By John-Paul Wolfe
With the meteoric rise of MMA, many martial artists and other combat athletes have been given an avenue to pursue their fighting passion professionally. Prior to the 1990’s very few people knew what MMA was and those who were exposed to it for the first time were turned off by the brutality and ‘no rules’ concept that placed it well below boxing on the scale of societal acceptability. But, for amateur wrestlers, judokas and others with fighting skill the emergence of MMA allowed them to test their discipline against all others, and for the elite it provided the ability to earn a living as a competitor.
In contrast, boxing has been a professional sport for over 100 years. Few high level amateur boxers are interested in pursuing MMA professionally. For a boxer to cross over to MMA they must first adapt their basic boxing techniques in order to defend against takedowns and leg kicks, this is no easy task.
Whenever the subject of MMA is brought up among boxers, comments such as ‘these guys don’t even know how to punch’ and ‘look at his hands, this guy can’t box at all’ are common and expected by those who have not experienced the shocking reality that muay thai and wrestling force boxing technique to change in order to remain effective in MMA.
Once a boxer has thoroughly revamped his skill set for MMA, he now must start as a beginner in wrestling, jiujitsu and kickboxing, a very unattractive idea to someone who spent years developing skills that allow for relative comfort in the ring and a seat as a one of their sports accomplished competitors. It is easy to see why there is no shortage of wrestlers and fighters of other styles transitioning to MMA, they have no other option other than coaching once their amateur career has concluded. Boxers on the other hand have always and still do have the opportunity to fight professionally in a sport that is essentially the same from amateur to pro.
Although no top pro boxers, excluding the well-aged Ray Mercer and James Toney, have made the switch to MMA there are some notable cage fighters who display high level boxing skill. Arguably the best hands in MMA belong to Fabio Maldonado. With a professional boxing record of 22-0 with 21 KOs Maldonado brings combination punching and head movement that is unmatched by his competition. Very few MMA fighters would choose to enter the cage and slug it out with Maldonado, but when the UFC was looking for a late replacement to fight Stipe Miocic after Junior Dos Santos suffered a broken hand they landed Maldonado and coincidentally set up what fans hope will turn into a boxing match inside of a cage.
Miocic is also no slouch when it comes trading leather in the ring. Having competed as an amateur boxer and winning a Golden Gloves title the former NCAA wrestler has showed that he prefers to slug it out in the cage rather than use his grappling to force the fight to the floor. Maldonado is moving up from 205lbs to heavyweight for this contest and hopes that the larger Miocic chooses to stand and bang. Not only will this be a highly entertaining fight but it also offers a rare matchup of two MMA fighters with exceptionally polished boxing. If ever there was a fight to examine the adaptation of boxing technique into MMA this is the one. This fight goes down in Brazil on May 31st and will be shown on Fox Sport 1.
