why can't boxers be moved up as quick as MMA fighters?

MMA is still in its development stages whereas boxing is an established sport that has existed for over 100 years. Many of today's MMA fighters began formally training in their teens or twenties, compared to boxing and other sports where athletes have been raised in their respective sports since childhood. MMA is still in the weeding out process of eliminating lesser skilled opponents, which may explain why professional MMA fighters suffer more losses than their boxing counterparts. We won't actually see the best MMA fighters for another ten years. By then, virtually all fighters will have trained in the sport since grade school. Competition will continue to tighten and allow the cream to rise to the top of the sport. The UFC is currently experiencing this phenomenon, with BJ Penn, GSP, and Anderson Silva being undisputed champions who have cleared out their divisions. MMA skills will continue to rise and separate the strong from the weak, until we reach the level of competition that boxing enjoys today.

i can definetely agree that i love all combat sports. and yeah i also agree that MMA is a too young at the moment to have experts and analysists able to recognize a rising star early on like they do in boxing. i can't wait to see the crop of fighters in about 8-10 years. anyways, im sure we both missed eachothers point somewhere along the way. i was directing most of what i said to whoever was hating on boxing. i have this argument way too often amongst friends. it's always and IF. even IF i believe im right, im not so blind to see another point of view, even if most of the time they sound completely full of shit. lol. so hey if it makes you feel better thinking Nick Diaz, or Anderson Silva can whoop Roy Jones Jr's ass (old washed up Roy) then by all means brother, you have that right.

you see, i will disagree. i think you CAN focus more of your time honing a certain skill, whether your a better wrestler, have better ground game, a stronger striker, etc. those who prefer to choke people out will look for the submission as opposed to those who rather stand and bang. the boxing element is ALREADY a part of MMA. those who argue that Boxers would kill some of these MMA guys are speaking from the perspective of fighters like Liddell, Rampage, Carwin, etc., who prefer to use their striking abilities. theres no need to stray away from this argument by bringing up an entirely different aspect of the sport. I understand MMA. i know fighters have a different stance, and guard themselves in a way boxers do not. i realize that even for a fighter who wins all of his bouts by striking, trained in all areas of fighting to be prepared for anything. this does not make him a master of any particular art. he is only preparing to deal with an area of the sport that he lacks skill in. similiar to how an orthodox boxer/ counterpuncher would train for a heavy handed southpaw. he focuses on the areas that he knows needs improvement. this doesnt mean he's going to have the answer for every southpaw in the fight game, but he may be better to deal with left handed fighters from focusing on a particular skill during that training camp. it rare to see anyone in the MMA that doesn't have an area of weakness. a fighter who truly has all around skill would also have better than average Boxing skills. and so far the top of the heap are mediocre at best.

you just validated my point again, thanks. I really dont understand what you mean then. Because this shit will just go in circles. Boxers are hell of alot better punchers then MMA fighters. MMA fighters know hell of alot more about fighting as a whole than Boxers do. there you go, enough said about that. Back on topic: It's hell of alot harder to get into Boxing than MMA. Why? Older sport. They seen guys who shine against bums and ultimately suck against real comp. In MMA, it's so young that there really aren't any legends in the sport yet, so it's hard to tell who is a bum and who isn't and who is really great and who just has a padded record and yada yada yada. I still like both though, even throw in Olympic wrestling, Muay Thai and K-1. I simply love combat sports.

you just validated my point again, thanks.

MMA vs. Boxing is like trying to convince your parents to listen to hiphop when you were younger. There's a big generation gap. If you look at the demographics for each sport, Boxing's got the older crowd while MMA's got the younger crowd. The number one demographic for boxing is people over the age of 50. The UFC doesn't draw particularly well among 35-to-49-year-olds, much less people over the age of 50. With time, the misconceptions of MMA will dissolve and the general audience knowledge about the finer points of the sport (nonce's of BJJ, Muay Thai, etc... / Striking/Clinch/Ground game) will grow. By the time the younger generation takes over, MMA will be viewed quite differently than what the older generation sees as nothing but two drunks in a bar brawling.

My point exactly. You dont have to be a black belt in bjj to beat a bjj black belt in mma. So the whole argument that mma fighters have more skills than a boxer is ridiculous. I dont know if you really dont understand or your just exercising ignorance. Because I dont know, I will just say this... MMA isn't a ADCC. It isn't a grappling competition. You can be the best BJJ guy on the planet but when you get punches thrown in your face while your trying an armbar or get lifted into the sky and power bombed when you try a triangle. Your not exactly going to get a win. When talking about which takes more skills, MMA requires hell of alot more skill than Boxing. When talking about which takes more focus on ONE skill. Boxing gets it because YOU HAVE TO PERFECT PUNCHING. You can't focus 100% into one area of MMA. You will lose. Prime example, Tito Ortiz who is a great wrestler but cant punch for his life. Melvin Guillard who is great at throwing punches but can't defend white-belt submissions for his life. Shinya Aoki who is great at submitting guys but can't take a punch for his life. Like I said, I dont know if your exercising your ignorance or not but Boxing requires perfected punching. MMA requires knowledge in all areas of fighting. So of course you may seem sloppy standing up because you only focused 20% into punching, 50% into wrestling, and 30% into submissions.

My point exactly. You dont have to be a black belt in bjj to beat a bjj black belt in mma. So the whole argument that mma fighters have more skills than a boxer is ridiculous.

In a concentrated sport like boxing, theres really no margin for error for top tier boxers since they both are highly skilled in the same aspect of fighting.

Ok. Read most of the comments on here. Pretty good points. I have to argue that most mma fighters are not world class. Get this one through your head and the rest of what im going to say will be easy to follow. Brock lesnar is the best example of how quick someone can rise to the top in the ufc. You think brock has any black belts in bjj or was training his whole life in anything other than wrestling. Just goes to show that mma is more about a fighters personal fighting style more so than his ability to be good at every aspect of fighting. A striker like shane carwin may only need to improve his defense against takedowns to beat a top submission specialist. brock is not a good example to use because he is successful because of his mammoth size and strength which helps his specialty which is wrestling. You think Valuev would be world class if he was any smaller??? Dude's a heavyweight champion as well.

Ok. Read most of the comments on here. Pretty good points. I have to argue that most mma fighters are not world class. Get this one through your head and the rest of what im going to say will be easy to follow. Brock lesnar is the best example of how quick someone can rise to the top in the ufc. You think brock has any black belts in bjj or was training his whole life in anything other than wrestling. Just goes to show that mma is more about a fighters personal fighting style more so than his ability to be good at every aspect of fighting. A striker like shane carwin may only need to improve his defense against takedowns to beat a top submission specialist.

simple. much deeper talent pool in boxing.

Though the hype is about the same as mma, it's a longer, harder road to the top in the sport of boxing. For instance, a fairly young boxer with a record of 15-6-4 would not even break the top 10 in his respected division, unless all of his losses were controversial split decisions (possible, but not likely). Ill get into more in a min.

because in mma you don't improve much it's just a bunch of bar fighting where you improve very little with time:boxing:

but they could beat them in an mma match as proven by old ass mercer knocking out silvia please refer to my 1st post in this thread about that.

Funny how you talk about the crossover stars like it only applies to boxing. You could line up rjj, floyd mayweather, sugar ray robinson.....aint none of em beating bj penn in a jiu-jitsu match EVER. Aint no boxing great ever beating Brock Lesnar in a wrestling match either. So it's not that mma has a shallow talent pool. Just that their talent pool draws from other less conventional forms of "fighting" but they could beat them in an mma match as proven by old ass mercer knocking out silvia

mma fighters are not as skilled as boxers are, their is not that big of a difference between who ever is considered to be at the bottom of a division and the fighter that is at the top of the division in mma almost anyone can lose to anyone anytime but in boxing if you are not ready for the elite you will be embarassed by the elite

Didn't streetfighter Kimbo Slice choke out Mercer? There's my example of MMA over boxing. Isn't this stupid?

Roy Jones Jr. said boxing is a way more difficult to learn than MMA because boxing is a one dimensional sport. In MMA, there are so many ways to beat someone, but there is an equal amount of ways to lose. That is way crossover stars like former college/high school amateur wrestlers, kickboxers, jijuitsu and karate experts and even pro wrestlers make a smooth transition to MMA. Take any of these athletes and throw them in a boxing ring at a pro level and they will get taken to school by any decent boxer. Check out a 47 year-old out of shape Ray Mercer knocking out former UFC Heavyweight Tim Sylvia with one punch in like 9 seconds. Bringing up a boxer too soon and cause irreverseable damage. Guys like David Reid, Davey Moore, Fernando Vargas, and maybe Jeff Lacy had their careers ruined because of being moved up too quickly. Randy Couture moved up quickly and had a UFC title shot while having only 9 fights. He became a successful 2 division champ (3 titles total) and still competing at the highest level at age 45. Brock Lesnar had about 3 MMA fights and won the title from Couture. Can you picture any pro boxer beating one of the Kiltschkos after only 3 fights? MMA is also a budding sport with a relatively shallow talent pool. So inexperienced cash cows like Brock Lesnar and Gina Carano will get opportunities that inexperienced boxers won't get. Boxing has been established for a 100 years, so there is high quality competition throughout the world. Having a losses early in your career can cause major set backs for a boxer since there is so much competition and so many other boxers with a 0 on there loss column. Most top MMA fighters (even Fedor) have a loss on there record. Funny how you talk about the crossover stars like it only applies to boxing. You could line up rjj, floyd mayweather, sugar ray robinson.....aint none of em beating bj penn in a jiu-jitsu match EVER. Aint no boxing great ever beating Brock Lesnar in a wrestling match either. So it's not that mma has a shallow talent pool. Just that their talent pool draws from other less conventional forms of "fighting"

Roy Jones Jr. said boxing is a way more difficult to learn than MMA because boxing is a one dimensional sport. In MMA, there are so many ways to beat someone, but there is an equal amount of ways to lose. That is way crossover stars like former college/high school amateur wrestlers, kickboxers, jijuitsu and karate experts and even pro wrestlers make a smooth transition to MMA. Take any of these athletes and throw them in a boxing ring at a pro level and they will get taken to school by any decent boxer. Check out a 47 year-old out of shape Ray Mercer knocking out former UFC Heavyweight Tim Sylvia with one punch in like 9 seconds. Bringing up a boxer too soon and cause irreverseable damage. Guys like David Reid, Davey Moore, Fernando Vargas, and maybe Jeff Lacy had their careers ruined because of being moved up too quickly. Randy Couture moved up quickly and had a UFC title shot while having only 9 fights. He became a successful 2 division champ (3 titles total) and still competing at the highest level at age 45. Brock Lesnar had about 3 MMA fights and won the title from Couture. Can you picture any pro boxer beating one of the Kiltschkos after only 3 fights? MMA is also a budding sport with a relatively shallow talent pool. So inexperienced cash cows like Brock Lesnar and Gina Carano will get opportunities that inexperienced boxers won't get. Boxing has been established for a 100 years, so there is high quality competition throughout the world. Having a losses early in your career can cause major set backs for a boxer since there is so much competition and so many other boxers with a 0 on there loss column. Most top MMA fighters (even Fedor) have a loss on there record.