MMA or Boxing?
MMA – Jacob Aguiar
Mixed martial arts contests are more fun to watch than boxing bouts. A regular fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), mixed martial art’s most popular fighting league, is scheduled for three 5-minute rounds.
That means that, unlike boxing where the combatants have a half an hour (or more) to dance around and try to out-score each other, UFC fighters have only 15 minutes to inflict as much damage on their opponent as possible. Mixed martial arts contests are hard to judge. When a fight goes the distance and the two people put on a show it becomes nearly impossible.
This means that no mixed martial artist, especially one fighting in the UFC, wants a fight to go to the judge’s decision. They want to finish the fight either by knockout or submission; either way they want their win to be impressive and undisputed.
Fighters in the UFC wear gloves that are designed to keep their carpals and metacarpals from breaking. They are tight fitting and allow free movement of the fingers for grappling. Their gloves are not designed to disperse energy over a wide surface like boxing gloves are.
To put it bluntly, to get punched by a guy wearing mixed martial arts gloves hurts more that getting punched by someone wearing boxing gloves. This means more cuts, more knockouts, more exciting fights.
Mixed martial artists have a wider skill set than a boxer. They study more disciplines and strive to take their ability in those disciplines to the topmost level. They are constantly evolving their game by learning and developing new submissions and new striking techniques. Mixed martial artists have much more to think about during a fight than a boxer does. Mixed martial artists are the more talented fighters. No offense Pacquiao.
Boxing – Jon Mael
You know, this is a tough one, because I am a big MMA fan, but boxing is a better sport. Boxing is something that you have to train for and be devoted to for your entire life, because it requires techniques and skills that take time to learn.
How can athletes in other sports such as Brock Lesnar and Herschel Walker just walk into MMA and immediately succeed? Because it is simply fighting. In the UFC, you can literally jump on top of someone and punch them in the face repeatedly until the ref stops the fight. In boxing, you need to seriously defeat someone, by landing a precision punch at exactly the right time to secure a knockout, or to out-box someone over sometimes a dozen rounds to win a decision.
Boxing is also easier on the viewer. As Jacob pointed out, there are more cuts in the UFC than in boxing, so it often makes the viewer squeamish. I’d rather watch a strategic sporting event than a blood stained gore-fest. There’s also more lore and history in boxing. I like watching old matches like the “Fight Of The Century” and “The Phantom Punch”. What history is there in the UFC? There isn’t any.
Nostalgia is huge to me when I’m watching sports, and there aren’t many great moments in the history of MMA. Boxing was, for many years, the most popular sport in the world, and some of sport’s greatest moments have come in the ring. Has the cage given us anything to put on ESPN Classic? No.
Finally, boxing is a much more refined and accepted sport. In New York, if you get caught doing MMA, you will be arrested. Boxing is declining in popularity, but for someone who loves old school exciting sports, the UFC just doesn’t compare.
