Boxing RIP

The fight tonight between Floyd Jr. and Manny was the fight of the century. It was won by Jr. by having a referee who refused to penalize him for holding and stalling his brutally superior opponent, and by counting weak jabs that would not have likely influenced the outcome of an MMA match. Thousands of the USA's most influential people were there live, booing the fight, booing Jr., and most importantly of all, booing Boxing. In an MMA match, Floyd Jr.'s supposedly good defense would have have been generously punished for the garbage that it obviously is.

Boxing is a self-defense sport, and as it loses relevance to the general public's understanding of what effective self-defense is, it is rapidly outdated, approaching the ranks of other outdated self-defense sports such as Olympic Fencing and Archery. The fight between Manny and Floyd Jr. was a contest between two rival styles of boxing, a long-stance fencing type of boxing were the opponent stands sideways and jabs for points, versus a serious self defense style where the opponents is faced squarely and serious punches are thrown with both hands. The epitome of the fencing type of boxing is Muhammad Ali, and the epitome of the self-defense type of boxing is Mike Tyson.

In MMA, only the self-defense style of boxing works. Standing sideways doesn't work in MMA for the same reason why it doesn't work in self defense on the street, as the stance makes your lead leg vulnerable to kicks and all kinds of take downs. Jr. was representing the "best way to win a boxing match" style of fighting. Manny was representing the self-defense style of boxing. Jr. was able to further exploit loopholes in how boxing matches are arranged to get a referee who refused to penalize him for his constant stalling and holding. Thousands of pissed off and highly influential fans are losing interest in boxing and flocking to MMA.

Tonight was a big win for Jr.'s biggest fan, referee Kenny Bayless. It however was pure poison for the sport of boxing, and the sport is doomed to antiquity because we just saw a match that proved Manny was a far better boxer than Jr., but which Jr. won through technicalities and an a sympathetic ref. MMA fans by and large do not have to put up with this kind of disappointment, which is exactly why MMA is growing in popularity while boxing is more and more seen as the dusty antique it has become.

Mike Tyson has been saying in interviews that he tells fighters these days to do MMA instead of Boxing. I don't think the sport of boxing can overcome the lethal poison it was served up tonight. Rest in Peace Boxing, and long live MMA: