USA Super-Heavyweight amateur boxer Mike Wilson is fond of wearing a tee shirt stating, “Real men fight in the ring.  Cages are for the zoo.”  In a recent Associated Press article by Arnie Stapleton, multiple boxers were interviewed at the Olympic training compound in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  While some of the boxers stated that the watch MMA and one even said that he wanted to compete in MMA after his boxing career was over, Wilson’s anti-MMA postion got the focus of the article. 

Wilson went on to say that MMA is “real dangerous and an extreme sport…that a real fighter trains daily and is in top physical condition.  That boxing is an artform and a thinking man’s game.”  I don’t know what his experience with MMA is, but clearly he hasn’t been watching the fighters and matches that I have been over the years.  The days of the Tank Abbots are over my friend.  Today’s MMA fighters are highly trained well conditioned athletes.  Just check out a Rich Franklin or Sean Sherk training session on UFC All Access and you will see how hard these guys train.  Boxers like Wilson, just continue to spread the stereotype that MMA is some type of barbaric bar room brawl. 
 
Thankfully, the article ended with an interview with Paul Wade, a co-owner of 3rd Street Boxing Gym in San Francisco, who stated that “most boxers are scared of MMA” the kicks, ground game and small gloves all combine to intimidate them.  The real news in this article wasn’t what some uninformed boxer had to say, it was in the fact that boxing gyms are starting to include cages and MMA training sessions.

Thx2 guest contributor Michael Hans

Monday, July 16th, 2007 | File under Commentary, Guest Contributors