The MMA vs Boxing Debate.
By Geoff Poundes
Oh No. Just when you thought the Mayweather clan was wising up, Floyd Jnr
turns up with his very own characteristically warped view of the MMA versus
Boxing debate, in which he pretty much states that MMA was the creation of
Caucasian fighting folk who couldn’t cut it in the boxing ring with blacks.
Setting aside the ignorance of the comment, and the midget intellect of the man
who uttered it, it’s worth examining what it is about MMA that so irks those
traditionalists who call themselves boxing fans.
I’m afraid I count myself as one of them. Boxing has seeped into my bones over
thirty-five years of absorbing the history and grace of the sport, as well as its
hopeless contradictions and inevitable controversies. For all of its failings, boxing
remains the most civilised way for individuals who like to fight to air their
differences. It’s also the most civilised way for those of us who like to watch them
fight to do so.
It’s the art that makes the difference. Just as there is beauty in the ballet, at its
height boxing is the purest form of a dance that’s borne of the streets and of the
ghettoes – the working man’s theatre of dreams. It’s violence made good, lifted
from schoolyard brawls and bar-skirmishes into a climactic and worthy art-form
that quickens the senses and sharpens the intellect. At its core boxing appeals to
the basest of all human emotions, the curiosity for the violence that dwells in all
of us, and lends it legitimacy.
But for me that “attraction” is only made real if I get a proper sense that boxers
are operating in a controlled environment in which limits are placed upon their
own bravery. That environment encompasses the way they are initiated into the
sport, how they’re managed and manufactured, and ultimately the protection
they’re afforded while they swap punches.
For me, it’s that legitimacy that is missing from Mixed Martial Arts. I was recently
asked to research an article into MMA here in the UK, and hit upon the idea of
writing about a debutant fighter. I traced a young 28 year old called Charlie
Biggrig, who was about to have his first cage fight in June, and met up with him.
Charlie had recently come off a spell in prison (his second), and had a history of
violence which he admitted was mostly alcohol-induced. He’d been introduced to
MMA by a friend, and began training with a view to a fight. Charlie was not a
martial artist, had never boxed or wrestled, but “liked a fight.” He found out about
a cage-fighting event that was being held in London in June, asked the
organisers if he could be involved, and was duly added to the bill.
I asked Charlie if the organisers had asked him to prove that he could fight: they
hadn’t. I asked him if he needed a licence of some sort to prove that he could
fight: there was no such thing. I asked him if he was required to take a medical
exam at any point in the build up to the fight: not at all.
Charlie went through with the fight, and lost in 1:44 seconds of the first round by
something called a “tap-out guillotine” (!).
Now I know that proponents of MMA point to a near-spotless fatality record, and
that they shout loud and long that boxing is more dangerous to the health,
principally because of the volume of punches delivered over the longer course.
They expound that fighting is fighting, that professional cage-fighters are highly
skilled and work hard at what they do – and at the higher levels of MMA I’m sure
they’re right.
But it’s not beautiful. It’s like taking a swordsman, who has studied the elegance
and craft of his art for a lifetime, and putting a club in his hand and spikes in his
boots and asking him to perform. Sure, his bouts will be over sooner, will be
bloodier and less decisive, but what about the loss of all that artistry and grace?
And what troubles me about the main body of the audiences that flock to these
events is that artistry is the least of their concerns. They’re the same people who
surround bar-room brawlers or leer at reality TV to get a better look at the blood
and the guts. Now you’ll tell me that there’s plenty of blood in boxing, and so
there is, and that Charlie Bigrigg was the thin edge of a wedge.
I don’t believe that he is, or that the blood spilt in a boxing ring is equivalent to
the blood shed in a cage. I don’t believe that MMA has a great deal to offer those
of us who look for nobility in our sport.
To some extent that’s because I’ve seen street-fighting, and find it
indistinguishable from MMA, and both leave me with a sickly feeling in the pit of
my stomach. Of course, I’ve had that feeling around a boxing ring also – but it’s
the exception and not the norm. I’ve also felt the comfort of knowing that at every
level of the game when boxers get involved something is being done behind the
scenes, and in the ring, to minimize their risks. I just don’t get that same sense
from MMA.
What boxing doesn’t need is justification from the likes of Mayweather Jnr, if that
justification is borne not of intellect but of ego. Of course a truly proficient MMA’er
would beat a truly proficient boxer in the Octagon, as would a world-class boxer
beat a world champion cage-fighter under Marquis of Queensberry rules,
whatever their race, colour or creed. I also know that neither fight would be
pretty, or meaningful, or edifying.
So should the UK follow the American model and start offering dual cards, with
boxing and MMA bouts following one on from another, I’m afraid I’ll be in the bar
when the grappling and the kicking and the elbowing and the ground-games
begin. I certainly have no desire to see a man “guillotined”.
I guess its just what’s in your bones.