Which sport is harder to become successful MMA or Boxing ?

Boxing and it's not even debatable, neither is the fact that a low/mid tier MMA fighter would whoop a boxers ass if it came to it.

The right promotion can make you a millionaire in boxing without ever becoming champion. Thats damn near impossible in mma. is dillian whyte more successful than Stipe miocic? Whyte made way more money without ever becoming champ in his sport than stipe made as a great champ in his sport. But stipe is considered one of the best ever in his sport. And whyte isnt in his sport So whats Success? Wow never thought about it that way.

training one martial art does not mean you've been training MMA. it's a totally different sport. eg: karate has punching. what karate practitioner became a boxing world champion (excluding manlet divisions)? i don't even count women's mma. their entire talent pool is prob 500 people world wide. it's a fringe sport. If you don't believe that women MMA is better than women's boxing, then you sir are a fool. Amanda Nunes and Serrano are both beautiful though.

The right promotion can make you a millionaire in boxing without ever becoming champion. Thats damn near impossible in mma. is dillian whyte more successful than Stipe miocic? Whyte made way more money without ever becoming champ in his sport than stipe made as a great champ in his sport. But stipe is considered one of the best ever in his sport. And whyte isnt in his sport So whats Success? A lot of that has to do with the Ali Act not applying to all combat sports. Dana White has spent millions to keep it that way so he can continue to have "professional" fighters who have to work other jobs to make ends meet and pay for their camps. I think at minimum your fighting should pay for itself to be considered "successful," and considering the relatively short time period that you have to make money in combat sports, it needs to pay enough to cover you for your life after you retire. You don't see professional players of other sports working at grocery stores and such. Making it to the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc is a pretty solid guarantee of success. A lot of that also has to do with UFC not permitting its fighters to have endorsements etc.

The right promotion can make you a millionaire in boxing without ever becoming champion. Thats damn near impossible in mma. is dillian whyte more successful than Stipe miocic? Whyte made way more money without ever becoming champ in his sport than stipe made as a great champ in his sport. But stipe is considered one of the best ever in his sport. And whyte isnt in his sport So whats Success?

I don't have time to check all the names on there, but there's a bunch that don't fit. Dillian Whyte and Holly Holm were kickboxers, not just boxers. Stipe was a wrestler too, and wrestling arguably was more important to his success. Silva started in jiujitsu, taekwondo, Muay Thai, and capoeira, not boxing. Vitor Belfort is a BJJ black belt. Etc. Of the ones who started out in boxing without a background in ground or kickboxing/Muay Thai, they either lost more than they won, or were one and done. Boxers who have a solid background in another martial art have done fine. But I'm talking about people who started their careers in boxing and did primarily that, then tried to transition to MMA. Look at what happened to the self proclaimed GWOAT. Lost to an unranked scrub. There's no way she wins a championship in any top MMA organization. The issue is that boxing develops instincts that are counter productive when it comes to MMA, so it's not just a matter of cross training. You have to fight instinctive behavior, and at that point it's better not to have learned it at all. Look at what happened to Conor McGregor after he spent a lot of time training boxing to fight Floyd. He came back to MMA with a different stance more suited for boxing, and lost 3 of 4 fights since then, with his only win coming against Cerrone who lost 6 of 7 fights with the other one being a NC. Holly had very few kickboxing fights before she went into boxing. Just saying. She had a total of 24 rounds of amateur kickboxing. And McGregor actually started out in boxing in the first place. He was an amateur boxer in his youth, then he got into MMA, then he circled back to boxing for the Mayweather fight.

Jeremy Williams, after being smashed by Sam Peter and having his boxing license pulled, dove into MMA with his boxing and Judo and went unbeaten. Melton Bowen, Art Jimmerson, Vitor Belfort, Laverne Clark, Dillian Whyte, James Warring, Marcus Davis, Butterbean Esch, Holly Holm, Don Frye, Tim Hague, Chris Lytle, Demsey McKean, Yosuke Nishijima, Karl Noons, Patrick Cote, Jens Pulver, Dan Quinn, Francis Ngannou, Stipe Miocic, Matt Skelton, Przemysław Saleta, Anderson Silva, Ruben Williams, Steffan Oulette, Ramzi Hassan, Yuri Vaulin and all the other established though washed up, low level and amateur boxers combine to have actually won more in MMA than they lost. You can verify that on your own.​ I don't have time to check all the names on there, but there's a bunch that don't fit. Dillian Whyte and Holly Holm were kickboxers, not just boxers. Stipe was a wrestler too, and wrestling arguably was more important to his success. Silva started in jiujitsu, taekwondo, Muay Thai, and capoeira, not boxing. Vitor Belfort is a BJJ black belt. Etc. Of the ones who started out in boxing without a background in ground or kickboxing/Muay Thai, they either lost more than they won, or were one and done. Boxers who have a solid background in another martial art have done fine. But I'm talking about people who started their careers in boxing and did primarily that, then tried to transition to MMA. Look at what happened to the self proclaimed GWOAT. Lost to an unranked scrub. There's no way she wins a championship in any top MMA organization. The issue is that boxing develops instincts that are counter productive when it comes to MMA, so it's not just a matter of cross training. You have to fight instinctive behavior, and at that point it's better not to have learned it at all. Look at what happened to Conor McGregor after he spent a lot of time training boxing to fight Floyd. He came back to MMA with a different stance more suited for boxing, and lost 3 of 4 fights since then, with his only win coming against Cerrone who lost 6 of 7 fights with the other one being a NC.

Brock had no MMA experience, hadn’t wrestled since college, yet turned pro at nearly 30 and became Heavyweight Champion within 18 months and just 4 fights. That would NEVER happen in boxing. To be fair though, there were a lot of factors that went into that. It had been a while since he wrestled (real wrestling) but he did have that background, the guy was a 106-5 national division 1 champion, and wrestling is the best foundation for MMA. Then add to that that he was just an absolute freak athletically, plus juiced to the gills on top of that. THEN add in that its HW where the talent level is generally lower, and that at the time HW was in a weaker period too. Then finally add that he got super fast tracked because of his name from the WWE, literally given a UFC title shot at 2-1 lol. All that considered it was still impressive what he did though. Anyway, MMA is by its nature a sport that people transition into, its MIXED martial arts after all. If you have experience in some other form of combat its most likely transferable to MMA, hence seeing guys come in from other sports and find success more often than it happens with boxing.

Randall "Tex" Cobb never won the heavyweight title but he started out in karate and he fought Leon Spinks, Michael Dokes, Earnie Shavers, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes, and Buster Douglas. Marko Huck started in Taekwondo, which is more or less Tang Soo Do, which is the Korean version of Shotokan Karate. Troy Dorsey had black belts in both Karate and Taekwondo before he became a boxing champion.

I specified no manlet divisions batam weight is 120 lbs. there are 100 men this size in America. And 90 of them are Asian. Vast majority of men don’t come in that size Vitali Klitschko was a karateka because he grew up idolizing Chuck Norris. He got into boxing because competitive karate and kickboxing were illegal in the USSR. When they were legalized he started competing in karate point fights and kickboxing fights during his amateur boxing career.

I'm not sure I agree with that fully. I suppose it also matters what your metric for success is. Are you satisfied being a well known contender like Wonderboy who's never going to win the belt? Or do you want the gold around your waist? Boxing especially has a lot of vulnerabilities when it comes to MMA. The defense often involves a lot of head movement, for instance, which can really get you into trouble when kicks and knees are involved. And boxers love to dive in and tie up and put their head under the opponent's arm, which is just asking to be guillotined. The boxer tight guard also leaves you vulnerable to damage from kicks even if you block it, and if you're used to Philly shell, you're going to eat a shin upside your head. It's all these reflexes that you have to unlearn. I personally can't think of someone who was a dedicated boxer who has been able to really be successful in MMA. Interesting thoughts bud. You are not wrong, IMO, BUT, there's more to the story. Fighters, basically all cut from similar cloth regardless of they're being strikers or grapplers, are ALL required to train and learn for the Rules they choose to fight under (Sport), in order to get to their potential best. Hopping between rules (sports) means that you take what you do best and build around that, and weave that into your approach. This applies to Anyone from any base platform. For a Boxer in MMA that means checking kicks, stuffing takedowns as a start. But no matter how great a Muay Thai fighter, Freestyle Wrestler, Judo player, submission grappler, Karate fighter or western Boxer you are, you MUST cross train in order to carry your skills over to MMA. This is the evolution of the sport. But for Boxers ALONE........ Because MMA is a far lower paying job, no prime, world class boxer is ever going to bother. That would essentially be like finding a law firm partner willing to quit the firm at the height of his profession in order to tain to become the champion janitor. No offense is intended, but the numbers don't lie. Ray Mercer, at nearly 50, knocked out 2-time UFC Heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in just 9 seconds. 9 seconds!!! Sylvia was young enough to be Mercer's son, was late prime, was one of the 10 greatest MMA heavyweights ever at the time, had more wins than almost any former UFC champion ever at that time, and had previously lost ONLY the Fedor, Nogueira, Arlovski, Couture and Mir; 5 of the Other 10 heavyweight GOATs at that time. Sylvia remains even today BOTH the tallest and Heaviest UFC champion ever. It was to be a boxing match but sanctioning restrictions forced it to become full MMA rules. Tim started by launching his signature kicks. Didn't work. https://www.sportbible.com/ufc/news-...fight-20200505 Other than that? James Toney was a fat, old pug deep into CTE symptoms when he lost a wrestling match to Randy Couture for a great payday at UFC 118 in 2010, in an effort to counter the disaster involving Sylvia. Jeremy Williams, after being smashed by Sam Peter and having his boxing license pulled, dove into MMA with his boxing and Judo and went unbeaten. Melton Bowen, Art Jimmerson, Vitor Belfort, Laverne Clark, Dillian Whyte, James Warring, Marcus Davis, Butterbean Esch, Holly Holm, Don Frye, Tim Hague, Chris Lytle, Demsey McKean, Yosuke Nishijima, Karl Noons, Patrick Cote, Jens Pulver, Dan Quinn, Francis Ngannou, Stipe Miocic, Matt Skelton, Przemysław Saleta, Anderson Silva, Ruben Williams, Steffan Oulette, Ramzi Hassan, Yuri Vaulin and all the other established though washed up, low level and amateur boxers combine to have actually won more in MMA than they lost. You can verify that on your own.​

Boxing by a lot. Bigger talent pool, fighters are brought along much more slowly, losses are considered more damning to your career etc. MMA has the smaller talent pool but then the UFC has more fighters signed than all major boxing promotions combined. You can potentially get signed to the UFC with like 5-10 fights, you dont need to even win them all, then under the right circumstances could maybe get a title shot from stringing together like 3-5 wins at UFC level. Bear in mind the UFCs platform is much bigger than any boxing promotions too, they can make guys into legit stars extremely quickly. In boxing you could be like 30-0 holding a title for 5 years and nobody knows who you are outside of your hometown.

I specified no manlet divisions batam weight is 120 lbs. there are 100 men this size in America. And 90 of them are Asian. Vast majority of men don’t come in that size Actually bantamweight is 118 in professional boxing. I suppose you did specify, but the term "manlet division" was unfamiliar. Troy Dorsey was a Featherweight and Jr. Lightweight titleholder in Boxing, in any event. Can't say where your manlet line cuts off. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Dorsey

Troy Dorsey I specified no manlet divisions batam weight is 120 lbs. there are 100 men this size in America. And 90 of them are Asian. Vast majority of men don’t come in that size

training one martial art does not mean you've been training MMA. it's a totally different sport. eg: karate has punching. what karate practitioner became a boxing world champion (excluding manlet divisions)? i don't even count women's mma. their entire talent pool is prob 500 people world wide. it's a fringe sport. Troy Dorsey

I would say MMA as the guys get paid a lot less. In boxing you can get paid more and not be a main eventer.

Nash is unbeaten in both (0-0) and the P4P King. Nash would say boxing. In boxing you need to be 9/10 or 10/10 with your hands (overall skillset) unless you have freakish one-punch Wilder power. In UFC, if you are 7/10 across the board of all the different skills, then that will put you amongst the very top guys in the sport. You had to be 8.5/10 across the board back in the days when Wrestling was real in the WWF Attitude Era, when Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock ruled the roost, of course it was real back when the likes of Hulk Hogan, Rick Flair, Andre the Giant, Macho Man, and the Ultimate Warrior were fighting as well, but since around 2007 it turned PG with it's verbal content and dangerous stunts, and changed from very real fights, to scripted fights/results. Nash will never forget it all unfolding on live TV between Stone Cold Steve Austin - The Texas Rattlesnake, Brian Pillman, and a gun. It was incredible to see nobody get killed that night. Real wrestling got very heated at times. Even boxers are much softer, I mean, we saw Tyson Fury kick a taxi (cab) but that's not on these hardcore levels. Nash out 2007 was the year I stopped watching. Still follow it more as a casual fan but not like I did in the late 90’s- early 00’s.

Nash is unbeaten in both (0-0) and the P4P King. Nash would say boxing. In boxing you need to be 9/10 or 10/10 with your hands (overall skillset) unless you have freakish one-punch Wilder power. In UFC, if you are 7/10 across the board of all the different skills, then that will put you amongst the very top guys in the sport. You had to be 8.5/10 across the board back in the days when Wrestling was real in the WWF Attitude Era, when Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock ruled the roost, of course it was real back when the likes of Hulk Hogan, Rick Flair, Andre the Giant, Macho Man, and the Ultimate Warrior were fighting as well, but since around 2007 it turned PG with it's verbal content and dangerous stunts, and changed from very real fights, to scripted fights/results. Nash will never forget it all unfolding on live TV between Stone Cold Steve Austin - The Texas Rattlesnake, Brian Pillman, and a gun. It was incredible to see nobody get killed that night. Real wrestling got very heated at times. Even boxers are much softer, I mean, we saw Tyson Fury kick a taxi (cab) but that's not on these hardcore levels. Nash out

You are dead wrong about Brock with the Vikings. He was given a legitimate offer to play in NFL Europe and he had a really great showing at the NFL combine. And for the record I never said he could make that level of progress in boxing in that timeframe. But he's an anomalous case in MMA and in general, and I still think you're under-selling his amateur wrestling. A lot of extreme high level specialists (Rousey in Judo, Holm in boxing, the Gracies in BJJ, Sakuraba in Catch wrestling, etc) made astounding progress in MMA. It's not because MMA doesn't require skills, it's because there are such a wide variety of skills and ways to win a fight that there are too many variables to control and you never know which one will help which fighter dominate at any given point in time. Boxing has a higher skill ceiling due to specialization but people here are trivializing the skill level in MMA. Have you watched the footage of his games? He was terrible. It was a complete PR stunt like Usain Bolt getting football deals. He was a great amateur wrestler at college level. Never went the Pan Ams, Worlds, Olympics etc. He never got close to the pinnacle of amateur wrestling.

I’m a massive Brock fan. He is a special athlete but you could not make that type of progress in boxing within 18 months. It would just be unfathomable. Despite being an Amateur Wrestling national champ, Brock hadn’t even had one amateur MMA bout, it’d be like a kick boxer turning pro and beating Fury in his 4th fight. Brock on the Vikings squad was more of a publicity stunt, he went to Minnesota college and got them mainstream publicity being a WWE star. He was out of his depth on the football field, he only played during garbage time and I think he only made one tackle throughout any of his practice games. You are dead wrong about Brock with the Vikings. He was given a legitimate offer to play in NFL Europe and he had a really great showing at the NFL combine. And for the record I never said he could make that level of progress in boxing in that timeframe. But he's an anomalous case in MMA and in general, and I still think you're under-selling his amateur wrestling. A lot of extreme high level specialists (Rousey in Judo, Holm in boxing, the Gracies in BJJ, Sakuraba in Catch wrestling, etc) made astounding progress in MMA. It's not because MMA doesn't require skills, it's because there are such a wide variety of skills and ways to win a fight that there are too many variables to control and you never know which one will help which fighter dominate at any given point in time. Boxing has a higher skill ceiling due to specialization but people here are trivializing the skill level in MMA.