Why does Mixed Martial Arts seem less acceptable than boxing, when in fact it is actually safer?

Question

Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA, is growing very fast in popularity in the US. I personally think it'll take over boxing.

Answer 1

Simply because it's newer and it includes moves us Westerners aren't used to in fights. Until 10 years ago, you never saw a street fight that included kicks and throws as well as punches.

I do simple TKD and people think that my sport/art is more violent than boxing (Which is a major fallacy because we're padded much more than any boxer when in competition)

Wait a while when boxing becomes a dying sport. MMA will become more recognized and be seen as a bit more safe.

Answer 2

People feel that boxing is safer because they wear gloves. In reality, the gloves cause more deaths because boxers put more power into their punches without worrying about breaking their hands, boxing's goal is solely knocking a competitor unconscious, and a boxer takes many more punches to the head compared to a NHB (no holds barred) athlete.

MMA/NHB athletes need to be more mindful of breaking their hands because they either have very light or are not wearing gloves. MMA matches can be won through a variety of ways, not just punching someone until they can not get up anymore. MMA fighters take less punishment to their head than boxers.

I enjoy both sports and both need more recognition around the world.

Answer 3

"New" combat sports come and go. In the 1980s the PKA did a good job of promoting full-contact karate in North America and was quite popular for a while. In the 1990s K-1 took Japan by storm, but after Andy Hug passed away it was never the same. It's really up to the promoters. If they get greedy and overly dependant on certain personalities then they will kill the goose that laid the golden egg. If they are comitted to running a good clean sport instead of just making a quick buck then will have long-term success. Unfortunately I think they want to make a quick buck and then move on to the next big thing. Pro-wrestling used to be "real" at one time, so maybe MMA will go towards more showmanship. The UFC already obviously promotes certain "kafabe" style grudges and heels vs. heros. It's probably tough to sustain long-term interest in fights that end up in grappling and a guy being hit while he's down.

Answer 4

I think part of it is just familiarity. We've become rather uptight as a culture, even compared to the 1980s, and we now have a generation or two of adults on the streets who *never had to fight* in school (because standing up to bullies who might have guns is too-life-threatening for anyone to want to deal with). So all people (from good homes, mind you) know about fighting is what they see on TV, and the most common method of "fighting" is professional boxing. So folks go with what they know, even if the modern rules rather strictly limit what goes on. Really, I'll leave a pair of Wiki links to "Western boxing" and "bare-knuckle boxing" and see if I can't show you how some of the pre-Queensbury rules stuff was rougher and more MMA-ish.

The other part of the problem, I think, is just plain contempt. On both sides. Anyone remember how the Gracies got the UFC off the ground early on, back in the day? They challenged folks, and beat them in matches that for a lot of folks were *hugely* controversial (calling it a fight when you wrestled on a feather-bed, having *BIG* disparities in physical condition between opponents, using a "ring" way smaller than a regulation boxing ring, and so on...) and seemed rigged to "prove their point" rather than actually have a genuine competition.

And on top of that, a lot of folks both in and out of the Martial Arts scene recalled the rise of the Gracies as the Rise of the Bullet-Head: the years the bald-headed, muscle-bound, tattooed bullies took over. And did so loudly, with an attitude that was aggressive as hell to say the best and a near-fascistic mugging at the worst.

And, to top it all off, nobody even bothered to explain anything. This combination of things can ruin anybody to *ANY* martial art or endeavor. It did with me once a while back when I was watching a public demonstration: a couple of black-belt, regional champions go at it, doing their thing, sparring and going at it hard. I couldn't for the life of me figure out *what* they were doing, things stopped and started again so quickly, and nobody said *why* it was so, or *what* this had, if anything, to do with real fighting....

And then, then the instructor had the sheer, unmitigated nerve to get out and wander the crowd and stare folks down...in particular he got in my face, tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned around he told me to my face, I was "Pointless". Say WHAT?? I had never seen such a bad attitude coming from such a lackadaisical, unfocused, incompetent fiend in my life. I mean the man--using the term real loosely here--never even stooped to tell folks what was going on, and yet he dissed us for not being a bunch of *mind-readers*....

The Martial Art in question....was Olympic Tae Kwon Do. :) So yeah, BJJ and MMA schools aren't the only ones run by bullies with the Bullet-Head-On-'Roids Attitude (tm). *lol* :))

But still, I hope somebody gets the point....when you see a bunch of musclehead guys strip down to marble-holders, roll around on a mat and spoon-and-dry-hump one another into a "submission" using holds and locks that *nobody* in the crowd sees coming even *with* competent and humble folks doing a lot of explaining, and then they have the nerve to call this "the only real way to fight", well, you can imagine how it looks from the outside looking in. It looks like a particularly obnoxious Gay Pride Initiation Ceremony, and a lot of folks don't swing that way, sorry....

And the attitude doesn't help at all. Nobody likes a bully, even one who only *thinks* he knows how to fight when he does Tae Kwon Do and *never* attends to his damn unibrow. *lol*

Hope this explains some things.

(oh, and the whole idea of paying $70-150 a month in U.S. currency, and having to be a *jock* to even be worthy to touch the mat besides, those things put up some walls too....the whole MMA/UFC thing is hugely elitist, which is a shame as there is *nothing* wrong and a whole lot RIGHT with judo, jiu-jitsu and wrestling techniques in general on a self-defense level, they're practical, tried-true-and-tested, and work....pity the folks using the methods can be such meatheads, huh?)

Answer 5

both are unsafe, but boxing is safer than mma because there is a rule in boxing and they only uses their hands with gloves...

Answer 6

because boxing is more limited, and the fights last longer