The Bunce Diary: Mixing and Matching disciplines is rarely a good idea in the world of combat sports
There’s a very good chance I’ll upset some purists in the next few minutes. I won’t apologize in advance.
Here’s a brief history of the chaos of boxing and the men responsible for blurring the lines, adding to the mess, and building a solid history of ridiculous events. Tyson Fury now has the baton.
Anyone like savate, gunfight or a bit of swordsmanship? No receiver, cool. Either way, in 1993, the Ultimate Fighting Championship debuted with UFC One. They arrived in traditional combat gear, boxing shoes, and taekwondo robes and they were easily defeated by Jii Jitsu master, Royce Gracie. Eight men, seven fights, all stopped and the rest, as it is said, is history.
The man in the boxing boots that day in Denver was Art Jimmerson. A true warrior. He was there with a single boxing glove and his hardened boxing shorts. Just a glove on his left hand. He was defeated by Gracie 2-18 in the inning. That’s it, boxing and MMA become official partners and rivals. By the way, a glove is a hindrance since he can’t grab Gracie; Once on the floor, Gracie butts him and Art escapes. Art missed with his ten stabs before being knocked down. At the time, Art was 28-5 in the boxing ring and in the next fight he was stopped by Orlin Norris. In 1997, Terry Dunstan beat Jimmerson in Sheffield.
As an instructor, Muhammad Ali hit Antonio Inoki just twice during their crazy, stupid, and serious match in 1976. It’s hard to beat a man who spent 15 full rounds on the canvas. , strikes with his giant wrestling shoes. By the way, Ali had a hematoma in his left leg and was hospitalized for two weeks.
In late 1986, Leon Spinks lost to Inoki in the eighth round, a true mixed martial arts innovator, in a boxing ring; Inoki wears wrestling shorts, Spinks wears two gloves, and the match ends with Leon’s head wrapped somewhere in Inoki’s damn boots. Spinks isn’t over with boxing yet – maybe it’s the other way around, boxing isn’t over for Spinks yet – and about a year after his loss to Inoki, Spinks went through ten really brutal rounds against Randall Tex Cobb .
After that, Spinks drifted and spent a lot of time playing Primo Carnera in the wrestling game, fighting men like Tarzan Goto in a new city every few weeks. Spinks is a master of many trades, and he won the Brass Knuckles Championship heavyweight championship.
So away from Neon Leon’s complicated wrestling life, in 2010 there was another very ugly clash between the worlds of mixed martial arts and boxing. This is still hard to explain and at the same time it explains everything.
James Toney is a legend of the boxing ring when he somehow got his hands on the UFC giant, Randy Couture. Toney has fought 80 times, has won multiple world titles, and believes he can beat old Randy at Randy’s game. The massacre took place in Boston on UFC 118. I still don’t know how it was sold and negotiated and played out. No idea.
Couture is 47 years old, which to be fair is a freak. To be fair, Toney is 42 years old, which is a mess. Toney comes to exercise with a jiujitsu master; he studied all the intricacies that kids learn when they start in the MMA game. No one doubts that Toney took a prep shift in the gym, and against another newbie, he could have won. Randy is no newbie, and he’s not in the UFC to laugh and chuckle.
It lasted about 10 seconds before Randy did what Randy did and knocked Toney down. The match officially ended with a score of 19-3 when James Lights Out Toney, the boxing god, knocked it down just seconds before his lights went out. Toney swore that there was a boxing rematch deal, and he would fight it tomorrow. (Note to the Saudis: This is NOT a possible underdog war).
Toney, like Spinks a few years earlier, returned to his sport and lost to Denis Lebedev in Moscow in a tough 12-game run to win the world title.
Apologies to any other boxer, of any level, who has tried MMA and got a lump in his throat and somehow didn’t get mentioned. Julius Francis, sorry, man.
And that brings me to the saddest part. In 2013, Riddick Bowe lowered his considerable bulk onto my BoxNation sofa. Big Daddy was actually in the house. In my books, he’s boxing royalty and he can be so much more. An inspired Bowe will give any heavyweight any time a tough, hard night.
Bowe limped through the studio door, smiling and laughing and in pain. Unsteady legs, loud voice, he plopped down on the sofa. He just flew back from Thailand. He fought a Muay Thai match, which kicked off his plan to take over MMA. His face was unmarked, but his legs were stiff, painful, and damaged. He was large, out of shape at 300 pounds, and a little confused. A few days earlier, he had been kicked to the tarp five times and painfully gave up in the second half. “It’s hard, my legs don’t heal quickly,” he told me. He has never kicked or kicked a young Ukrainian opponent, Levgen Golovin. It was easy for Golovin; he just kicked Bowe’s shin. And keep kicking.
Only 1,000 screenings for Bowe’s fight in the red-light beach paradise of Pattaya, and admission is free, which is not what the area is known for. I suspect that he received even a fraction of the $150,000 he was promised. What he got instead was one of the ancient lessons of combat sport: You can’t play both.
Bowe is sitting on my sofa, a spoiled man and the victim of a stupid idea.
Jiu-Jitsu black belt Royce Gracie aims a kick at cruiser Art Jimmerson during a match at the Ultimate Boxer Championships in Denver, Colorado (Markus Boes)
