The Great Boxing/MMA Hybrid Experiment
Published by Jim Genia on March 23rd, 2009 in Current Events

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At a press dinner the evening before UFC 35, back in January of 2002, Zuffa honchos Lorenzo Fertita and Dana White spoke of MMA’s kinship to boxing. It was a familial link greater than MMA’s ties to professional wrestling, they said, and they spoke of legitimacy, of shared fanbases and even the potential for crossover. Many years and one Brock Lesnar later, the Octagon has yet to see a marquee boxer step within its eight-sided confines. Last night, however, anyone willing to shell out the bucks for the pay-per-view was able to witness pugilistic legend Roy Jones Jr. share his ring with some mixed martial artists and, if anything, the results were… intriguing. At “March Badness”, which aired lived from the Pensacola Civic Center, an IFL champ was robbed of his decision against an ex-UFC contender, a pro-wrestling refugee failed to impress and two aging MMA veterans dominated, and after much fanfare and ballyhoo the star of the evening out-boxed his way to another win. It’s likely the great boxing and MMA hybrid experiment far from knocked the socks off of fans of any combat sport, but it did show one thing, and that’s potential. If done right, clearly this experiment could work.

For hardcore MMA fans tuning in, the night provided two decent bouts and two letdowns – which could be par for the course for any pay-per-view or SpikeTV offering. But what did hardcore boxing fans see? To the uninitiated, Dennis Hallman’s under-two-minute grappling rout of Danny Ruiz bore a strong resemblance to a rape, but it was technical, and with the verbal hand-holding of play-by-play commentator Colonel Bob Sheridan the “wowness” of the fight was definitely brought home. And Din Thomas’ KO of Gabe Lemley… well, it doesn’t take any explanation to realize that punching combo punctuated by a knee to the chops spells doom. Unfortunately, WWE refugee Bobby Lashley, an accomplished amateur wrestler before turning to scripted bouts, failed to sparkle and shine in what was only his second MMA bout, and if any followers of the Sweet Science were impressed by the dominant performances Hallman and Thomas offered up, they could not possibly have felt the same at the end of Lashley’s three-round lay-and-pray performance over the journeyman Jason Guida. Lashley remains a work-in-progress; that much is obvious to fans of any sport.

Then there was Roy Nelson’s loss to Jeff Monson, a perplexing bit of matchmaking if there ever was one. No one with even a modicum of MMA knowledge would tune in to watch the man who wore the IFL belt stand and box with the man who was good enough to challenge for the UFC belt but could never quite win it. Yet stand and box is what Nelson and Monson did, and did poorly for three laborious rounds, and when it did go to the ground it was at Nelson’s behest, the fruits of his takedowns and skills. What did MMA fans and boxing fans see in this one? When Monson was awarded the decision, what was seen was a robbery, a crime both sports can claim to share.

And throughout the card there was boxing, a bout here and a bout there, and when Jones Jr. earned his TKO win, it was likely the sort of payoff those who’d tuned in were waiting for. Was it exciting enough to make up for the Lashley/Guida and Nelson/Monson letdowns? Possibly. But if it didn’t, it provided the powers that be with enough data to tweak the experiment for future outings. March Badness had it’s moments for fans of both boxing and MMA – proof positive that with the right matchmaking and the right fighters, the endeavor could work.