Why do people still care about boxer vs. MMA matches?
Published by Zach Arnold on October 9th, 2009 in Current Events

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When you talk about Mixed Martial Arts to the average human being who doesn’t know anything about the sport, you still hear some critics bring up Muhammad Ali’s fight against Antonio Inoki in 1976 at Nippon Budokan. One UFC critic, Skip Bayless, does this all the time and insinuates that the fight was a work. (It ended up being legitimate, with referee Judo Gene LeBell maintaining order in the ring.) Over 30 years later, Japanese fight promoters still use the classic wrestler/MMA fighter vs. boxer formula as a cheap way to protect the wrestler in a last-minute fight.

On Tuesday night at DREAM 11 at Yokohama Arena, Kazushi Sakuraba was served a cupcake in an MMA fight by getting a last-minute booking against boxer Rubin Williams. Williams is an unknown in Japan and tried to talk a big game in the pre-fight press conference to hype up his fight.

“Well, I’ve been fighting my whole life and I’m very honored to be fighting a legend in your guys’ sport, but when I get in the ring it’s my job to become victorious and I’ll be doing my best in there. I’ve been fighting my whole life and it’s just what I do, go in there and win.”

Williams played the natural role of the cocky boxer who always says he’s going to knock out the MMA fighter and in the end gets creamed by the MMA fighter who uses kicks to set up submissions.

“I feel the opponent he’s a great, he’s a great individual in this sport. Me? Uh, I have a very very very I’m a very smart individual in the ring, um, I’m planning on using my hand combat because I’ve been one of the best boxers in the world. I’ve been practicing this style of fighting for some time now, I’m just looking forward in there to get in there and doing my best.”

Williams was asked what he thought about MMA. As opposed to some of the comments Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather have made about MMA, Williams wasn’t bashing the sport.

“Yes, I love the physical contact of just getting total dominance over your opponent, you can when you can use more than your hands um I guess that’s the difference of the two, you know, besides boxing.”

The absurdity of Williams’ last-minute booking is that he wasn’t even thinking about doing an MMA fight.

“Yes, I’m in good condition, just so happened when they called I was in Germany in training camp so I’m in pretty good condition. I was training with IBF Middleweight champion Arthur Abraham for a big fight he has coming up”

When did he get the fight offer?

“I’d say about a week ago and I thought about it for about two days whether I would do it or not.”

Naturally, Williams knew little about Sakuraba.

“No, I don’t have much information about him, I just hear he’s a legend in the game, he’s a very very good fighter who is well-respected individual in the sport, well-loved individual in the game and I’m just looking forward to getting in there.”

The hilarity of this answer was due in part to Williams continuing to parrot the line that he had been training in MMA for over a year and yet he didn’t know much about Sakuraba, one of the iconic faces in the sport’s history.

“Um, well, personally right now it’s just yeah you could say yeah I want to do as good in MMA as I’ve done in professional boxing.”

Williams indicated right away that he wouldn’t put up a big fight if Sakuraba got him in trouble. He had a boxing match lined up on November 13th. “Mr. Hollywood” did one more head-fake for the Japanese press about his alleged skill set.

“Yeah, like I said I’ve been practicing [ground game techniques] for a year and I’ve been fighting my whole life and as far as the ground game I’ve been getting pretty good over the last year and so I will display what I’ve learned in the fight Tuesday.”

Naturally, Sakuraba cleaned Williams’ clock in the fight and won with a kimura submission in under three minutes. After the fight…

“That I was more than sure that I would be able to knock him out. Um, the kicks were so hard, I, I never knew it would be like that, you know, um, it was the kicks that really, I couldn’t handle the kicks. I just practiced wrestling, I didn’t really work on the kicks, I just practicd wrestling a little bit and I didn’t know the kicks would be that hard, you know. That was it, I’m a fighter, I’m not a quitter at all. I would love to challenge him to a boxing match if I could.”

Williams should have watched Inoki/Ali like everyone else has. Perhaps he also should have admitted what a newbie he was to MMA after he made this comment.

“No, no, when he pulled my arm back, um, of course I don’t know what he was doing to it but when he pulled my arm back, uh, I knew I had to tap out then because it was feeling like he could have broke it, so you know, I’m OK now.”

You learn about arm locks within the first few hours of MMA training. It’s OK, Rubin, don’t be discouraged.

“I’m going to continue to practice MMA. That’s very embarrassing as a fighter of my calibur, a world-class athlete, to show a display like that but when I come back to challenge again for MMA, I’m going to be a much better MMA fighter. I’m sure standing up, no MMA fighter can do anything with me. I was just overwhelmed by the kicks.”

If the formula for boxer vs. MMA matches stays the same and the outcome always stays the same, then why do fans still go along with the concept? I realize Sakuraba is a legend and he’s aging and he needs all the easy paydays he can get, but what a waste of time these fights are. There are a few boxers out there, such as Kermit Cintron, who could be legitimate threats in MMA. However, we won’t see MMA promoters book them because the whole idea of this gimmick is to protect the MMA fighter and not bring in a boxer who knows how the ground game really works.

However, there may be some hope that the boxer vs. MMA formula is growing stale. Sakuraba, despite his big-name status, didn’t draw a super high rating for his squash match against Williams. Instead, it was another freak show gimmick that beat that fight in the ratings — 185-pound Minowaman beating 320-pound Choi Hong-Man in the Super Hulk tournament.

As a final footnote to the Sakuraba/Williams fight, it was sad watching Williams talk in the pre-fight DREAM press conference. He was asked by a Japanese reporter when the last time he had a boxing match was. Williams heard the question, then started staring town at the table and for a second it looked like he was going to fall asleep. As the seconds passed by and the silence continued, there seemed to be a nervousness there. After a legitimate 25-second pause, Williams finally said, “Like, last August.” Williams’ pause gave me a lot of pause before I watched his fight against Sakuraba. It was sad all the way around.