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Old 02-06-2015, 11:35 AM  
Anthony
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Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: One of the outer rings of Hell
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Relentless View Post
If we could dig up Bruce Lee, my money would be on his corpse to beat you within 3 rounds. If we could arrange for Royce to get in a cage with you, even at this point with deteriorated skills and age, my money would be on him to destroy you in 3 rounds.

The question was pure one dimensional boxer (Mike Tyson) against a well-rounded, smaller and faster martial artist using Bruce Lee as the example. The one dimensional boxer will lose every time. Go watch James Toney vs Couture getting taking down, mounted, pounded out and put to sleep.

The ONLY one dimensional style that can work in a cage or a ring with a referee is Wrestling (Greco Roman Wrestling especially as per Couture or Jon Fitch). It makes for some of the most boring fights but it can dictate where the fight takes place and a superior wrestler can get one take down then lay and pray for the rest of the round. Every other style requires the fighter to be multi-dimensional, and one-dimensional Boxing is ONLY effective against another pure boxer with boxing gloves and a boxing rule-set being enforced.

People love to say how fast Tyson's hands were or how much power he had. Most of that hand speed and power was only possible because he has no fear of being taken down, leg kicked or thrown. The moment he has to start guarding his legs, watching for kicks, avoiding throws and the like his power and hand speed are diminished tremendously. He throws less, throws slower and throws with much less power or he gets planted on his back and eats elbows for the rest of the round.

Good MMA Boxers like Johny Hendricks and Frankie Edgar are ONLY good MMA boxers because they are also terrific wrestlers in their weight class and because they have terrific movement. Tyson was a plodding, straight-forward, stand in the pocket and bang fighter. Lennox Lewis exposed that beautifully. The things that allowed Lewis to destroy Tyson are exactly the same things that would allow an average MMA fighter to destroy Tyson.

If you think Bruce Lee is a weak fighter, we disagree... but if you think a straight-forward power punching one dimensional boxer would dominate MMA... go ask Mitrione, Kimbo Slice, Clint Hester, Junior Dos Santos and dozens of others what happens when they rely to heavily on their boxing skills while facing a more versatile fighter or a dominant wrestler. Even world class K2 Kickboxers like Overeem and Hunt can't compete with much smaller, faster, more versatile fighters and they at least have a kicking arsenal to compliment their punches.
Bruce Lee wouldn't be on the same level as an Amateur MMA fighter about to go Pro. He was a movie star, not a fighter. So we should really take that out of the picture.

Wrestling by itself would not fare well in MMA. As shown in earlier UFC fights, they were submitted, not knowing how to counter.
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