Joe Rogan did say something very interesting in his debate with Dou Dibella.

He said that boxing is itself a form of martial arts and I would have to agree. He then went on to say that it is just one form of martial arts and therefore fighting, in the same way that jutitsu is one form, and karate another.

He then went on to argue that MMA is about the art of total fighting, pitting the best guys from each discipline against each other to find out which martial arts disciplines are the most effective in a total combat situation.

I really like what he was saying. Dibella argued nonsensically that boxing was the 'sweet science' but taken individually you would have to agree that every martial art has just as much of a 'sweet science' to it as boxing. The world's best jujitsu guys, the best wrestlers, the best kung fu guys they all have tremendous skill and have certainly perfected their own 'sweet sciences'.

Rogan then went on to argue that until the emergance of MMA tournaments and organistations in the recent past these guys had no way of entering professional competitions and pursuing their sports at the highest level.

Now with the MMA, Pride and other organistations we have for the first time the potential to see the development of the science of 'complete unarmed combat' and the eventul emergence of the complete fighting machine.

This to me, and other's who 'get it' is amazingly exciting. Finally after hundreds of years of speculation and theory we are finally seeing, in demonstration how each martial art compares and how useful they are in a practical real world situation of fighting.

As more and more people get on board, and better and more skilled athletes participate we will in time see the complete martial arts system.

In the long term, if this is realised it has the potential to completely overshadow boxing and reduce it to a sideshow.

For boxing to maintain it's popularity it has to be aware of the things the UFC is getting right and imitate them.

Cater to the fans, make boxing more freely available on television, ensure the best fights get made, clean up the bad judging, reduce the weight of the gloves, change the rules slighty to make more aggressive fighting rewarded, introduce action replays to help the referees etc

If they don't the UFC will only continue to make inroads into boxing, taking away not only its PPV revenue but also its best young talents.