Crossing Over From MMA to Boxing

Phrasal Verb(s):  Cross Over

1. To change from one condition or loyalty to another.

OK, for those who started this read expecting to hear from the dead, while you won't be getting messages from beyond conveyed by a shady John Edwards, you may be getting insight into the slow killings of fighters' careers.

Maybe...

Can MMA fighters make the jump into professional boxing and produce successful careers?

Oh and if they do want to try...whoever does...they really need to hurry. Boxing is dying and will be gone any day now. (See how ridiculous that sounds, boxing haters?)

Anyway...

This crossing over between sports is nothing new. During my career working in the boxing world, many professional kickboxer’s tried to step up and make waves in the ranks of boxing's best. I cannot recall one who did it even close to the level of success they enjoyed in their original combat sport.

So the question is: Will that be replicated now between MMA and boxing?

Anderson Silva, an MMA enigma, wanted to take on Roy Jones Jr., a boxing enigma. The only thing that makes this fight kind of compelling, outside of watching them both perform, is that Roy is past his prime and Anderson is not. If Roy was in his peak years, the result wouldn't be very good for Anderson. It just wouldn't.

Now, Andrei Arlovski is training under Freddie Roach to make his debut in boxing. Arlovski is a skilled fighter and athlete that is very durable. But can he make the jump to the ring?

EliteXC's Lightweight champion K.J. Noons boxes, kickboxes, and fights in MMA. He surely proved how well he can throw hands against Nick Diaz and Yves Edwards. But can K.J. capture gold in boxing as well. He plans to.

The result, should combatants from MMA be able to cross over into boxing, could be fantastic. We could end up seeing an in-his-prime Jones vs. an-in-his-prime Silva type of fight between the two sports, if the pioneers of this move from MMA to boxing fare well. That would be amazing.

It would also give boxing the PR boost it needs, while simultaneously helping push MMA a little more mainstream.

But what about the MMA tide going back out—taking with it pro boxers trying their hands at Mixed Martial Arts, after some MMA guys attained recognition in boxing?

Clearly, the step FROM the melting pot of combat, MMA, is easier than the step INTO it from any one, exclusive combat discipline. Even if an MMA fighter is an average boxer at best, he at least knows the one craft he needs to, if and when he boxes. A boxer would be devoid of Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, judo, wrestling, and more, should he try to fight in a cage.

The worst-case scenario would have MMA stars damaging themselves publicly by losing handily in a sport that is not identical to theirs. How badly they could hurt their reputations, if at all, is hard to determine at this point. I do know that the potential to do so is very real to some people...Ask Dana White.

Dana is two things: a businessman and a practitioner of boxing. He knows what could happen to Anderson Silva by trying to take on a boxer like Roy Jones, who is easily amongst the best the sport of boxing has ever seen. That's why Dana said no to Anderson.

As a fan of both sports, I sure do hope to see it work. And the crossover, in reverse, could also happen, though I'd expect it would take a little longer with so many fighting styles for a boxer to learn before being close to ready to battle in a cage.

That realm is also being explored by guys such as former heavyweight boxer Jeremy 'Half Man, Half Amazing' Williams. This guy has approximately an 88 percent KO ratio in boxing, and he's not even a big heavyweight. He is thus far unbeaten in his campaign in MMA, training at the famous Legend's MMA gym in Hollywood, CA.

The book on this is very unwritten, yet the story already has me hooked.