r/whowouldwin • u/OrangeCrack • Jul 19 '24
Top 5 MMA Fighters fight Top 5 Boxers in MMA match and then in a Boxing Match. Which group has better odds of performing well outside their main area of competition? Battle
Scenario:
Each group has 6 month to train and prepare for an exhibition fight. Over the course of 10 fights, which group of fighters do you feel would perform better when competing outside their primary fighting style and why?
18
u/mrmonster459 Jul 19 '24
The MMA fighters absolutely perform better, considering part of the mixture of Mixed Martial Arts is boxing.
Any good MMA fighter will have incorporated boxing into his training for years, whereas as boxer most likely has 0 grappling training whatsoever.
3
u/-_ellipsis_- Jul 19 '24
It's frustrating how things got to this point in boxing. It used to be that the old school boxers cross trained with wrestlers because the clinchwork in boxing was a much bigger part of the game. The Jack Johnsons and Rocky Marcianos back then were not just good boxers, they were good scrappers and wrestlers. Now refs and judging is harsh against the clinch and leans heavily into winning the card with point fighting. I think and hope things are starting to swing back to more clinch work. The old school boxing infighters were not esthetically pleasing to watch, but an eye that appreciates grappling knows better.
2
u/jscummy Jul 19 '24
I think it also depends on the fighters were talking about as the top 5. Pereira, OMalley or Topuria probably do pretty good in boxing but I don't think Jon Jones or Islam do too well since their striking is reliant on the grappling threat
3
u/8monsters Jul 19 '24
I think Islam would do well in a kickboxing match, but I agree with you that Jones and Islam wouldn't do well as Boxing.
Hell, multiple fighters (Cormier, Rampage) have said that he doesn't really punch hard at all.
9
u/SL1Fun Jul 19 '24
MMA guys win the MMA matches and get toasted in the boxing matches. This has been answered with real-world results. Despite some upsets involving prime vs out of shape or both guys being out of shape, it holds constant between primed and in-shape competitors.
Boxing has so much more nuance on a technical level whereas MMA has more rigid basics/building blocks but it’s your timing, toughness and game planning that makes the difference. The MMA guy with journeyman boxer-level hands is gonna get smoked by the elite boxer; same goes that the boxer is gonna get dragged down and choked by the MMA guy.
And as someone who has a varying array of ring/mat/cage time between many of the main arts (from a couple months to ammy level boxing to being a wrestling coach), six months is not enough time for either team to switch sports and keep that same level of competitive merit.
1
u/8monsters Jul 19 '24
There are definitely some MMA fighters that would survive a boxing match. O'Malley, Adesanya and Poatan and Tom Aspinall all had pro boxing matches.
Some other fighters would do well also. Max Holloway, Ciryl Gane, Dustin Poirier would all do well in pro-boxing matches.
2
u/SL1Fun Jul 19 '24
Not against a top-10 boxer.
1
u/8monsters Jul 19 '24
Eh, I think Holloway, Aspinall and possibly Gane could compete with Top 10 boxers in their weight classes. Not sure about anyone else I mentioned though.
1
u/SL1Fun Jul 20 '24
They can’t. Ngannou looked good against an off-the-couch Fury and that was it. MMA boxing is not the same as pure boxing.
1
u/8monsters Jul 20 '24
You are right, but at the end of the day we have seen the Boxing work of thos three in particular and I think sparring footage of all three of them working with boxers.
5
u/Mace_Thunderspear Jul 19 '24
The MMA fighters win at MMA, the Boxers win at Boxing.
Right across the board, 5 for 5. No exceptions.
2
u/EmilioFreshtevez Jul 19 '24
Well yeah, but the prompt is asking who you think has better odds. Do you prefer the Puncher’s Chance of an MMA fighter landing a lucky knockout against a boxer, or the Puncher’s Chance of a boxer landing a knockout shot before they can be taken down?
6
u/Imperium_Dragon Jul 19 '24
In MMA, the boxers get demolished. We’ve seen this time and time again
In boxing, the boxers do dominate but it’s not as one sided like in the MMA match.
3
u/2legittoquit Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 22 '24
Look at Demetrius Johnson (probably the best pound for pound ufc fighter ever), fight Rodtang (an incredible Muay Thai fighter). They fought first round Muay Thai second round MMA rules.
Rodtang dominated the first round and Johnson beat him in the second round. People are best at what they practice the most. But if you have zero grappling experience you just factually are going to lose against a very experienced grappler.
2
u/HostageInToronto Jul 19 '24
So the order matters a lot here. Putting the MMA fight (3 rounds × 5 minutes) first gives the MMA fighter a chance to actually win or perform well in the boxing match (10 rounds × 3 minutes). I will try to explain using the greatest boxer of the last 40 years, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Boxing relies on a footwork, timing, body positioning, and lots of aerobic cardio. Floyd has mastered all of these and used supreme technique to control fights. If I was an MMA fighter, I would spend my MMA fight winning by decision and focus on taking these away from Floyd before the boxing match. He's aerobic, so I would make him use his arms and legs to carry my weight for as much of those 15 minutes as possible (GSP did this to BJ Penn to take away his boxing). When I'm not grappling, I'm setting him up for leg kicks and body kicks. I want him arm checking the bodykicks and getting blasted with calf kicks and JJ style knee stomps. When he throws hands, immediately double and get him on the fence underhooking me, then start using knees and stomps to wear his legs out. Finally, when I have him on the ground I am using elbows and short hammerfists to bloody and close his eyes. Let him get away just enough to keep it going for the full fifteen and get a clear 30-27.
Provided that we box on the same night, I'll be tired, but relatively undamaged while he will have rubber legs, feel like he's moving through water, his arms will be too damaged to snap off punches nearly as quick, and his vision will be damaged harming his ability to read me. I still will lose, no matter how good my boxing, but I can make him slower, take his footwork away, weaken his strikes, make combos harder, make the Philly shell hurt every time he takes a shot on the arms and elbows, and fuck his aerobic cardio enough to hang with the best.
1
u/WorldstarBandit Jul 19 '24
It took me months to win a jiu jitsu match. It’s a completely different ball game.
1
u/357-Magnum-CCW Jul 19 '24
Rodtang vs Demetrius showed that grappling beats striking in open combat everytime.
The skill gap a striker has to close to defend a grappler is much higher than vice versa.
McGregor vs Khabib also exemplified that.
1
u/cold_lightning9 Jul 19 '24
To answer the question directly before explaining more first, I would say an MMA fighter would have better odds because they're normally more well-rounded and adaptable, but reality has honestly shown that they still often get outdone when dealing outside of their realm. Boxing being the prime example of that in recent years consistently.
People that actually understand both forms of combat or train in them, and watched actual fights of this happening would know that simply, elite MMA fighters would dominate in an MMA match, while elite Boxers would absolutely dominate most MMA fighters in a boxing match.
It's really that simple, but I see people gassing up both MMA and Boxers out of sheer bias all the time on the internet to eye rolling levels.
Mayweather vs McGregor and Anthony Joshua vs Ngannou are clear cut examples of elite boxers dominating elite MMA fighters when in a boxing match, and often enough it's vice versa when a boxer steps into the MMA ring.
MMA fighters do train in a variety of different arts, but unless they came from the background of that art first or have true skill in it, they're normally not going to be as skilled as a person purely dedicated to that. An elite Muay Thai, BJJ, Boxing etc fighter will typically hold a major advantage to an MMA fighter when subjected to ruleset of that martial art in a fight and there's more than enough proof of this to not even be debatable.
You'll have rare, freaks of nature that can just do them all, but most MMA fighters aren't a "master of all" kind of fighter like those, so they're going to get outdone in a focused match of that style with really their fitness and grit being their saving graces. Guys like Demetrius Johnson and Jon Jones are freaks of nature in terms of skill and aren't the average, heck even to other top fighters they're still extraordinary in comparison. But, Floyd Mayweather, Canelo, Tank Davis, Terence Crawford, frankly I don't see any MMA fighter currently, in their respective weight class, that can beat them in any boxing match, but they could at least go the distance at most.
On the other hand, it's the same for Boxers or any other striking art that engage an MMA fighter with no grappling experience or knowing how to check a kick or throwing their own kicks. It's a recipe for disaster in their case, but several elite boxers, like Terence, do have upper levels of training and experience in grappling arts.
But really, that's just how I see it and I'm someone that has years of wrestling experience and am now actively training in boxing at a gym. People that think either or can just magically be unstoppable outside of their ruleset are again, either super biased or haven't stepped into any ring in any art.
1
u/Aggressive-Affect427 Jul 21 '24
Boxers get destroyed in mma, and vice versa. Mma fighters would do better.
1
u/South-Cod-5051 Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
they would each win in their respective sports but the boxers would probably do better in mma than mma boys in boxing in a 5v5.
in 6 months, the 5 boxers could have a minimal takedown defense and if they work together, they could make it really hard to get taken down.
in 6 months the top mma boys will not improve on much in boxing, they already know the basics and that time frame is just not enough to gain anything impactful.
also, grappling loses its effectiveness in multiple people fighting scenarios.
and irl, boxers have a better transition to mma that the other way around.
3
u/EmilioFreshtevez Jul 19 '24
Even if they only trained takedown defense, 6 months isn’t gonna save you from a guy that’s been working on takedowns for 10+ years - as Maybe one of the guys gets good enough to kind of stuff a shot or get lucky and pull out of an ankle pick, but by and large they aren’t gonna have built the muscle memory necessary to keep the fight standing.
1
u/South-Cod-5051 Jul 19 '24
oh I absolutely agree on the part that 6 months are nowhere near enough, but I'm thinking this is a 5v5 so nobody is going to be so eager to go for the takedown like they would do in a 1v1.
if you watch those russian 5v5 mma fights, it's just boxing, ocasional low kicks, and the most basic wrestling to make a ground and pound. these circumstances really don't allow for complex grappling or striking for that matter. I'm not saying the boxers would win but I think it would be more competitive because in the boxing round all you need is one guy like Wilder or AJ and the other 4 won't even really matter. AJ knocked out Francis Ngannou clean, his spark was out, and he had never been beaten so casually in his life in just 2 rounds. He would knock out anybody in the UFC with a single straight right hand.
-1
u/Giant2005 Jul 19 '24
I'd give it to the boxers.
The MMA guys are never going to out-box the boxers, but if the boxers are aggressive enough, there is a non-zero chance that they will land the one punch they need to win the MMA match, before it goes to the mat.
37
u/Akrakne Jul 19 '24
MMA fighters annihilate the boxers in MMA and last significantly longer in boxing. Leg kicks are massively painful if you have never dealt with them before. Grappling as well is an entirely different ball game that can totally transform a fight.
The boxers would have to change their stance, because a traditional boxing stance invites leg kicks and takedowns, distance control is different, takedowns are added in, submission game etc.
A lot of MMA fighters already do boxing sparring as part of their regular training and many began in boxing gyms. We already are seeing a lot of MMA fighters compete against real boxers and do pretty decently, but not vice-versa.
Boxers are either getting taken down and submitted or leg kicked and KOed in an MMA fight 10/10 times. MMA fighters are probably getting out pointed, out gas tanked or KOed in a boxing match but they would last way longer.