Mixed Martial Arts vs Boxing
During my trip to New York, I went on a long hike with one of my best friends, DJ. Plenty of time to discuss the important and the trivial, and one of the less serious topics was Mixed Martial Arts vs. Boxing.
DJ is one of the wisest people that I know, a description I rarely hear today, and I consider it an honor to be a friend of his. He is able to keep the distractions of life separate from his focus on his family and his art, so idle talk for him is a rarity.
I think debate is the best way to refine and test your views, so I will converse on topics from the inane to the serious with anyone willing. A talk about sports would be a good chance for me to see if I can knock him down a peg.
The debate of MMA versus Boxing is well-known. Boxing is an ancient sport, with all the accolades and criticisms of an institution which has been long established but at a plateau. MMA is less than twenty-five years old, still a very new sport to most. The uninitiated see the unfamiliar strikes with elbows and knees, seemingly more vicious because they are forbidden in boxing. The subtleties of grappling, the minute advantages of position and hold, are easily missed.
This is actually an odd debate for me. I used to be a big boxing fan, but now I watch only MMA. After a short discussion with DJ, I realized, he had never seen a MMA match.
Debating someone who knows little about your viewpoint can be very difficult. You can make a very informed point which will be contested with erroneous hearsay.
I also realized that my old friends are boxing fans and dislike the newcomer of MMA. In another way, this argument became a discussion of the new versus the old. I have lived outside New York for many years, and my friends, for the most part, have stayed at home.
When I first left New York, I moved to New Orleans, and I had a friend who was into MMA. He had actually fought a few matches and invited me to his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. For those who are unfamiliar, combat arts like wrestling and kickboxing are also as old as boxing, but Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was the unifying element.
Boxing can be defined by what it is not. You are only allowed to strike with your fists; any other attack will disqualify an opponent. The other components of MMA are also limited by what is verboten (boxing fans might not realize that boxing is an important part of MMA). Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is unique because there is nothing forbidden, and it focused on one surety in any no-holds-barred fight: it is going to the ground.
A friend had watched the one of the first Ultimate Fighting Championship matches live, now the premier organization for MMA. He was expert in Karate, and he wanted to see how his discpline would fare against the other styles. But he mentioned his disappointment when no matter what style was used, no matter how skilled the fighters were, every bout quickly became an undisciplined brawl.
But he noticed the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner was extremely successful. Every fight of his went quickly to the ground, the goal of a good Jiu-Jitsu fighter. After it went to the ground, the Jiu-Jitsu black belt would go to his repertoire of locks and chokes to submit his opponent, forcing him to surrender, or simply unload elbows and fists onto his immobilized foe.
I can’t say I won the debate with DJ. I went easy on him by choosing the most obvious arguments, like how a MMA fighter can beat a boxer in a street fight (pretty obvious when one guy is punching and the other guy is going to punch, kick, and the weak spot of any stand-up fighter, use takedowns). DJ would counter with, “Well the best boxer can take the worst MMA fighter”. I would be forced to agree, especially since such a match could never happen. I have seen several boxers lose to wrestlers, but I could not explain that to someone who has never seen a MMA bout.
I would have “won” if I was more dismissive, like you’ve never seen a MMA fight, or a tangential point like how MMA is growing in popularity and force DJ to defend why boxing is losing their audience. But arguments like that are not conducive to civil conversation, and I was not going to score some cheap points on my best friend.
Now that I am home in San Francisco, I realize my varied experiences having lived across the United States. I met the girlfriend of a fighter who won a championship fight on TV last weekend at a San Francisco bar. That fighter’s dojo is in Pleasant Hill, three blocks away from the bike shop I worked at.
I guess that is what I take away from debating with DJ.
DJ is one of the wisest people that I know, a description I rarely hear today, and I consider it an honor to be a friend of his. He is able to keep the distractions of life separate from his focus on his family and his art, so idle talk for him is a rarity.
I think debate is the best way to refine and test your views, so I will converse on topics from the inane to the serious with anyone willing. A talk about sports would be a good chance for me to see if I can knock him down a peg.
The debate of MMA versus Boxing is well-known. Boxing is an ancient sport, with all the accolades and criticisms of an institution which has been long established but at a plateau. MMA is less than twenty-five years old, still a very new sport to most. The uninitiated see the unfamiliar strikes with elbows and knees, seemingly more vicious because they are forbidden in boxing. The subtleties of grappling, the minute advantages of position and hold, are easily missed.
This is actually an odd debate for me. I used to be a big boxing fan, but now I watch only MMA. After a short discussion with DJ, I realized, he had never seen a MMA match.
Debating someone who knows little about your viewpoint can be very difficult. You can make a very informed point which will be contested with erroneous hearsay.
I also realized that my old friends are boxing fans and dislike the newcomer of MMA. In another way, this argument became a discussion of the new versus the old. I have lived outside New York for many years, and my friends, for the most part, have stayed at home.
When I first left New York, I moved to New Orleans, and I had a friend who was into MMA. He had actually fought a few matches and invited me to his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. For those who are unfamiliar, combat arts like wrestling and kickboxing are also as old as boxing, but Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was the unifying element.
Boxing can be defined by what it is not. You are only allowed to strike with your fists; any other attack will disqualify an opponent. The other components of MMA are also limited by what is verboten (boxing fans might not realize that boxing is an important part of MMA). Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is unique because there is nothing forbidden, and it focused on one surety in any no-holds-barred fight: it is going to the ground.
A friend had watched the one of the first Ultimate Fighting Championship matches live, now the premier organization for MMA. He was expert in Karate, and he wanted to see how his discpline would fare against the other styles. But he mentioned his disappointment when no matter what style was used, no matter how skilled the fighters were, every bout quickly became an undisciplined brawl.
But he noticed the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner was extremely successful. Every fight of his went quickly to the ground, the goal of a good Jiu-Jitsu fighter. After it went to the ground, the Jiu-Jitsu black belt would go to his repertoire of locks and chokes to submit his opponent, forcing him to surrender, or simply unload elbows and fists onto his immobilized foe.
I can’t say I won the debate with DJ. I went easy on him by choosing the most obvious arguments, like how a MMA fighter can beat a boxer in a street fight (pretty obvious when one guy is punching and the other guy is going to punch, kick, and the weak spot of any stand-up fighter, use takedowns). DJ would counter with, “Well the best boxer can take the worst MMA fighter”. I would be forced to agree, especially since such a match could never happen. I have seen several boxers lose to wrestlers, but I could not explain that to someone who has never seen a MMA bout.
I would have “won” if I was more dismissive, like you’ve never seen a MMA fight, or a tangential point like how MMA is growing in popularity and force DJ to defend why boxing is losing their audience. But arguments like that are not conducive to civil conversation, and I was not going to score some cheap points on my best friend.
Now that I am home in San Francisco, I realize my varied experiences having lived across the United States. I met the girlfriend of a fighter who won a championship fight on TV last weekend at a San Francisco bar. That fighter’s dojo is in Pleasant Hill, three blocks away from the bike shop I worked at.
I guess that is what I take away from debating with DJ.
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