After last weeks "Boxing vs. MMA" bout between boxing champ James "Lights Out" Toney against UFC star Randy "The Natural" Couture live on UFC 118 PPV, many fans and sports athletes have been wondering on which combat sport is dominating the other, based on PPV sales, gate attendance and the winner between two fighters of different sport.
Today's sport stars like UFC Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, Bobby Lashley and Bob Sapp all became professional wrestlers first before trying out their skills in MMA.While Anderson Silva, Eric "Butterbean" Esch, Marcus Davis hanged up their gloves to pursue a MMA career. Other notable fighters like Vladimir Kozlov, Ken Shamrock, Sylvester Turkay and Daniel Puder are all trained MMA fighters who transitioned to WWE, a sports-entertainment wrestling brand.
With all people buzzing around and wondering, The Fighting Pride asked some sports analyst to take on topics varying from transitioning fighters to which brand is better than the another.
Asked about why do fighters, despite being on the peak of their career, switched from boxing or pro-wrestling to MMA, one of Philippines' most-respected sport analyst Ed Tolentino said: "MMA offers an intriguing challenge to anyone who is engaged in particular discipline. The offer of big bucks for short bouts is very tempting. In most cases, wrestlers and boxers who are already over-the-hill switch to MMA switch to salvage whatever remains in their careers. Rare is the case of Brock Lesnar. But note that he only joined MMA after he failed make it as a football player in NFL."
In 2009, MMA's "UFC 100" PPV garnered the most PPV buys for the year while boxings "Fire Power: Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto" have the second most buys. That's why the fight fans are having thoughts, is the boxing losing it's fans to MMA world? "No. Die hard boxing fans as are loyal as they come." says Anthony George of Zutes Sports Show. "There seems to be more MMA gyms in the U.S. than boxing gyms.UFC is the biggest brand in all of combat sports and young guys are attracted to that. The trouble is, boxing is not attractive enough to young people." Archer added. Tolentino seems to agree with the boxing's rich stories by saying that: "Boxing has a lot of history behind it. However, they need to police it's ranks to keep MMA at a safe distance."
With Couture of MMA defeating Toney of boxing, some fans assumed that MMA is the one really dominating the world of combat sports. But Lesnar, a NCAA champion and former WWE wrestler himself, proved to be that even a man form another sport can become a MMA champ. How do really former boxers and wrestlers fare in MMA? "Nowadays, there is not just one discipline that will amke it in MMA, you have to be well rounded. Wrestlers do well in MMA because it allows most of them to pick-up the BJJ discipline a lot easier than folks with no wrestling base." says Archer.
And asked if Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr., two of the boxing world's best fighters, do stand a chance in MMA, Tolentono said: "Yes. As long as you have legitimate martial arts background, you can excel. Pacquiao and Mayweather are legit boxers."
(TheBloggerSays: It's good to have Mr. Tolentino and Mr. Archer to have this conversation. I do really believe in what they say, and I respect it.. Thank you guys.)
