Boxing fans who do not like MMA; what are your reasons?

--- MMA fan boys used to come on our boxing boards to trash boxers is prob the root of the divide. MMA don't have the organized historical roots of boxing, so like any little bro trying to keep up with big bro and his friends, they developed an inferiority complex, exacerbated by the crookery of modern boxing that has seen the UFC pass the now disjointed organization of boxing in terms of Wall Street valuation. The fact that non boxing sychophants like Haymon and BALCO Vic Conte and his VADA vitamins already control significant portions of boxing without delivering anything of real value to their dwindling demographics is a long term drain on boxing. Many of the top mma guys like GSP, Fedor, ect have entered legendary status, so the race is on. Who you got?

Don’t hate MMA, but I will say that the UFC is manufactured to an extent. And by that I mean that they pick and choose the fighters they are going to make into stars and it’s not necessarily based on skill. MMA is a broader range of skills, but not as skilled still. If that makes sense. Boxers are otherworldly good at several things. MMA fighters are good at a few more things. I also think that there is more of a kick aspect to MMA so it’s less predictable. MMA also lacks the drama that a 12 round fight brings. Breaking a fighter down over 12 rounds is the ultimate drama. Setting him up for something later in the fight in the early rounds is awesome to watch. I’d like to see MMA go to shorter rounds but more of them. 8 or 9 three minute rounds would be better and introduce more strategy and skill IMO.

But that’s the great thing about mma compared to boxing.. how competitive it is, generally anyone can win....so yea nearly all fighters take a few loses,but it makes it so much greater when one is underfeated... boxing fans shouldn’t care so much about a few loses on a record or “building a star”.... I just want to be entertained and when boxing is 90% mismatches it’s hard to stay entertained sometimes Right. I’ll agree with everything u just said. Hardest part about boxing is getting two stars to face eachother in the ring. The betting lines in MMA are always close. I enjoy all the varied techniques. Lots of crazy finishes too. Still punching is everyone’s favourite part of mma. I picked Nunes to KO Cyborg standing up and It was obvious to me. I’m not bragging I got it right, just irked most got it sooo wrong. So much hype in MMA though. Everyone is “just the best at blah blah”. Everyone has “the best training team” or special move that they are the best in the world at. I mean I understand the sell. It’s just too random sometimes. Ur only the best for a hot minute. I enjoy it, just hard to make heads or tails of what u are truly seeing.

I like both, but the lack of class during press conferences/post fight interviews by some fighters bothers me sometimes. Boxing has it's fair share of classless fighters, but the UFC has much much more

I was an MMA fan before a boxing fan. Then all my favorite guys got old, I fell in love with the history of boxing and never looked back. A lot of combat sports fans are coming back to boxing as UFC is full of problems and frankly getting boring. Boxing has waaaay more exciting talent now. That Bones-Gus fight last night was the most boring letdown in combat sports I can remember

Once you are used to good boxing MMA striking seems a bit embarrassing and puts you off. Appreciate the sport but it’s not for me.

Always felt like UFC is too much like WWE. Most of the stars are manufactured hype jobs created by the Dana White propaganda machine. McGregor, Jon Jones, Brock Lesnar, Cyborg. These are the supposed "goats" of the sport. Most of them are drug cheats or overrated as ****. When a ***** with no talent can become the "baddest woman on the planet" something is wrong with your sport. What's Ronda Rousey up to now? Lmao that no talent having harpy ran off to play pretend champion with Vince McMahon

Same, I know it's a very multifaceted discipline and you're at a severe disadvantage unless you pick up half a dozen different martial arts and get good at them all, but that rarely seems to translate to entertaining action. The fights either drag on or end really abruptly - the fight may be one guy pressed face-first against the cage with nothing happening for minutes at a time, or one fighter gets into a good grapple or scores a hard knockdown and the fight just ends instantly. There never seems to be that comeback potential that you get in boxing, where the count allows a fighter to get back up and win. In UFC if someone gets dropped the other guy just jumps right on him and starts hammering him on the ground and the fight just ends right there. Likewise if a fighter works his way into a good choke or grapple then the other guy almost never seems to find his way out of it. Plus, like others have said, it can be more fun to watch two guys who are very good at one thing than two guys who are mostly just average at everything. Like, McGregor is considered to be an extremely good puncher by UFC standards but he was a joke against Floyd, there was absolutely nothing on his shots. I reckon that even an average, domestic level fighter would have beaten McGregor at boxing. That said, most of this applies just to UFC and not MMA in general. I think kickboxing and muay thai are okay, mostly because they keep the general boxing format but allow the use of feet, knees elbows etc. Yeah, during all the Khabib hype I wiki'd him and saw he was trained in "sambo" I had never heard of it before, so I started watching Russian Sambo on Youtube. Those tournaments are crazy! but I'm with you. To me there's no real skill in getting behind someone and holding their throat for dear life, or getting someone down and then just laying on then and punching them in the head until the ref steps in (Ground & Pound) As diciplined and trained as it is, it looks like street fights half the time! Probably why the biggest fans (in my experience) are all drunken frat boys (who I'm happy aren't hanging out watching boxing matches at the bars anymore, getting drunk and trying to start fights) It was a bad look when Brock Lesnar decided one day he was going to be a UFC star and he ****ing did. I know people point at his NCAA background, but that was 18 years ago. I had a nice little amateur run at HW before busting my hand 13 years ago, imagine if I decided to turn pro and wanted to be CW champ of the world. I'd get my head taken off by the first clubfighter i faced haha.

its boring to me. I know it is disciplined, but it appears undisciplined and just ends up being rolling on the ground for minutes at a time. I have no interest in it. Just like how i stopped following the HW scene during the Klit era. Same, I know it's a very multifaceted discipline and you're at a severe disadvantage unless you pick up half a dozen different martial arts and get good at them all, but that rarely seems to translate to entertaining action. The fights either drag on or end really abruptly - the fight may be one guy pressed face-first against the cage with nothing happening for minutes at a time, or one fighter gets into a good grapple or scores a hard knockdown and the fight just ends instantly. There never seems to be that comeback potential that you get in boxing, where the count allows a fighter to get back up and win. In UFC if someone gets dropped the other guy just jumps right on him and starts hammering him on the ground and the fight just ends right there. Likewise if a fighter works his way into a good choke or grapple then the other guy almost never seems to find his way out of it. Plus, like others have said, it can be more fun to watch two guys who are very good at one thing than two guys who are mostly just average at everything. Like, McGregor is considered to be an extremely good puncher by UFC standards but he was a joke against Floyd, there was absolutely nothing on his shots. I reckon that even an average, domestic level fighter would have beaten McGregor at boxing. That said, most of this applies just to UFC and not MMA in general. I think kickboxing and muay thai are okay, mostly because they keep the general boxing format but allow the use of feet, knees elbows etc.

its boring to me. I know it is disciplined, but it appears undisciplined and just ends up being rolling on the ground for minutes at a time. I have no interest in it. Just like how i stopped following the HW scene during the Klit era.

I'm a fan of both personally. Historically thou MMA is thousands of years old (pankration is basically the precursor). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pankration I think its more of a boxing fans feel threatened by MMA as it become mainstream and MMA fan's feel disrespected by Boxing fans. Boxing is older, with depictions dating back some 5,000 years to ancient Iraq/Mesopotamia. And wrestling is even older, dating back to prehistoric cavemen, and apes before them. MMA is essentially a mixture of boxing and wrestling. Various martial arts have combined boxing and wrestling to various degrees over thousands of years. Modern MMA is mostly evolved from a mixture of judo and kickboxing.

lool i ain't into ground fighting,but i sometimes watch mma contest, when strikers are fighting

Im a Boxing fan who doesnt like MMA. I dont know what im watching with MMA. I cant see subtle changes in game plan, i cant see traps being set and im not keen on them rolling around on the floor for any amount of time. What im trying to say is i cant get out of MMA what i get out of Boxing. I cant get the bigger picture. I trained Judo and Karate to a decent level and even though both those arts are used in MMA its like a mutant form of it and i struggle to spot it or fully read it as it happens. Ive been into Boxing most my life, i can see all the changes, stances, tells, traps, Boxing is so natural to me that i can see the full big picture of a fight as it pans out and thats how get the most out of it, i just cant do it with MMA. But dont get me wrong im more than happy to sit through the UFC Knockout reels. I dont think its a bum sport what so ever but it just doesnt seem to be for me. I did give it a good go a few years ago, threw myself into it, watched that contender series what ever that was called and read up on the fighters but my attention for the sport in general didnt last so long. Its a good sport, its a good sport i thought id get in to but nahhh, it just wasnt for me.

I'm curious as to whether any of the posters here practice any martial arts (besides boxing)? Could be having some personal experience gives greater appreciation of the nuances involved, especially in grappling where the subtleties involved - in sometimes minute shifts of balance and position - can be every bit as fascinating as those involved in the Sweet Science (to my mind at least).

Right. my biggest frustration is how any non star is treated in ufc. Get such a tiny cut of the pie. But it’s a young sport compared to boxing. Too many ways to win and lose in mma though, hard to quantify records or build a superstar. U had to watch to see if Floyd would lose. Almost everyone’s got losses in mma. It’s more like a never ending tournament. I’ve seen fighter lose a million dollars just on the scale in boxing. Put that into perspective. But that’s the great thing about mma compared to boxing.. how competitive it is, generally anyone can win....so yea nearly all fighters take a few loses,but it makes it so much greater when one is underfeated... boxing fans shouldn’t care so much about a few loses on a record or “building a star”.... I just want to be entertained and when boxing is 90% mismatches it’s hard to stay entertained sometimes

The champs have so many losses because the records aren’t padded with stiffs, the best fight the best. The champ doesn’t get easy touches, it’s the way it should be in boxing, no ducking no complaining about splits or marinating. I prefer boxing but enjoy both

My main issue is the lack of elite skill. Case in point the nunes cyborg fight tonight. There was absolutely NO defense in that fight just a bunch of wild shots thrown.

I don't hate MMA I just don't really like watching it. The top fighters have that white-trash attitude that just puts me off somehow. I also don't like the very poor punching technique and the blatant mistakes these fighters make. There's a very long history to boxing as boxing was synonymous with prize fighting for longer than a century. That nostalgic feel that boxing delivers and seeing fighters follow in others footsteps and comparing fighters with past fighters are some of the things I love about boxing and MMA still has a lot of years to catch up in that field. You can also get very close to perfection in boxing, the ways you can win or lose are limited compared to MMA, so in boxing it mostly comes down to quality and not physicality. I can go on and on but still I respect MMA.

I just dont like to see grown men rolling around on the floor. That is really what i find most repulsive. Just stand up and fight you useless ****s. I cant stand wrestling. I cant stomach it as a spectacle. I dont mind a bit of judo when its a guy or girl fighting for an olympic medal for my country. But thats once every four years. But watching that mma sh ite on a regular basis? No fecking chance.

I usually only watch the massive UFC fights to see what happens. My problem with UFC is the ground stuff. Watching 2 people roll around on the ground bores the fúck out of me and the commentary is too much.