Mixed martial arts may soon KO boxing

Boxing is not dead. It never will be.

Too many of us like good fisticuffs for it to die.

But even after Saturday’s fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya, boxing remains on life support. Unless boxing reverts to its roots it will remain in a perpetual funk.

While boxing struggles to regain its swagger, Mixed Martial Arts struts to its own boisterous and unashamed beat. If boxing isn’t careful, MMA will put a guillotine hold on boxing forcing it to surrender or as MMA enthusiasts say, “tap out.”

MMA is an aggressive, combative sport that marries the essentials of numerous fighting styles into one all-encompassing spectacle.

Much like boxing, in its early days MMA was a crude and poorly regulated sport.

Arizona Sen. John McCain likened MMA to “human cockfighting” in an attempt to show MMA’s animalistic nature and help ban it in the U.S.

MMA policed itself before a ban. Some rules vary between organizations, but standard throughout the industry is that MMA outlaws groin strikes, eye-gouging, small joint manipulation (fingers and toes), hair pulling, strikes to the throat or spine and biting.

“If you think we’re a bunch of thugs that don’t have any technique or don’t put anything toward this but aggression, come watch us train,” Fort Carson soldier Sgt. Vellore Caballero said before Friday’s “Tap or Snap” an amateur MMA event held at Bigg City. “At my gym, the Tool Shed, we’ve got world-class athletes. I train with guys who are Olympic alternates for wrestling. My female coach Tori Adams is a 2008 Olympic hopeful. We’re serious about what we do. I train six days a week on top of my job.”

Caballero is a medic with Fort Carson’s 2/9 Cavalry. Like many at Fort Carson, Caballero has served in Iraq. Caballero’s life is as a soldier; MMA is his passion, and Caballero said his passion helps him be a better soldier.

The Army first sampled MMA in the early 1990s, according to Staff Sgt. Keoki Smythe, an instructor in Fort Carson’s Modern Army Combatives program.

Even within an entity trained to protect, MAC has its opponents. MAC training is allowed, but soldiers must get permission from their chain of command to compete.

Today, Fort Benning, Ga., houses the Army’s combatives’ headquarters. Army installations throughout the country have programs. Fort Knox, Ky., even hosted an allpost tournament the last weekend in April as Maj. Gen. Robert Williams, commanding general of Fort Knox, sat front row for the tournament finals.

“We find that the people against MMA or combatives in the military — you know, there are a lot of guys who want to get out there and fight and a lot of guys don’t,” Smythe said. “Some people are warriors. Some aren’t. We’re just trying to introduce basic skills to soldiers such that if they’re in a market in Baghdad and some guy pulls them down and gets in a fight with them, it’s not their first time experiencing a fight.

“Just because somebody is a soldier it doesn’t mean they’ve been in a hand-tohand fight. Here we can put it in a controlled environment and give them confidence in themselves and their own skills.”

Many old-school military folk fall in the end of the baby boomer generation. They grew up knowing one dominant style of combat.

They’re no different than the baby boomers and MMA opponents cured on Ali, Frazier, Duran, Hagler, Spinks, Hearns, Leonard, Foreman, Arguello, Chavez, Holmes and Whittaker.

Older boxers, their styles and their fight frequency are a dying creature.

There was a big fight Saturday. When is the next one?

Now, quick — without an Internet search — name the heavyweight champs.

Better yet, name four heavyweights in the top 10 of any organization’s list. Even boxing fans have to take time to think about that.

MMA fans have no such trouble because MMA is doing what boxing did 25 to 30 years ago. MMA’s stars fight a few times a year, and that satiates fans in a way boxing has forgotten.

In the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s boxing embraced the armed services, too.

There was almost a symbiotic relationship. Most, if not all, military installations have boxing programs. But the relationship with professional boxing has waned.

Meanwhile MMA’s biggest names are eager to lend their full-bodied expertise to our soldiers. Then again, maybe that’s just marketing on both sides. Or maybe it’s MMA being patriotic. If so, it’s working.

MMA thrives while boxing waits for its next big fight.

Columnist Milo F. Bryant can be reached at 636-0252 or milo.bryant@gazette.com. Check out Milo's blog, The Extra Milo, at http://milobryant.blogspot.com/