# The level of striking in MMA does not equal K1 or Pro Boxing?



## rogue-status (Oct 1, 2009)

I know this is abit jumbled but ive tried to ask the questions that i was wondering about. 

I was Re Watching Machida vs Evans the other day and the commentator says "The level of striking in MMA does not equal K1 or Pro Boxing but he stopped mid sentance as Machida put Evans on his ass. 

Now im not a dumb ass as the likes of K1 champs Bonjasky or Schilt only train in one main martial art "both being kickboxing i think" and the likes of Mayweather or Pacquiao have trained only boxing so there bound to be better strikers standing up with punches or kicks.
But i always thaught that the cream of the UFC in there prime like A.Silva, GSP, Bj Penn, Liddell, Machida, Rampage etc would almost be at the level of striking that non mma fighters are? Because most of them come from backgrounds in one martial art like Liddell who was a top kickboxer before he joined the UFC. So why do they say there striking is not on par with k1 etc??

In a anything goes fight surely a top mma fighter would use what ever skill they are best in to beat a boxer or kickboxer? like the gracie's that would just put anyone on the floor in seconds. 
Now there is certain fighters that would probably get creamed like Forrest Griffin or Chris Leben who have less technique and are more tough brawlers than perfect martial artists which shows in there fighting style compared to the fighters that grew up doing martial arts from young like Gsp or Silva. 

The majority of the main ufc fighters work on there hand work every day so why is there so many that cant box?? i can understand the likes of a wrestler taking years to master a good head kick but they should all be good with punch combinations etc.


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## Fieos (Mar 26, 2007)

MMA striking is a different sport than boxing or K-1. Different rules mean different threats means different techniques and stances.


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## ScouseMMAfan (Jan 7, 2010)

Kickboxers train primaly in standup an MMa fighters grapple and strike so Kickboxers are Obv gunna be better although there may be a few exceptions just look at overeem and i think anderson silva would have an succesful K1 career if he was bigger.


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## Onganju (May 26, 2006)

In a word: No.

Why? Well, just like many people fault TMA'ists and their styles, because of the way that many MMA fighters train.

Many times when MMA fighters train their striking, they train their striking with other good MMA guys, not good Boxers, or good Muay Thai guys or what not. However, with the folks who have trained with good strikers (or even better, good striking coaches), the difference is pretty evident. 

Take for instance Kenny Florian vs Takanori Gomi. Kenny kept his tactics on a very elementary boxing level (jab, circle out, break rhythm, jab again) and it paid dividends right up until the end of the fight. Not that Kenny should be in their fighting professional Middleweights in boxing, but his focus on working with good striking coaches is obvious.


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## mtt_c (Jun 15, 2008)

Yeah, Rogan was right about his comments. Ironically, Lyoto missed several of the subsequent punches to Rashad's head allthwwhile beating his azz and getting the KO. FloydMo would prolly KO a lot of dudes before they were able to launch into him. It's the force of the punches along with that precision violence to the opponent's head that is a really good deterrent to ground game.

It really sucks seeing an MMA'er try to only use boxing when his real skill is something different. Jake Shields beat Paul Daley b/c of the wrestling and bjj. Different story if it were a boxing match.


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## IronMan (May 15, 2006)

rogue-status said:


> I know this is abit jumbled but ive tried to ask the questions that i was wondering about.
> 
> I was Re Watching Machida vs Evans the other day and the commentator says "The level of striking in MMA does not equal K1 or Pro Boxing but he stopped mid sentance as Machida put Evans on his ass.
> 
> Now im not a dumb ass as the likes of K1 champs Bonjasky or Schilt only train in one main martial art "both being kickboxing i think" and the likes of Mayweather or Pacquiao have trained only boxing so there bound to be better strikers standing up with punches or kicks.


First, what needs to be understood is that the styles of striking are radically different. I'm going to come back to this alot, so I want to establish what exactly I mean.

In kickboxing, or in boxing, you are just thinking about the strikes. Because you are just thinking about the strikes, you are able to move in such a way that you are more capable of dodging the strikes of your opponent (you'll see the bob and weave that boxers engage sometimes involves a huge level change, this level change is not something you can engage in during an MMA fight, because of the potential for other kinds of attacks) and it changes the way that you have to think about the distance.

The way that distance is used in boxing and kickboxing is radically different than the way it is used in MMA. There is an additional amount of space created in MMA because of the threat of the shot. We see this with guys like Chuck Liddell and, more recently, Lyoto Machida, because these are guys who know how to work a few solid strikes and then get back to that range. In boxing and kickboxing, the range is slightly closer, with both boxers more consistently moving into striking range (though not always striking) and that puts more emphasis on the ability to evade strikes for a sustained period of time.

There are a number of other major factors. The fact that boxers don't need to think about getting hit in the clinch allows them to use it very differently than MMA fighters. The fact that boxers and kickboxers have to think more regularly about fights being broken up and restarted from inactive clinching positions changes the dynamics of the fight. They are radically different approaches to using the standup game.



> But i always thaught that the cream of the UFC in there prime like A.Silva, GSP, Bj Penn, Liddell, Machida, Rampage etc would almost be at the level of striking that non mma fighters are?


I don't know where you're getting this idea from.

The cross training involved in MMA makes these guys more well rounded, but it takes a lot of emphasis off of their primary styles. B.J. and Anderson and Machida are all great strikers, but they're not at the same level as the top tier strikers out there.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: I have plenty of respect for Anderson Silva's boxing ability, but if he boxes a serious top ten boxer in his weightclass, like Chad Dawson, he'd almost certainly lose. These are guys who are working on their hands and their head movement all day, every day.

All of the time that Anderson spends working on his jiu-jitsu and his wrestling is time that Dawson is spending working on his hands and his head movement.



> Because most of them come from backgrounds in one martial art like Liddell who was a top kickboxer before he joined the UFC. So why do they say there striking is not on par with k1 etc??


I don't know who told you Chuck Liddell was a "top kickboxer," but they're lying to you. Chuck was a very, very good kickboxer. He was never a top kickboxer.

Chuck Liddell's striking worked fantastically for MMA, as it gave him the appropriate distance to move in, use his big punches, then move out again to where he could keep his hands wide enough to counter-punch with those big haymakers and effectively avoid the shot.

If Chuck ever fought in K-1 or another major kickboxing organization, he'd lose.

I have a ton of respect for Chuck, but if you put him in the ring for a kickboxing match with Tyrone Spong or Gokhan Saki, both guys he'd probably have a size advantage against, they'd kick the crap out of him.



> In a anything goes fight surely a top mma fighter would use what ever skill they are best in to beat a boxer or kickboxer? like the gracie's that would just put anyone on the floor in seconds.


Of course. In MMA, I'd take Anderson Silva over Bernard Hopkins (or Vladimir Klitchko for that matter) and I'd take Liddell over Tyrone Spong.

But the question is not "who's better in NHB-style fighting?" because the answer is, obviously, the NHB-style fighter.




> Now there is certain fighters that would probably get creamed like Forrest Griffin or Chris Leben who have less technique and are more tough brawlers than perfect martial artists which shows in there fighting style compared to the fighters that grew up doing martial arts from young like Gsp or Silva.


This is where it gets redundant, but you have to understand: pretty much all of the MMA fighters out there are tough brawlers compared to Peter Aerts and Ernesto Hoost and Semmy Schilt.

Even Anderson Silva and GSP, who both have very good standup (Anderson much better than Georges, but anyway) probably aren't on the same level technically as Nathan Corbett or Nieky Holzken (respectively) and while that may be debatable with someone who's standup has looked as good as Anderson's lately, it's really not with Georges St. Pierre.

Let me put it this way: GSP is a phenomenal wrestler. He'd get destroyed by Buvaisar Saitiev.



> The majority of the main ufc fighters work on there hand work every day so why is there so many that cant box?? i can understand the likes of a wrestler taking years to master a good head kick but they should all be good with punch combinations etc.


There's a difference between "working on your hands every day" and "working on your hands all day every day."

That's the difference between, at best, three hours a day (MMA guys) and, at worst, six (boxers).

There's a big difference between 21 hours a week and 42-50.

BTW, I used a lot of names of strikers in this article that people might not know, so I linked in the wikipedia pages. It's not to be condescending or anything, just that some of the names are a little obscure and some are pretty hard to spell, so I figure the hyperlink would make people's lives easier.


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## HellRazor (Sep 24, 2006)

The obvious comparison is to a decathlete. (or heptathlon, in the case of women.) How many of them hold the world record in ONE of the individual sports involved. I think Jackie Joyner Kersee did at one point, with the long jump, but that may even be wrong. And I can't think of any guys that did.

Do you want a general practitioner doing open heart sugery on you, or a heart surgeon?

There are a few guys who, in theire hey day, might have cross over into a specialty. GSP, right now, miht be a top twenty, even top ten in the world wrestler in his weight class. Maybe. But how good would he be when he can't whack guys in the face or threaten to rip their arm off?

Spencer Fisher has very good hands and a very boxer standup style. But again, when you can't go for a leg when a guy dazes you, things change.

Muy Thai, karate, the same problem shows up. When you get hurt, and you CAN'T shift styles, what happens when you're facing a purist? You get beat down.

One day, somebody is going to be boxing champ and mma champ, or hold the Olympic gold medal in wrestling, and be mma champ. But it will be some kind of genetic freak like Lesnar.

Put Anderson Silva up in a boxing match, and the opponent would just put his gloves on either side of his face and chase Silva til he got him in a corner. Those big gloves, no kicks, no takedowns .... please. But that same boxer would last exactly as long as Silva wanted him conscious, if they fought in the UFC.


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## Choke_Wire (Aug 9, 2006)

Ya for sure mma striking is below striking sports....duh

but i wonder for how long. I mean as a striker who only fight mma now im seeing waht a real....key word...REAL striker can do....i mean look at Anderson, he makes people look kinda silly dont u think?

all im sayin i think in ten years mma is good look a bit diffrent.


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## osmium (Mar 6, 2007)

I am a huge K1 fan but Andy is a better striker than the majority of the people who fight in it. A lot of the guys in K1 have bad head movement and footwork. He couldn't beat the huge great heavyweights like Badr, Remy, and Semmy but he would **** Aerts shit up and basically beat everyone that is his size. Just watch the latest 70g Max the cross dresser with a weak chin won becuase he was the only guy with proper footwork and head movement.


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