs the risk of transcending what we admire about combative sports, to being what we despise about blood sports.
It is a slippery slope, and I think like Boxing will have to adopt better safe guards, as fighters get better, stronger, faster, and arguably more deadly to each other.
Couple things I don’t like about the UFC in particular, is putting people in a cage like pit-bulls to fight, I don’t like people in cages for any reason. Also, I don’t like the corner people removed from their fighter, it delays the response to throw in the towel if needed, or provide medical attention, etc.
I don’t know any easy answers, but I think we have to start looking for them sooner rather than later.
That’s one reason that made me lookup the ‘effects of knockouts’ on Youtube, and that brought me to the below video.
So I’m not saying ban MMA, I am saying increase the safety of your fighters. At the end of the day someone getting maimed or killed, is not a sport. Let’s keep it a sport by keeping it competitive, and keeping it well regulated and well referred.
And I know a lot of people like to see women fight. And there are a lot of great women fighters. However, while I love to see women looking like the above image for any reason, I personally do not like watching women fight. Which is very hypocritical. And I’m not saying they should not fight, if you are good at something, man or woman, and that is your passion, then do it.
I’m saying as a spectator while i don’t mind seeing a guy hit in the face or knocked out, I do not like to see women hit. I do not like seeing beautiful things marred. It’s like splashing grime on a painting. I personally do not like it as a spectator, so I choose not to watch it. But again, I am not saying women are not great fighters,and should not be allowed to fight. If you are great at something and someone is willing to pay you for it, more power to you.
I’m just saying, I personally am not the audience for female fights. And I accept that my feelings are sexist, and chauvinist, and woefully outdated. They are the thoughts of a dinosaur… and you know what… I’m okay with that.
Anyhow hope you found this post useful, if so give a subscribe and a like. And feel free to shoot me a note about your thoughts on this post.
The last couple years have shown a real resurgence in mainstream US interest in Boxing.
Now that Interest has never waned abroad, and is arguably stronger than it has ever been everywhere from England to Russia, but only in the States that for most of the 20th century was the heart and head and seat of professional Boxing (The home of Boxing’s greatest champions From Jack Johnson to Evander Holyfield), has Boxing been shuffled off the main stage, into all but minor league obscurity.
And while MMA is undoubtably big these days, it is not Boxing. And it is not better than Boxing, it exercises different interests, the way Soccer differs from Football. They both have their strengths.
For my money while MMA has its strengths, and I am glad for its growth, that growth should not come at the expense of Boxing. Anymore than the growth in Rugby should mean we stop giving airtime to Football.
While I like MMA as a discipline and there have been many great matches, the standup game of Boxing and that specification of strikes, and limitation of styles, lends itself to truly epic engagements deserving of apellations such as fight of the year, far more often and regularly than MMA.
Boxing due to its length and its style lends itself to being… more than a sprint, when you have two great fighters and styles in the boxing ring, you get these epic engagements of will that allows you to see a fighter’s chin tested and his endurance tested in a way that the sprint, submission style of MMA, rarely lends itself to.
Again there are many great fighters and matches in the past and present of MMA, from the domination years of Royce Gracie to the domination years of Sakuraba to the domination years of Anderson Silva to the current domination years of fantastic fighters such as Jon Jones (currently the best UFC fighter and a personal favorite, who I like to introduce, whenever I see him fight, in my best Boxing Announcer voice as… ‘JON JONES…… THE MARTIAN MANHUNTER!!!!! You have to be a comic book fan to get the reference, but I think that is way better than the idiotic nickname of ‘BONES’ that they give him) and such phenoms as Buakaw (if you do not know that name, go searching for any of his over 200 professional fights. Yes I said over 200 fights!!!!! He is the stuff of legend.); but these exceptions aside, as a whole Boxing’s stand up style lends itself to far more interesting engagements.
I recently watched (on the big screen TV, I don’t watch video on a phone or tablet or laptop. If I am going to take the time to watch something, I want to watch it as close to its intended scale as possible. Only then can you get close to adequately consuming, or reviewing and forming and intelligent opinion on the content consumed. David Lean’s LAWRENCE OF ARABIA seen in 70mm on a full size movie theater, which I have done, is a completely richer experience than watching it on someone’s LCD monitor. How you consume content, is part and parcel of the experience), courtesy of the Youtube App on my Roku device, a bevy of classic 70s and 80s Boxing matches, with men who fought true wars in the ring.
Of course Ali, Frazier, Norton, George Foreman (people remember Foreman for his later post Ali years as Champion and beloved funny guy and elder statesman of boxing, but during his first life, as a boxer, that went from 1969 to 1977, this guy… in a heavyweight scene full of fearsome men, was the most feared man on the entire planet.
He was a young, gigantic, brutal,and undefeatable force of nature breaking everything in his path. Ivan Drago’s character in Rocky 4, the character played by Dolph Lundgren (‘I will break you.’) that was George Foreman in the late 60s early 70s. An unbeatable force of nature, till a man called Ali found a way to beat him.)
And similar, stuff of legend wars… were fought in the lighter divisions by men with names like Tommy the Hitman Hearnes, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Roberto the man with the hands of Stone Duran, And Sugar Ray Leonard.
I watched the 1st Duran Hearnes fight, then I watched the Hearnes Sugar Ray fight, and its eight year later sequel.
Here is the thing people forget about Hearnes, he much like George Foreman, because of his height and frame and reach… was something new in boxing for his weight class. A kid, like they all were back then, coming out of Detroit he cut through the middlewight division like a knife, earning the name of Hitman by knocking out everyone he faced. An undefeated champion, he and Sugar Ray Leonard, also a champion, would meet in September 1981 for a winner take all unification match.
It was called the showdown and lived up to its billing. Being a 15 round war and one of the greatest fights of that year or any year.
I take this trip down memory lane to say that… what is great about Boxing, can not be replaced or usurped by MMA. There is a uniqueness to Boxing, that makes it, when you get a talented crop of Boxers, the stuff of legend.
I think after 20 years of neglect, and corruption (something that the UFC seems to be dealing with, as well as K1. The japanese PRIDE was the best thing to happen to MMA, and since its effective buyout and dissolution, we have an increasingly suspect, in terms of management, UFC).
you now have a very exciting Boxing landscape starting to form, particularly at the lower weight classes. Terrence Crawford and Errol Spence being two of the most exciting fighters to come along in decades. And suddenly you begin to see this return of interest and money to the boxing landscape, that I for one am looking forward to.
For more on Boxing, go listen to two recent, pretty darn excellent John Siuntres WORD BALLOON podcasts, that veer from comic books to boxing, in interviews with two great names in the Boxing coverage landscape.
Completely riveting interviews, and after listening, you, like I, will be searching Youtube for great Boxers past and present and future.
Thanks for checking out this post, and if you enjoy please leave a like, or comment. And feel free to recommend your 5 favorite recent boxing and or mma matches or websites.
To get you started here are my recommendations of must watch Youtube boxing/mma videos:
I love watching Thomas Hearnes fight. He had a fantastic jab, a great left hook attack to the body and head, and one of the best, most devastating, right hands in Boxing history. Which makes the following clip, all the more amazing. And why Sugar Ray Leonard, like his idol Muhammad Ali, is the greatest of all time. Because he fought unbeatable men… and found a way to beat them.
And if that is the past of Boxing, here is the present and future: 2018 is the year America remembers what the world has never forgotten, that the boxing ring is the place where the last legends of the world…. are made.
And for more on how to stay ontop the changing world of Boxing, I recommend the following two sites (that both offer subscriptions to their magazines):
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the domination years of Sakuraba
to the domination years of Anderson Silva
to the current domination years of fantastic fighters such as Jon Jones 
(currently the best UFC fighter and a personal favorite, who I like to introduce, whenever I see him fight, in my best Boxing Announcer voice as… ‘JON JONES…… THE MARTIAN MANHUNTER!!!!! You have to be a comic book fan to get the reference, but I think that is way better than the idiotic nickname of ‘BONES’ that they give him) and such phenoms as Buakaw 
(if you do not know that name, go searching for any of his over 200 professional fights. Yes I said over 200 fights!!!!! He is the stuff of legend.); but these exceptions aside, as a whole Boxing’s stand up style lends itself to far more interesting engagements.
(people remember Foreman for his later post Ali years as Champion and beloved funny guy and elder statesman of boxing, but during his first life, as a boxer, that went from 1969 to 1977, this guy… in a heavyweight scene full of fearsome men, was the most feared man on the entire planet. 
found a way to beat him.)
also a champion, would meet in September 1981 for a winner take all unification match.
and Errol Spence being
two of the most exciting fighters to come along in decades. And suddenly you begin to see this return of interest and money to the boxing landscape, that I for one am looking forward to.
Heroic Times 