Mma vs box

[:::PSL:::]

George St. Pierre as a boxer?

He's currently training with Roach and Manny.

[AdamGB]

I'll give my thoughts...

A boxer is used to hitting with his hands wrapped, foam padded and then padded by gloves, somtimes up to 16oz during bag work etc.

This is primarily to proect his hands because generally bones in your hand aren't large enough to disperse the force generated... if you hit a reletavily padded object such as a head guard you'll know about it if you do it enough times and you'll know about it... anybody who's competed here even WEARING gloves will probably have had to stick there fists in ice after a fight if they can bang even a little bit. That's from hitting a human skull, harder than concrete... but you can pretty much punch as hard as you want to all night long without SERIOUS pain.

Try that shit bare knuckle and you'll probably break your hand if it's a solid hit.

MMA fighters on the other hand (excuse the pun) fight and train with a relativly small ammount of padding on the hands, to allow for grappling and because 'striking' is not a major part of the sport.

because of being conditioned this way I believe that in a street fight an MMA fighter is neurologically wired to pull his punches a little more because his body knows that it will break it's bones if it doesn't.

A boxer doesn't have this neurological brake, so he's more likely to swing with everything bare knuckle at what is essentiall concrete. When you factor in the fact that the boxer works exclusively on developing his punching as his form of attack and hasn't developed any inhibitions to punching a target with full force:

Who is more likely to hit harder? A Boxer
Who is less likely to fracture their had? An MMA fighter.

nothing to do with strength, technique, stronger bones or what ever you want to say... MMA fighters have to exercise more restraint in punching more for various reasons so are more likely to do it when the risk of breaking their hand is highest.

[Cresta]

If you're just judging on punches, I would take a hit by a MMA fighter over a boxer. The boxer will probably break his hand but not before he puts you on the floor with one good punch. But if you consider the overall skill set of each athlete, I think the MMA fighter is a much better and more physical of a fighter than a boxer. The only thing a boxer knows is to punch unlike a MMA fighter. -Jennifer Crestal, Medical Insurance Advisor

[AdamGB]

I agree, MMA has a much wider skill set... but most bxers know more than just punching...

You've also got head butts, elbows and grappling going on. Not that it means much but don't pigeon hole a boxer to just punching if we're talking no holds barred.
To be honest I find the whole MMA v boxing thing a bit stupid... as a sport each is a different discipline, up against each other one on one MMA would beat boxing a lot of the time.

But that's like saying that rugby players are better at football (soccer) than footballers... if a rugy team played a football team and picked the ball up and carried it whilst the footballers could only kick the ball then of course they'd win.

So the one on one thing is a bit stupid... as far as an actual street fight goes an arm bar or a choke hold aren't going to be much help... real rights don't last that long unless you're a bunch of teenagers fighting each other in a circle in a school playground

If you're in a bar fight then landing the first good punch is what's going to win it... any 'take downs' etc? forget it... as soon as it's on the floor the likely hood is that his mates will be kicking the shit out of the back of your head or worse, forgot your arm bars etc

An MMa fighter may have a wider range of skills but I don'tthink that they can actually apply that many more to the majority of fights you could end up in, it's al very well when you get guys sat on the mat talking about doing this or doing that but reality is often different... too many curveballs.