Is MMA Safer Than Boxing ? | Joe Rogan

You know, it's like they think that about football helmets too. That they would actually be a safer game if they couldn't clash heads with a helmet on. That they wouldn't do it, they wouldn't play like that. That's just not true. Them clashing skulls is not safer. True match if they... But the idea is that the only reason why they play that way is because the helmet's in the shoulder gear. Yeah. If you took that stuff away, they wouldn't play like that. Yeah, back in the day they barely had any pads in, you know, the 30s or 40s or whatever when they were playing with those little tiny helmets. Bro, that game, if you were an outsider, like if you didn't know how big it was, like if you didn't understand anything about the cultural significance of football, and they showed you all the brain damage, and they showed you what it is, you'd be like, oh yeah, make that illegal. Yeah, probably. If anything should be illegal. Stop doing that, kids. Yeah, it's too constant, yeah. Don't run into each other. Don't smash heads. That's crazy. I can't believe... The constant defensive offensive line, just the idea that it's the funniest thing. As soon as you say go, just clunk heads with another human being at full speed. Want it to be illegal, and it's a fun thing to watch, and it's a great way for some guys to make a fuckload of money and weigh the risks versus the rewards. Yeah, but then a bunch of middle schoolers are snapping their necks, and my kid will never play football. Oh yeah, it's funny. But where'd you stop? They could then, they could illegalize MMA with that justification. Well, with MMA, it's because we, punching and kicking is so inherently violent. That's what we see it as being this violent act, right? That it's, we go, oh shit, fighting. That's like crazy. That's the most violent sport. But it's so much less of a dangerous sport than football. Football, these guys are just running head first at each other, and every one of them, every one of them has major, major issues. You also get blindsided in football. You know, you'll have your eye on someone, and then you get head to head taken out from someone else. That doesn't happen as much in MMA, but I mean, when people get like head kick knocked unconscious, that's not good for your brain. No, but how often are football players being concussed? All the time. Just per game, like just smashing at each other. And then they get up and they just do it again and again and again. Well, now they're a little bit stricter, I think, on like, if you get a concussion, they won't put you back in, at least the way they used to, like when I was a kid. But it's still happening all the time. But I think fighters are what getting concussed once every, if, you know, once a year, if they're getting knocked out once a year, I mean, you know. But there's also sub-concussive trauma. It seems to be the problem with CTE. It's not just the knockouts, it's just the thumps. Over and over again. Over and over and over. And training, sparring. They think that's the real problem. That's why also soccer players are getting it. Soccer players are starting to get CTE. So what's worse, like getting like a Conor McGregor one-punch knockout or fighting Nick Diaz and just getting like, for five rounds? Probably, you're probably better off getting one-punch of K-O. Yeah, flash knockouts probably the better than... Yeah, you're probably better off getting dropped. Just getting beat up by Nick Diaz for 15 minutes would just suck. Wasn't the actual... I'm just joking you. Wasn't the initial argument about MMA being safer than boxing is that it's not so much so, you know, with the gloves being bigger than boxing and all that stuff that's actually worse because you're going to keep taking too many shots? Well, if you're on the eight count as well, you can get knocked down and then get up and go right at... You're being concussed and like, alright, keep on fighting. Whereas in MMA, they'll stop it if you're not defending yourself, so... That's probably definitely better. You know, the thing about eight counts and ten counts, like, rrrrr. But people have gotten off the deck and had amazing performances, so you never want to stop it. Like, look at Tyson Fury gets off the deck twice against Deontay Wilder. In MMA, that fight would have been stopped, right? So it's like one of those things, particularly the last round. When he dropped him, he would definitely punched him a few times and he would have been out cold because he was flat. Yeah, yeah. Flat on his back. In MMA, that would be the end of the fight and we are lucky it wasn't because he got up like a fucking superhero and even won the rest of the round. He outboxed him for the rest of the round. He survived the initial barrage and then started catching him as he was coming in as Deontay was being reckless. He caught him one time, like, stung him. And you're like, holy shit, he's winning this round now. He's winning the rest of the round after getting almost obliterated. So there's an argument that that's better. The crazy thing... For the entertainment value. But the crazy thing from the CTE perspective about boxing to me is that people will get hit and then they get hit and grab someone, because that's just everyone's instinct, and they grab them, and then you have a little ref who goes, no, no, no, no, no, keep punching their heads. Like, don't do anything to avoid from it. No, no, no, no, step it back out. And then they do... And that in MMA, you'll see a lot, someone get hit, and then, you know, they get into a clinch and you get a few minutes in a clinch where they're kind of like, okay, I'm not taking head damage right now. But the smart thing about that is that's how you're supposed to fight. Like, you're giving people options to defend themselves. It shouldn't be you can't defend yourself other than punching back. That seems kind of crazy. Like, but I could grab them and just stop these punches. No, no, no, against the rules. What kind of rules do we have? Like, you can only beat me up if I let you beat me up? That was one of the points that the gracie used to make. You could both put the pussies and dance around for a half hour. But do you remember the original, those like, Gracie videos that they'd make in early UFC? Gracie in action. Yeah, and what they used to say all the time was, and it's so true, which is so interesting, is that if two boxers just have a street fight, they're going into a clinch, and it's probably going to end up on the ground at some point. Sometimes, yeah. Because the ref has to break up a clinch over and over and over again to make boxing happen. Like, even when you're a professional boxer, and you don't know anything about wrestling or grappling, you still end up grabbing the other guy, because that's just like... The only time that doesn't take place is when one guy knows how to strike and the other guy doesn't. And you see a lot of those videos online where two dudes decide to get into some sort of a street altercation, and one guy actually is like a boxer, and he catches the guy and the guy falls and bounces his head off the concrete, out cold. There's a bunch of those videos out. Yeah, that's bad. That's different. See, the thing about the Gracie jiu-jitsu is like, you got to always be aware of there's people like that out there. There's always guys who can punch you in the face. And if they know how to wrestle too, and they can keep you away and just keep punching you in the face, you better know how to take them down. You just don't know, dude. Fuck, dude. 2019, you have no idea who knows who won. You got to look at their ears. You got to look for little signs. Like, look in their eyes, shake their hands. Look at the signs of their necks. Yeah, dude. Dude, the skinny necks aren't getting choked. Yeah, as far as skill, like, definitely, yeah, you don't know. It's a weird time for fighting, you know? It's like, and we... I like both kinds. I like just stand-up-only fights. I like watching those, and I like mixed martial arts fights. But I think, like, Terrence Crawford's coming on next. And I think watching someone like him box, like, when you see the skill level that that guy has, switching stances, doing all kinds of befuddling people, getting their range, figuring them out, and then just teeing them up with perfect timing. Like, that's almost only possible, that kind of artistry, if there's no wrestling. Right. If there's no leg kicks, if there's only the boxing. That's the only way you see that. Like, that kind of, like, beautiful combination. Because otherwise, you would do other shit, too. Yeah. You would leg kick, you would try to take them down. And that... So, like, the level of dominance that a real Floyd Mayweather, a real world champion boxer has, with their hands, it's hard to really appreciate, until you see it live, and you know, like, what you're seeing. Like, if you're in the building with a guy, when he's beating somebody up on their sparring, it's like, you go, oh, like, this is... You guys are playing two totally different games. We have boxing. It's like, I literally look at boxing as, like, very much a sport. And I think MMA is the closest thing that we have to competitive fighting. 100%. That's sort of, like, the difference. It's, you know, all things considered. It's still not fighting. You can't grab somebody's fucking balls, and you can't come off their body, and bite their nose. I know. You used to be able to have it. You used to not be able to bite. You used to do it with a Joe Son, who got a... You couldn't bite, and you couldn't eye gouge. Hit him with a fucking trash can lid. You can't fish hook. And then, but you used to be able to punch the balls. There was a fucking great video of Keith Hackney fighting Joe Son. Joe Son got him in a headlock, and Keith Hackney's just hammering his dick. I mean, full blast of punches over and over. And you see, like, Joe Son's, like, going in shock. He takes a few of them, and he's like, I'm not letting go of this joke. Headbutt's real. And then, like, the fourth, fifth dick punch, it's like, this is all over, man. It's over. He was a drained man. Who was... Was it Kimo? Was he headbutting Hoys Gracey? Yeah, he headbutted him a bunch. Yeah, dude, that was fucking brutal. There was a lot of headbutting back in the days. It was an effective weapon. And it makes us, like, oh, that's awful, but... Small finger locks in there, right? But there's all these other bones. How come you're allowed to hit with these bones, but you can't hit with that bone? Also, I would rather be headbutted by a guy that... I don't give a shit. There's not much technique in headbutting. I would rather be headbutted than be head kicked by a dude who knows how to head kick. You'd think there's no technique, but there really is. There's guys that spar, and they fight in left way. And left way is a type of Muay Thai where they put ropes over their knuckles. That's the only thing they have. And they're allowed to headbutt. And it's some wild ass shit. And they do headbutt combinations on the pad. Like, they'll do tap, tap, bang! They'll, like, use their head and train it. Wow. And learn how to find that left way. W-E-I-T-L-U-T-H. You know who does commentary for it? It's our friend Robin Black. He does commentary for left way. But this is a brutal form of Muay Thai where you're allowed to headbutt. Because they're already elbow, and I think they're thinking, well, if I can knee and if I can punch, I can do all these things. Watch him headbutt. It's right there. His fucking face is right there. Just, bah! Well, you remember what Mark Coleman used to do? Like, he got a few UFCs in before the headbutts were illegal. Dude, he would smash people with the headbutts. So here, look at this dude, look at this combination. Watch this. So this is a Robin Black breakdown. When he, he, this dude goes off to the side, pushes the dude's head away, and then immediately comes in with a perfect headbutt. Boom. Just slamming him in the face on purpose with the top of his head. So he's trying to hit like his eyes and his nose and the soft tissue. He's trying to hit that with the hard part of his forehead. Yeah, I think that would do a lot more damage than a fist. I feel like a headbutt only works one out of every thousand times. No, man. No, no, no. No, this guy does it a lot. And if you do it this way, the way he's doing it, you're taking a really hard part of your forehead and you're smashing against a soft part of the eyes and the nose. This part of your forehead is hard as fuck, man. Most guys who break their hand in fights break their hands off of their heads. Top of the head, yeah. Top of the head, especially boxing.