Gymbo Knows

Matt has been roughed up in his last two fights. Alves put a hurting on him and St. Pierre schooled him. Everyones saying Matt Hughes should hang em up but I feel Matt should stick around. Matt just came across two very hungry and talented fighters. It was their time.

Matt should hang around and take care of some unfinished business with Matt Serra (He said he will fight Serra after Alves no matter what). Hughes hates Serra and after dealing with that freak on the show he deserves to fight him and get paid to do it. No sense fighting unless your gonna get paid for it right. Hughes is gonna wreck Serra and send him back to Long Island crying his eyes out. Serra’s victory over Georges St. Pierre was a fluke and it was proven when St. Pierre dismantled him in two rounds. Hughes is going to run over Matt Serra and prove he still has enough left in the tank to compete with the best fighters in the world.

Boxing has been on the decline for a long time now. The sweet science is slowing disappearing from the eyes of the average sports fan. What could be the reasoning behind the fall of boxing? Is it the fact that most young males have found the new and improved sport of mixed martial arts. MMA is beating up boxing in pay per view buys, gate revenue, fans and pretty much everything. The only thing boxing has is history and nostalgia.

Boxing fans can tell the great stories about “The Rumble in the Jungle” or the “Thrilla in Manilla.” They can go on forever about great fighters like Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali. Mixed Martial Arts is still a very young sport and some of the all-time greats are still fighting today. MMA is building up its history. In a couple years from now MMA fans will be able to say remember Matt Hughes, Tito Ortiz, George St. Pierre, Anderson Silva, Rampage Jackson, BJ Penn and so on. It’s been great watching mixed martial arts grow and continue to grow.

So, when was the last time you were really excited about a boxing fight? Oscar De La Hoya vs Floyd Mayweather you’ll probably answer. Well. when was the last time you got together with the guys for a boxing fight other then the De La Hoya or Mayweather fight? Most people will have a hard time answering that questions. They’d probably say something like the last Mike Tyson fight.

Here is a clip from Bryan Burwell’s article “Latest bout with Insanity comes to CBS”

“Boxing’s decline has nothing to do with a lack of raw action. It has more to do with a void in the great talent that once dominated the sport. All I want is for someone to realize what a distasteful freak show mixed martial arts is in this bastardized form. What I want is for sane folks to slow down this gradual slide into a post-Apocalypic haze in which the worst elements of human nature are sanctioned and celebrated. What I want is for us to stop glorifying the most deviant aspects of our own personalities, the ones in which pit bulls, roosters and human beings can be gored, gouged and brutalized for sport, and where intelligence is a fault and the dumbing down of our society is considered a point of pride.”

1. He’s right boxing’s decline has nothing to do with a lack of raw action. Boxing has plenty of action it just takes forever for promoters to put the top fighters against one another. Prime Example is Roy Jones Jr. vs Felix Trinadad, I wanted to see that fight like 10 years ago.

2. Boxing’s decline has to with poor marketing. The average person doesn’t know who the top boxers in the world are. The Boxing fans may know who Joe Calzaghe, Chad Dawson, Mikkel Kessler, Ricky Hatton, Kelly Pavlik but no one else does.

3. No quality boxing cards. When was the last time boxing put together a card with more then one good fight on it? They need to put a card together with more then one quality fight. The UFC atleast has a main event, sub-main event and another quality match up people care about. Boxing has one fight. Sorry to say but the average boxing fan doesn’t watch the under card bouts.

4. Boxing has plenty of talent. How can the athletes in every other sport get bigger and better each year but boxing has no talent. It’s just poor marketing and MMA is kicking their ass in the area of marketing.

Bryan Burwell is obviously a big time boxing loyalist and very ignorant when it comes to the sport of mixed martial arts. Boxing is a brutal sport, just like MMA. Boxing has two guys going toe to toe in the ring trying to do harm to one another, just like MMA. The only difference is MMA you can kick, perform submissions and take the fight to the ground. For the most part the “Fight of Year” in boxing is usually given to the fight where both fighters are beating the piss out of each other for 12 rounds (Gatti vs Ward 1 and 2). Fight fans go to a boxing or MMA bout hoping to see two guys laying it all out on the line. In the end its pretty much the same thing isn’t it.

Related articles:

• Boxing’s Real Top Ten…A Politic Free Account

Should Mixed Martial Arts be allowed on Prime Time Television?

The sport that was once called “human cockfighting” by Presidential candidate John McCain, finally made its national television debut on Prime Time television. It was a major step for the sport of mixed martial arts, but MMA still isn’t getting the respect it deserves. Should MMA even be allowed on broadcast television?

Of course Mixed Martial Arts belongs on network television. MMA fighters are some of the greatest athletes in the world and they deserve to be seen by the world just like every other athlete. There is nothing wrong with two professionals going toe to toe in the ring or the cage. It’s a sport and it deserves national attention just like every other sport in the world.

Is MMA to violent for national television? There are hundreds of violent shows regularly on network television. Why all of a sudden is MMA too violent? You flip through your basic cable channels and you will find plenty of violence. I’ve seen stuff 10 times worse on a regular news broadcast.

Most of the old school sports broadcasters like (Bryan Burwell) refuse to give the sport a chance. They make comments like “The sport is too violent. People are kicking one another in the head.” That right there is just an uneducated statement. These ignorant columnist like Bryan Burwell are just stuck in their old school views. I bet Bryan Burwell has never actually been in mixed martial arts gym or fighting gym. Bryan Burwell hasn’t seen the dedication and skill required to get in the cage. He thinks these guys are all bar room brawlers with no training.

Here are a couple paragraphs taken from Bryan Burwell’s article Lastest Bout with Insanity Comes to CBS:

—”This crazed, unrestrained violence allows men with thinly padded leather on their fists to pummel each other nonstop, even when your opponent is on the ground. It allows you to knee your opponent in the groin, then while he’s prone on the ground, pound him in the head, choke him, or squeeze his torso with your legs locked around him, attempting to rupture kidneys and squeeze the air out of lungs.”—-

Obviously his statements are from someone who knows nothing about the sport.

1. The fighters are not aloud to pummel each other non stop for one. Their is a referee and he steps in to stop the bout just like boxing when one fighter is unable to defend himself.

2. Two the sport does not allow groin shots. If someone is hit in the groin they are allowed ample time to recover just like in boxing. MMA use to be anything goes but has evolved since the days of UFC 1.

3. Squeezing someones torso with your legs is really not that painful. Its uncomfortable but obviously Bryan Burwell has never grappled or wrestled before so he wouldn’t know the feeling.

Heres another quote from Bryan Burwell’s Article:

“Ultimate fighting and all the other ultimate fighting leagues want the world to embrace their bloody human cockfighting as a replacement for boxing as a real combat sport, and now they have CBS as a co-conspirator in this fraud. They reason that the world has proclaimed them as legitimate, simply because their barbarism is now on network television.”

1. Boxing and Ultimate fighting can coexist in the world. They are two completely different combat sports. Boxing is the sweet science and it will be around forever. MMA is a combination of all the martial arts in the world. Boxing enthusiast are obviously threaten by Mixed Martial Arts.

2. Mixed Martial Arts actually involves more skill then Boxing. MMA fighters must train in multiple disciplines of martial arts. Boxers only have to train for one martial art. MMA fighters are not barbarians, they are highly trained athletes.

3. Boxing enthusiasts should put more energy into talking about their sport of boxing rather then bash mixed martial artist. Columnist and Broadcasters should actually study the sport and know what they are talking about before they go on rambling ignorant comments.

MMA belongs on network television, its been in the dark far too long. CBS was the only network brave enough to broadcast mixed martial arts on national television and it will pay off for them in the long run. Mixed martial arts is the combat sport of the future and look for it to stick around for a long time.

Related articles:

• CBS to broadcast first live MMA fights on May 31