Boxing vs MMA: Yahoo's Kevin Iole weighs in!

[fitefanSHO]

Very few people cover Boxing and MMA. Yahoo Sport's Kevin Iole is one of them. Today, Iole was a guest on the Ring TV radio show hosted by Doug Fischer and Michael Rosenthal.

Iole spoke at length about the upcoming Floyd Mayweather-Victor Ortiz fight before turning his attention to MMA. Through the fine folks at Ring TV and their use of Facebook, I was able to ask Iole what he considers to be the biggest difference as well as the biggest similarity between the two sports.



Iole's reply was insightful and illuminating.

"There are a lot more similarities in terms of the way the athletes view themselves and view their sport than there are differences."

Click play below to hear ALL of what Kevin Iole had to say about Boxing and MMA.



LINK: http://fitefansho.blogspot.com/2011/...le-weighs.html

[$mannyFresh]

The business models of both sports drive the differences.

[Battle*Hardened]

Thats not true about the money though. You would think he would know that. He's just another UFC fanboy. There are atleast 20-40 boxers making between 500-1mil+ a year.

[Battle*Hardened]

I agree with most everything else though.

[fitefanSHO]

I agree with most everything else though.

Yes, I did too. It's uncontroversial, but informative.

A rarity in a Boxing/MMA discussion.

And I like how he put boxing a little higher; fight length, skill level.

[pistol whip]

Thats not true about the money though. You would think he would know that. He's just another UFC fanboy. There are atleast 20-40 boxers making between 500-1mil+ a year.

There are also a lot more professional boxers out there so it evens out. Plus a lot of Boxing fans don't understand the concepts of Sponsorship money.

[pistol whip]

And I like how he put boxing a little higher; fight length, skill level.

Sorry but thats like saying a baseball player is more skilled than a football player.

[The Gambler1981]

Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports, that is a skill very few have. Much more so than anything football related so yea baseball players are more skilled~.

Most football players out of college can come and compete, but baseball players it takes years for them to amount to anything or even determine if they are a truly talented enough for the major leagues.


All sports are not created equal~


To bring it back to boxing and MMA boxing is much more refined while MMA there is a lot of evolution that can and should take place, boxing being much more restrictive makes it tougher a lot less choices and options.

[Zarco]

The title says it all. The fact that people even have to pit all forms of combat in the world against boxing says it all. Boxing can have its ups and downs in the U.S. but it will always be royalty.

[*Khan]

I tried reading some of his stuff, but then in his boxing notes he mentioned MMA too much so I just stopped.