How does the difficulty of boxing rank to other sports?

[Supremo]

Most MMA fighter will come from one particular fighting background- but their skills in that sport will diminish as they adapt to MMA as they can no longer focus on that one sport.

i'm not sure that's true nowadays.

I don't watch it any more, haven't done for about 7 or 8 years but regardless of how they come into it, they cant be elite level at all aspects of the game as they can't devote enough time to it. The best Thai Boxer will always beat the best MMA guy at thai boxing, the best wrestler will always beat the best MMA guy at wrestling etc...
They are skilled atheletes but no more or less skilled than anyone else in combat sports.

[danamba7]

He's got future world champ written all over him, reminds me of Jon Jones - lanky, very unorthodox and vicious with the elbows.

Not if McGregor moves up!

[jamesmcdonnell]

He's got future world champ written all over him, reminds me of Jon Jones - lanky, very unorthodox and vicious with the elbows.

Not if McGregor moves up!

That would be a good fight right there - Ferguson is still improving, that could be one hell of a clash.

McGregor's going to come unstuck at some point - he's not exactly sophisticated.

[lillywhite14]

I've often wondered this question.

If you were to apply the Dr Ericsson theory of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to boxing, how far could an average person go?

Consider a classroom of 20 x regular 13 year old lads of varying weights and athletic abilities. Stick them all in a gym with a world class trainer and matchmaking, ignore ticket selling / promotional factors, and how far would the average lad go over the next 10-15 years assuming he sticks to the task?

Applying this to football and my shot in the dark guess would be that the average lad would be capable of playing for a league 2 football side, at the very least. But of course in football there are a lot more playing it, and so the talent pool is a lot deeper.

How do you think these lads would fare in boxing? Do you think it would be possible to have multiple British title holders from that group of lads given the more shallow talent pool and lack of universal access to world class trainers and facilities?

The Flintoff debacle was interesting in that it highlighted the fact that a professional athlete from another field would not necessarily be able to move across to boxing and pass as any more than a novice, despite having those trainers/facilities - certainly not through a single camp anyway.

Does success in boxing come from being a natural, or can a regular guy who is prepared to graft go a long way? (assuming he has loads of mates willing to buy tickets to his fights). And is Buglioni a good example of this?

It's an interesting question.

I think you are doing a massive dis-service to footballers though. I would be surprised if the average lad could play any higher than the regional amateur leagues, even with all that training. The sport is unbelievably competitive and I genuinely believe its a longer shot for a person to become a league two footballer than become a Lonsdale belt holder. The difference in competition between the two sports is so vast. 80% of boys play a game of football at some point, even higher. How many even go Boxing training, let alone have a bout? 5%? Maybe 10%? So much tougher to break into football than any other sport.

It's difficult to comprehend just how good league two players are too. There are some half decent players who post here, from what they say anyway , but I have no doubt that if we formed a Boxrec all star XI, sod that, make it XIII, and trained hard for 3 months then played against the bottom side in League two, we would lose by 20+ goals and they would'nt break into a sweat.

I think that if every lad who ever played football in the UK commited the same amount of time and effort to other sports then we would have a shedload of Wimbledon tennis champs, 100m gold medals and world boxing champions.

I don't know anyone who ever played Tennis, know one person who did a bit of athletics ( he was a national champ for his age at 800m ) and know two people who played cricket, one of whom is a pro, It's a little different with Boxing because I first walked into a boxing club aged 8 and my older family members all boxed etc so I was exposed to it, so I know a lot of people who have trained, and a few fought both am and pro but even then, it comes nowhere near the amount of people I know who played football. Even then, I only know a handful ( literally 4 or 5 ) who became pro's although I played against a few more.

It's an interesting question because it's impossible to answer!

[Bard of Boxrec]

so I know a lot of people who have trained, and a few fought both am and pro but even then, it comes nowhere near the amount of people I know who played football.

Which is why it's so depressing we have such a shitty international football team

[magwitch]

I believe the Champions League is the reason England have bad world cups. 2010 being a solid case in point - just a load of mentally jaded and physically knackered players. It's not the biggest prize any more - or if it is, you're coming down from the season before you can get 'up'.
My argument though does not account for sides like Spain. Does their spine and star players come from teams that walk it most weeks? Same with the Bundesliga?
I don't know the answer but I suspect the Premier League being so big has something to do with it.
I don't even care about international football any more - same as my team: England. They're not fussed and all the competitions are bent as a nine bob note any way.

[magwitch]

One thing I've found playing football is that you need a group of players trying and generally competent with the right attitude.....if you dropped, say Ronaldo, in a poor side in league 2 or the Championship or somewhere, and set them against the league leaders or someone like Bournemouth on a roll - chances are you'd hardly notice him.

[mickey1975]

To play League Two football is a massive achievement! To say anyone could do it is mad. I must have known 100 kids sign schoolboy forms, only two played pro, one at Orient, one at Leeds. All sports are as difficult as each other. Put Andre Ward on a Snooker table and he'd struggle...

[Grilling Machine]

If you have athletic gifts- strength, power, speed, quick reflexes then you can turn someone into a boxer at a decent level if they have the heart and dedication. That would not be possible in a technical sport like football.

Where boxing is on a different level to football is in heart, bottle, fitness, dedication, mental toughness.

Exactly what I was going to say. In technical terms, I think it's one of the easiest sports (albeit demanding of physical gifts, like you say), but as one of the hardest mentally, you have to thrive on its challenge. Not many do. You have to be obsessed with the rewards of self-discipline to be a great, your mind full of 'what ifs' every time you train. How many boxers have lost their spark after they've made it?

Distance running is one of the hardest sports of all. Snooker's high on my list of technical sports. Football's somewhere in the middle. Ronnie O'Sullivan's sub-35 10k proves how far an obsessive personality can take you, but he couldn't have gone from running to snooker in the same fashion.

Wasn't that Superstars programme meant to find out who the fittest were? Did a boxer ever win it?

Daley Thompson was pretty handy on the wobbly bike, but Minter was shan on the rowing.

[magwitch]

If you have athletic gifts- strength, power, speed, quick reflexes then you can turn someone into a boxer at a decent level if they have the heart and dedication. That would not be possible in a technical sport like football.

Where boxing is on a different level to football is in heart, bottle, fitness, dedication, mental toughness.

Exactly what I was going to say. In technical terms, I think it's one of the easiest sports (albeit demanding of physical gifts, like you say), but as one of the hardest mentally, you have to thrive on its challenge. Not many do. You have to be obsessed with the rewards of self-discipline to be a great, your mind full of 'what ifs' every time you train. How many boxers have lost their spark after they've made it?

Distance running is one of the hardest sports of all. Snooker's high on my list of technical sports. Football's somewhere in the middle. Ronnie O'Sullivan's sub-35 10k proves how far an obsessive personality can take you, but he couldn't have gone from running to snooker in the same fashion.

Wasn't that Superstars programme meant to find out who the fittest were? Did a boxer ever win it?

Daley Thompson was pretty handy on the wobbly bike, but Minter was shan on the rowing.

good example regarding O'Sullivan. Can't really disagree with it.

Regarding Minter and the rowing....strange. You'd think he'd have the back, arms and lungs for it. And probably the legs. Whether he had ever recruited those muscles in that particular way before tho might have had something to do with it.


@Supremo.............agree about needing to be obsessed with boxing. I think it is a sport that lends itself to obsession in quite a dangerous way. It consumes some boxers. Chews them up, spits them out - whether they were prepared for life thereafter, or not. I also think it can change a person's personality.....give them much less of a sunny demeanour........I also think it's a major stresser - if you lose once you're under the microscope straight away or you're crap or you're a fraud or you were just deceiving/ not the genuine article etc......which time and again has been shown to be total BS. Stacks of fighters have been beaten and come back to be successes. Lose twice and forget, get down the job centre.
Obsessive dieting - bad.
Numerous cling-ons and fair weather friends and general no-good bullsh*tters, even criminals are all drawn to the boxer like flies around the proverbial.
At a fundamental level however, I do not think that boxing is a very healthy sport to be involved in. And that's without even touching on being punched in the face. Or legal/ tax crap.

[banjo]

One thing I've found playing football is that you need a group of players trying and generally competent with the right attitude.....if you dropped, say Ronaldo, in a poor side in league 2 or the Championship or somewhere, and set them against the league leaders or someone like Bournemouth on a roll - chances are you'd hardly notice him.

Yeah but with boxing you also need to know the right people regardless of how good you are as a boxer, just like you're not going to win Formula One driving a Marussia or the Premier League playing for Wigan you're not going to win a world boxing title with Mr Magoo as your promoter.

[keithmoonhangover]

I was brought up to believe that boxing was the hardest sport and physically, it can be, but isn't always. Boxers in poor condition can still do 12 rounds and I think that gives boxing a bad name, how can something like Fury-Chisora or Fury-Hammer be compared to top class cycling or long distant running. Looking at boxing at the highest level, I'm talking about the engine of prime Chavez or the neon skills of prime Meldrick Taylor, then the level of physical difficulty is hard to beat. After all, boxing comes with it's own form of instant karma - if you leave yourself open, you're going to get hit.

Mental difficulty is something else altogether. The old adage of 'if you can hear the crowd' still holds weight in my opinion. There are more difficult mental sports, but again, at it's highest level, boxing is pretty difficult. If you look at someone like a prime Don Curry and look at the sheer focus on his face, it hard to argue with the level of mental difficulty. Again, the flipside is someone who just chugs forward trying to land and is not capable of changing plan/style in mid fight.

I do think that intelligent boxers have an edge over their opponents. SRL is a prime example, a very intelligent guy, who could adapt in the ring and use his intelligence in mid fight, to unlock his opponent.

That's what I think anyway.

[mickey1975]

We all have different talents, they're not transferable. My dad did a 31min 10k at 45yo but I could hammer him at snooker. Superstars is a bad show for boxers. They're always out of camp, or they wouldn't be in it, so generally out of shape. Hatton and Minter both like a drink as well... I can imagine what those two were like an all expenses paid trip away! I'm surprised Alan didn't hit anyone. Very fiery guy!

[danamba7]

I'm probably contradicting one of my earlier posts but fitness is such a vague term that it's hard to say which athletes are the fittest. E.G. Mo Farah can run much further and faster than Michael Bisping for example, but Bisping can do 5 x 5 minute rounds at an extremely high pace which Farah couldn't (ignoring the fighting aspect, just fitness). Swimming is another sport which challenges different muscles where an extremely fit distance runner for example may not be able to swim a respectable distance.

[nitro5912]

Comparing sports directly is pointless.

A long distance runner like mo farah will have a different type of fitness to say a footballer who will be fit but in a different way to a boxer.

Mo farah needs stamina, could it be taught through training yes but he probaly has a lung capacity suited to it.

Leo messi requires stamina for 90mins, but the ability to run in short explosive burst of no more than 20seconds. So will have a different level of stamina to farah aswell as the technical aspect.

Carl froch will train much like mo farah and have a similar level of fitness but will blend it with strength and explosive drills.

They are all equally tough and all train to te limits, but Carl froch probaly couldn't last on a football field at the intensity of a pro game, and messi couldn't last in the rings


Technical aspects, you can teach someone to punch, repeat an action, you can teach someone how to pass a ball.

You cant teach reaction speed to a jab or read where a pass will land

[Supremo]

I was brought up to believe that boxing was the hardest sport and physically, it can be, but isn't always. Boxers in poor condition can still do 12 rounds and I think that gives boxing a bad name, how can something like Fury-Chisora or Fury-Hammer be compared to top class cycling or long distant running. Looking at boxing at the highest level, I'm talking about the engine of prime Chavez or the neon skills of prime Meldrick Taylor, then the level of physical difficulty is hard to beat. After all, boxing comes with it's own form of instant karma - if you leave yourself open, you're going to get hit.

Mental difficulty is something else altogether. The old adage of 'if you can hear the crowd' still holds weight in my opinion. There are more difficult mental sports, but again, at it's highest level, boxing is pretty difficult. If you look at someone like a prime Don Curry and look at the sheer focus on his face, it hard to argue with the level of mental difficulty. Again, the flipside is someone who just chugs forward trying to land and is not capable of changing plan/style in mid fight.

I do think that intelligent boxers have an edge over their opponents. SRL is a prime example, a very intelligent guy, who could adapt in the ring and use his intelligence in mid fight, to unlock his opponent.

That's what I think anyway.

How you look is of absolutely no significance to how fit you are. Chris Arreola, Tyson Fury etc may look like bags of shit but they are supremely fit! if they weren't they would be there for the taking as soon as they got to the later rounds. A body builder on stage looks in great condition, but in reality he is dying a death has lost loads of strength and couldn't run the length of himself.

As people have said below - fitness is specific to the sport. There are 3 different energy systems in the body and each sport will require a different emphasis/balance on each system. A marathon runner will only have a well developed aerobic system- he could run all day. But he couldn't produce high power. Similarly a sprinter wil; be able to produce huge amounts of power but would be burst after his 10 seconds of maximum effort had been expended.

Even in boxing, then requirements will be different depending upon the weight division with heavyweights needing more strength and power just to survive and keep a man off them, where as power is less relevant the lower the weight class.

Fury and Arreola may look like junk but they will be in great physical fitness, and with a lot of muscle- its just covered up by loads of fat as they consume more calories than they expend. If you consume more calories than you use then you will get fat- regardless of how fit you are. Insufficent calories would mean your ability to train at a certain intensity would be reduced therefore some boxers who look in fantastic shape wont be as fit as they could be as they have restricted their diet so much in order to make weight.

[bripez]

A person who has good all round athleticism with hand-eye co-ordination etc. could easily master the moves for boxing with a lot of practice.

They would look great on the bag and pads (just check out the many you tube videos) however when somebody punches them in the face it can suddenly go tits up - just ask David Price or Audley.

[m1kee50]

Without going into too much detail, i believe Boxing and MMA are the toughest sports in the world as it's one on one, no equipment advantages and you have to be incredibly fit, tough, skilled and determined or if you lack the skill, make up for it with a freakish chin, heart, stamina etc.

You can be a footballer by just being fast with a basic level of technique, an American footballer by just being huge, a basketballer by being freakishly tall but not that good (Tall Paul from Loughborough is the perfect example). Also sports like Golf require extreme levels of skill but little fitness.

As the saying goes, you don't play boxing. Too tough.

Hilarious - that's right, the top level footballers are just sprinters who knock the ball forward.

A lot of those 220+ pound American footballers - can run 100 yards in a little over 10 seconds - they also have to have lots of tactical awareness.

Boxing is no harder to excel at than any other sport.

Jan Molby wasn't even fast!

[jamesmcdonnell]

I was brought up to believe that boxing was the hardest sport and physically, it can be, but isn't always. Boxers in poor condition can still do 12 rounds and I think that gives boxing a bad name, how can something like Fury-Chisora or Fury-Hammer be compared to top class cycling or long distant running. Looking at boxing at the highest level, I'm talking about the engine of prime Chavez or the neon skills of prime Meldrick Taylor, then the level of physical difficulty is hard to beat. After all, boxing comes with it's own form of instant karma - if you leave yourself open, you're going to get hit.

Mental difficulty is something else altogether. The old adage of 'if you can hear the crowd' still holds weight in my opinion. There are more difficult mental sports, but again, at it's highest level, boxing is pretty difficult. If you look at someone like a prime Don Curry and look at the sheer focus on his face, it hard to argue with the level of mental difficulty. Again, the flipside is someone who just chugs forward trying to land and is not capable of changing plan/style in mid fight.

I do think that intelligent boxers have an edge over their opponents. SRL is a prime example, a very intelligent guy, who could adapt in the ring and use his intelligence in mid fight, to unlock his opponent.

That's what I think anyway.

How you look is of absolutely no significance to how fit you are. Chris Arreola, Tyson Fury etc may look like bags of poo but they are supremely fit! if they weren't they would be there for the taking as soon as they got to the later rounds. A body builder on stage looks in great condition, but in reality he is dying a death has lost loads of strength and couldn't run the length of himself.

As people have said below - fitness is specific to the sport. There are 3 different energy systems in the body and each sport will require a different emphasis/balance on each system. A marathon runner will only have a well developed aerobic system- he could run all day. But he couldn't produce high power. Similarly a sprinter wil; be able to produce huge amounts of power but would be burst after his 10 seconds of maximum effort had been expended.

Even in boxing, then requirements will be different depending upon the weight division with heavyweights needing more strength and power just to survive and keep a man off them, where as power is less relevant the lower the weight class.

Fury and Arreola may look like junk but they will be in great physical fitness, and with a lot of muscle- its just covered up by loads of fat as they consume more calories than they expend. If you consume more calories than you use then you will get fat- regardless of how fit you are. Insufficent calories would mean your ability to train at a certain intensity would be reduced therefore some boxers who look in fantastic shape wont be as fit as they could be as they have restricted their diet so much in order to make weight.

Not true. The calories in calories out theorem has been proven wrong. Excessive simple carbohydrates promote weight gain.

[Supremo]

A rather simplistic explanation. You can clearly get fat without ever eating a single simple carb. If you consume significantly more calories than you use then you get fat, simple carbs are the easiest to be changed in to fat but complex carbs, fats and to a much lesser extent protein will all make you fat as well.

[Grilling Machine]

Regarding Minter and the rowing....strange. You'd think he'd have the back, arms and lungs for it. And probably the legs. Whether he had ever recruited those muscles in that particular way before tho might have had something to do with it.

Aye, I haven't seen it in ages, but he was scuppered by technique. It was forward, canoe-style rowing.

Superstars is a bad show for boxers.

It was a bad show for most pros, as they were virtually all retired. I've still an image of Hatton hauling moob around some harbour on the running round. The young Khan smashed everyone and sprinted in.

In another episode, Steve Collins went full Brit-abroad with pink arms on the uphill cycling. Puffed home last, as I recall.

It's why Brian Jacks was so damn good - the programme itself became his profession.

[jamesmcdonnell]

A rather simplistic explanation. You can clearly get fat without ever eating a single simple carb. If you consume significantly more calories than you use then you get fat, simple carbs are the easiest to be changed in to fat but complex carbs, fats and to a much lesser extent protein will all make you fat as well.

Yes, but you agree that it isn't as simple as calories in = calories out = statis?

I usually eat a huge amount of food, 3 eggs for breakfast, a snack at 11.00, a big lunch, usually meat/fish and vegetables, a cheese or tuna sandwich at home, then a pretty good dinner too. I've totted up the calories, which are often in excess of 3000 - but my weight has been stable at 14 stone more or less constantly for the last 5 years.

However, occasionally, I get a bit carb-happy as I have done lately, eating a lot of rice, potatoes and pasta, and always I put on weight rapidly. I do actually check the calories too, and clearly, the same amount of calories with a carb heavy diet, leads to rapid weight gain. Three weeks on heavily restricted carbs, and my weight is right back where it was.

[misterpunch]

you eat like that and stay at 14st?????????? I reckon your scales are being slyly manipulated

[liamlion]

A joke? you must be easily amused...
1. I never actually made any comment upon the exertion level of each sport in comparison to the other so I don't know why you brought up the second point. Elite MMA fighters are possibly slightly fitter than the elite boxers as MMA appears to be more appreciative of sport science rather than relying upon traditional forms of training. However, an elite MMA fighter only fights for a maximum of 25 mins as far as I am aware, most only fight for 15 mins maximum. Elite boxers will usually fight for 36.

As for grappling and wrestling being more tiring? maximum effort striking would raise the heart rate and be as unsustainable over a prolonged period as grappling and wrestling would. In fact the natural instinct for anyone who is tired in a fight is to grapple and wrestle, not continue striking.

2. If you believe there is any difference in skill level between elite fighters in either sport then you clearly have no understanding of the nuances of boxing. Just because there appears to be more variety of skill involved in MMA doesn't mean that the elite fighters are MORE skillfull. MMA fighters usually prefer and excel at one aspect of fighting- whether that be striking, wrestling, BJJ- they are never elite level in every component part.
MMA fighters are unable to allocate sufficient time to fully developing any one aspect of their game as they have so many that they need to prepare for. Boxers only need to worry about boxing, therefore they develop a far higher degree of proficiency in boxing than MMA fighters do in any component fighting style they train in. Most MMA fighter will come from one particular fighting background- but their skills in that sport will diminish as they adapt to MMA as they can no longer focus on that one sport.

I think youre wrong and ill-informed. Nevermind though. Tomorrow is another day.

[Supremo]

What an impressive and convincing argument...