#2 Exhibition of various martial arts
Boxing is an individual striking-based martial art and the sport of boxing involves the usage of boxing techniques only. Now although boxing does involve the usage of the ‘clinch’ that is as form of grappling, such exchanges are brief and are quickly broken up by the referee.
Boxing involves the display of pugilistic skills. Punches are the primary offensive weapon with foot-work, head-movement, clinching, parrying, blocking, etc being the defensive weapons. Boxing involves much more than merely throwing hands, but despite all the striking skills and movement techniques in the world one can’t deny the fact that boxing restricts a martial artist from completely displaying his/her skills.
On the other hand, MMA involves the usage of various striking as well as grappling-based martial arts in its bouts. An MMA fighter is allowed to utilize a wide-variety of striking techniques including punches, elbows, knees, kicks, hammer-fists, spinning back-fists and ground strikes among others in a pro-MMA fight.
Striking techniques in MMA involve the utilization of Muay Thai maneuvers, Taekwondo, Karate, Boxing, Kung-Fu and various other striking-based martial arts. Besides, the usage of grappling techniques involves takedowns, submissions, ground-and-pound, top-control (an effective method of scoring points) and several other maneuvers borrowed from the martial arts of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), wrestling, Judo, Sambo and various other grappling-based martial arts.
This display of the wide-variety of martial arts skills is what makes MMA so appealing, not only to its core audience but also to fans of several other individual combat sports such as Boxing, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, BJJ, Catch-wrestling and many others.
This is turn leads to several athletes crossing-over from their respective individual combat sports to MMA. Notable examples of such cross-over stars include Brock Lesnar, Matt Mitrione, Josh Barnett, Valentina Shevchenko, Holly Holm, Ronda Rousey and many others.
Now apart from the skill-exhibition aspect that MMA provides to fighters coming from different martial arts backgrounds, the vast arsenal of fight-ending techniques tremendously increases the probability of MMA fights delivering edge-of-the-seat thrilling action.
An MMA fight could end with a punch, a kick, an elbow, a knee-strike, a choke-hold, a joint-lock, or it may go to the scorecards after a fight in which the two MMA combatants are afforded every opportunity and allowed the usage of a vast array of martial arts techniques to defeat their opponents. Beautiful, isn’t it?
The aforementioned points are in no way meant to demean the sport of boxing, but to merely point out that rather than restricting the fighters to an individual martial art, MMA as opposed to boxing frees fighters of their shackles and allows them to display the complete arsenal of their fighting skills. More freedom for the fighters means more entertainment for the fans.
