5 Reasons why MMA is killing Boxing.
‘Fighting’ is a timeless art. Regardless of the rules or format of combat sport competition, fighting is something that appeals to the primal urges and the basic instinct of human beings. Fighting is in our DNA. Now although boxing and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) have existed since the ancient times, the recognition and refinement of the two aforementioned combat sports, is fairly recent.
Pro-Boxing has been recognized as a sport since the early 19th century whereas MMA originated from Vale Tudo in the early 1920s; and has been popularized all over the world after the rise of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Pride Fighting Championships (Pride FC).
Boxing is a martial art that involves the usage of punches (to the head and body), foot-work and body movement among other pugilistic skills. The sport of boxing involves a full-contact fight (bout) contested between two boxers wearing protective gloves (boxing gloves), for a pre-determined amount of time; until one of the two combatants is unable to continue or the time runs out.
MMA is an art in itself, and represents the usage of every martial art style in the world, in order to compete against one’s opponent. The sport of MMA is contested in either a cage or a ring, between two Mixed Martial Artists (MMA fighters) for a pre-determined amount of time; until one of the two combatants is unable to continue or the time runs out.
As opposed to boxing that only allows the use of pugilism/boxing that is a striking-based martial art, MMA allows the usage of various striking as well as grappling-based martial arts.
With the advent of globalization and the modern-day advancements in medical-science and technology, MMA is the fastest growing sport in the world today. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, martial artists from different parts of the world considered their own martial art style to be supreme and held very little regard for the fighting styles of foreign martial artists.
However, with the popular portrayal of various martial arts styles in Hollywood movies as well as Asian and European Cinema; martial artists all over the world have progressively become more open-minded and accepting of foreign martial arts styles.
This increase in global communication and open-mindedness has served to accentuate the development of the sport of MMA, which as its name suggests is a sport that involves the usage of every martial art in the world.
This increasing popularity of the sport of MMA combined with the dwindling influence of boxing in recent years, has sparked endless debates pitting MMA and boxing against each other. In spite of being relatively new as a business, in comparison to boxing, MMA constantly keeps taking the spotlight away from boxing.
Let’s take a brief look at a few things that are helping MMA knock-out boxing-