What
you going by the state of his nose?

Well you have answered my question anyway thanks lol. Sorry I assumed he was UFC.

Just doesn't seem the type of sport that would welcome someone back after his media antics.

This isn't so true. UFC is still a relativly young sport if you compare it to boxing. It's still evolving, and it's still creating its fanbase. You could say it didn't really become mainstream until 2001 when it was taken off by the current management. It's therefore harder for current champions to create win streaks, when a lot of the best fighters in the world didn't even enter the organisation until a few years ago. At the moment, the belt holder of each class really is on another level than the rest of the division. I'm not sure if you follow UFC or know the current champions, but:

155lbs: BJ Penn recently defeated the no2 and no3 ranked people in the division (both by stoppage) UFC are struggling for opponents that can give him a run for his money. There are a lot of amazing and highly talendated 155lb fighters in the UFC right now, but as soon as they are mentioned in the same sentence as BJ Penn, they don't look anywhere near as prime.

170lbs: Georges St. Pierre is probably the most gifted mixed martial artist in the UFC right now. If you had to rank every fighter out of 10 for each discipline, and then added up the results, Georges would be a clear winner. He has also cleaned out the division, and has beaten no2 and no3 convincingly. His skills as a mixed martial artist have progressed so much that he's a strong condidate for the canadian wrestling team at the 2012 olympics.

185lbs: Anderson Silva joined the UFC, won his first fight and was given a title shot based on his raw skill. He won the title and has won his last 9 fights in a row. He's moved up a weight class and hasn't been defeated there either. He's cleaned out the division completely, and is ranked top 3 in most peoples "pound4pound best fighter" lists.

205lbs: Lyoto Machida, 16-0, with one of the best fight resumes in the game right now in caliber of opponents beaten. The 205lb division is fairly stacked in quality opponents, so it may take a while for him to work his way through the rest of them.

225+lbs: Brock Lesnar, this is another topic in itself, but Brock isn't the best heavyweight fighter in the UFC, or the world. His size advantage helps him massively in fights, and he hasn't fought anyone near the best of the division yet. (Unless Frank Mir counts).

To sum up, the current champions are currently so far above the rest of their division and are leading to the consistency you mention doesn't exist. How long this consistency lasts is hard to predict. As I mentioned the sport is still evolving at a rapid pace. Fighters are training harder than ever, going under extreme workouts and dietry control to make sure they are in peak fitness. This is due to the fact that the current belt holders are another level above, if they want to make the fight competitive they really need to be in the best physical shape they can.


The beauty of mixed martial arts is that nobody is perfect at them all. A world class wrestler usually has average Ju Jitsu skills. A boxer and striker might have very bad wrestling skills. Fighters tend to use their best skills on their offence, identifying their opponents weakness and use that information to try and finish the fight.

The one punch knockout is the same in both Boxing and MMA. When a fighter throws a punch, it's with the intention of knocking the other guy out. I'm not a believer of the whole 'lucky punch' thing. If a fighter throws a punch, and his opponent doesn't correctly block it and he gets knocked out, then the guy fully deserves the win. Yes, sometimes upsets happen this way, but it's the unpredictablity of the sport that makes it entertaining to watch. It would be boring if someone never lost wouldn't it


I won't go into the Brock thing much, but he's far from invincible and doesn't really have that much MMA training. He's managed to outsize his opponents currently, but there are a few guys in the UFC (and one outside the organisation) who would probably beat him, should the fights occur. Being larger and stronger is not everything, and as a boxing fan you should know that. I'm assuming you watched the Hayes v Valuev match.

You kind of stated the obvious and turned it into an attack against MMA. Of course boxing requires finer skills, that's because there's only 1 main discipline, so boxers have more time to focus on it. MMA fighters don't have the time to master every style. Back in the UFC's old days, fighters were pitched against each other to see which fighting style was the best. Each fighter only really had 1 skill, and the fights were often really 1 sided.
As for the xx wins and zero losses meaning something, I don't really see it like that. Boxing inflate their fighters by giving them 'cans' to fight to bump up their records, and create a bigger hype on fight day (which in turn sells tickets). Look at Joe Calzaghe for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Cal..._boxing_record. 46-0, but who are half these guys? His early and mid career was built around guys with little to no skill, and half these guys are so unknown they don't even have a wiki page. If you take Joe's record vs people who aren't fed to him, maybe it would be a lot more realistic. Compare that to Lyoto Machida for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyoto_Machida, nearly every guy on his win list is a strong, competitive fighter. 46-0 sounds better than 16-0, but if you look closely in this case, it's probably about the same.

Losses in UFC are something to learn from, and make for interesting rematches. Brock Lesnar's debut fight, he was pounding down on Frank Mir and was seconds away from finishing the fight, but due to having no submission defence at all, Frank grabbed a knee and locked it into submission. Brock then went away, learnt some defence and came back and avenged that loss.

It seems if you lose at the high end of boxing, you aren't marketable anymore and you get dropped or retire.

Due to the unviability of this, it's impossible to predict what would happen, but it would be interesting from a fighting perspective. Would the better fighters adapt quicker to learning their opponents weaknesses, and continuality use it against them? Possibly yes.


I don't think any UFC fighters even claim to be anywhere near world class at boxing. They are training harder all the time, and a lot of fighters have boxing coaches in their training regime now. It's hard to compare both the sports, because both win in their own rights. Put a boxer in a cage, and hes going to get taken to the ground, beaten up until the ref breaks it up or the fight ends by submission. Similiary, put a MMA fighter in a boxing ring and tell him to box vs a boxer, he's going to get knocked out.

The two sports aren't really comparable, even though they are both a combat sport. Here's a good youtube clip about boxing vs MMA and two people from each sport defending it. (starts about 45secs). You should watch it :blush:

I've never said combining disciplines generated a more skill-intensive sport, just a different skill tested. You, on the other hand, stated that it automatically became LESS skill-intensive. Which is not true.

To take an example related to your "Ultimate Ballistics Championship", look at decathlon. It's basically "Ultimate Track and Field". Still, the top contenders are every bit as consistent as in any separate discipline. This single-handledly falsifies your theory about diversification leading to randomness.