Cross Over Competitors

[dr_devious]

3 British boxers who started out in other sports: -
Curtis Woodhouse - Football
Pele Reid - Kickboxing
Matt Skelton - Kickboxing

[HomicideHenry]

James Figg, for all intents and purposes, was not only the first recognized champion boxer of Britain, but was also a wrestler and excellent master swordsman. When he became famous, he opened up a school of defense that taught all three disciplines.

[HomicideHenry]

Though this is a bit backwards, as you generally see someone from another sport or spectrum sometimes wander off into boxing, but this next guy I'm going to bring up is the exact opposite, being a boxer originally and then wandered into television and movies, being one of its biggest stars during his time.

George Reeves aka "Superman".

[jrow72]

Kermit Cintron has said he has thought about dabbling in mma. He has a wrestling background and spoke up when Dana White (president of the UFC) invited a boxer to cross over to mma.

[HomicideHenry]

If only alot of boxers still adopted the old training methods that the guys of the early 20th century to the era of Joe Louis still did. From John L. Sullivan to guys like Willie Pep, they all dabbled in wrestling while in training. Why? If someone got you in a clinch, you could easily break free, gloved or not. Dana White has the worst respect for boxers, and its quite sad. If only Jeffries, was around today, I imagine he'd take Dana up on his offer and battle Tim Sylvia and Frank Mir and others. Hell even Jack Dempsey grappled in training. Now throw in guys like Hodge and Berlenbach, who were accomplished wrestlers as well as boxers, the UFC would be in serious trouble.

Don't believe me, take a look at Anderson Silva's boxing "career", and then look at the man he lost to on video some time. And "The Spider" is considered the p4p best in UFC history. Hodge or Berlenbach would have toyed with the man, least in my opinion.

[Robinson]

Refs however are not as tolerant of excessive clinching and
holding as they were in the past. When I watxch the oldfights
I see some good Greco in them..but not good infighting in the
boxing sense.

[zojo]

If only alot of boxers still adopted the old training methods that the guys of the early 20th century to the era of Joe Louis still did. From John L. Sullivan to guys like Willie Pep, they all dabbled in wrestling while in training. Why? If someone got you in a clinch, you could easily break free, gloved or not. Dana White has the worst respect for boxers, and its quite sad. If only Jeffries, was around today, I imagine he'd take Dana up on his offer and battle Tim Sylvia and Frank Mir and others. Hell even Jack Dempsey grappled in training. Now throw in guys like Hodge and Berlenbach, who were accomplished wrestlers as well as boxers, the UFC would be in serious trouble.

Don't believe me, take a look at Anderson Silva's boxing "career", and then look at the man he lost to on video some time. And "The Spider" is considered the p4p best in UFC history. Hodge or Berlenbach would have toyed with the man, least in my opinion.

Good choices on both Berlenbach (former gold medalist in wrestling) and Danny Hodge (reported as the strongest grip in sports...and never taken down if I remember correctly.) I was watching the NCAA wrestling championships a couple of years ago and they were interviewing a very old Hodge and asked him if he could still break a pair of pliers with his grip. The camera crew had no plier so a guy gave him an apple and he crushed it with one hand while being interviewed.

[jrow72]

I agree, Dana White has no respect for boxing. The funny thing is that his background is in boxing. Thats what he grew up doing and thats what he is trained in. He has probably never rolled a day in his life. More mma fighters should train traditional boxing. It would serve them well to learn how to slip punches. The guys who use boxing are pretty successful in the sport, i.e. anderson silva, andrei arlovski. I think it is a very fundamental yet under used tool in mma.

[HomicideHenry]

They say "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, as a young man, won the Golden Gloves. But myself, I never found proof of this.

[Robinson]

MMA fighters should train to fight MMA.

They should adapt what they can from other sports to
help with MMA>

One is naive to think that boxing tranforms perfectly to the
MMA arena without any adaption or modification.

[jrow72]

In order to learn something you must it train it specifically. MMA guys don't just train MMA all the time. They often train grappling and striking individual and then put them together in combined sessions. MMA fighters must learn to strike seperatly from learning to grapple. Nothing transfers over without adaption. And I never said it did.

[zojo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyPG65NYRsk

Jack Johnson and Fred Marcussen

Wrestling match or Jack including wrestling in his training.

[keithmoonhangover]

actor victor mclaglen was a decent ish fighter.he played the rival to john wayne in that very famous bareknuckle fight in the quiet man.although i think he doesn't qualify as he was a fighter first.

He fought Jack Johson.