Why is MMA a threat to boxing?

[rjj tszyu]

The only real threat it poses to boxing is basically, for about 150 years+ boxing has led the way as far as combat sports go, but these days with all the money involved in boxing the promoters and the fighters like to make more money than they can spend in a lifetime in one night therefore the cards are no longer stacked like they once were because they can't afford to make £20 million for each main event fighter and the same again for the promoter and then put big names on the undercard. MMA and in particular the UFC fighter are not on anything like the money that Boxers are (I think the record purse is $500,000 for Chuck Liddel) so they can afford to stack the cards much better than boxing has been doing recently and ultimately they are getting a lot of old boxing fans watching their events.

As far as who is more skilled?? Elite Boxers are far more polished at what they do and if for example someone from another sport wanted to become either a boxer or MMA fighter they would find MMA the easier sport to reach somewhere near the top of. I'm not bashing MMA here this is just my opinion.

For example you have Brock Lesnar, big dude, strong as an Ox and former amateur wrestler before going and doing the fake stuff for WWE. He was sick of people calling him a fake and wanted to prove he was a tough guy. Now he could have chosen to learn Boxing and earned 20 times what he does now per fight had he reached the top or he could go to MMA which he did and he became UFC world champ after I think it was 4 MMA fights. Now fair enough he already had the wrestling background so MMA would probably always be the easier route but other examples such as Kimbo Slice and Matt Mitrione etc they could have chosen Boxing but didn't because they knew their mistakes would be punished within seconds against an elite boxer whereas in MMA you can get away with a lot of big mistakes especially when your stood up and not be punished.

Anderson Silva is probably the best MMA fighter on the planet right now and certainly the best striker in MMA, but when he tried boxing he was soundly beaten by TKO against a journeyman called Osmar Teixera. He then had another boxing match against someone who was simply there to even the record out. He had never been in a boxing ring before and has never been in one since. Some MMA fans have denied it ever happened but I can assure you it did, I'm looking for the video now and if I can find it I will post it on here. I have seen it before though.

Here is Andersons Boxing record if you want to check it out. Anderson Da Silva - Boxer

We must remember they are different sports though and Anderson is not a boxer he is an MMA genius if i'm honest. Expecting Anderson to be a great boxer would be like expecting Pele to be great at tennis.