I think he is weight drained in that fight, don't get me wrong no excuses. Poor handling IMO. He can still bounce back and become a world champion if his heart is really into boxing. :boxing:
Put Mercer in the ring with any TOP 25 HW today and he would get owned in two minutes.
Sylvia has zero fighting IQ, and if anyone would loose to a good boxer is him, or Arlovski who is actually world champion in sambo, but for some reason thinks he is a good boxer.
Lesnar, Velasquez, Couture, Dos Santos, Nogueira, Mirko, Carwin, Gonzaga, Overeem... Any one of these would own Mercer in a MMA fight.
In boxing, it would be other way around.
But these are two different sports, you can't pull half of the stuff from boxing in a MMA fight, you can't.
TWO SPORTS - TWO DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES - DIFFERENT SET OF RULES.
Got it?
Boxers have a punchers chance in MMA, and not even that most of the time. Botha got owned by 30 kg's lighter judoka, Nishijima is 0 - 5 in MMA getting owned by brawlers, Jimmerson got owned by Gracie...
Now go ramble some more about boxers > mma fighters in boxing, genious.
Tim Sylvia is rated at #6 in the divisional rankings of MMAweekly.com.. Mercer fought a legit top ten contender in the heavyweight division.