Those Little Gloves Hurt!
People that have not used MMA gloves for sparring or even pad work do not understand the difference between them and boxing gloves. This is just one of the differences between kickboxing striking and MMA striking.
Something that took a lot longer for me to notice than it should’ve was the massive change in footwork between kickboxing and MMA. If I use me as a guide when I was fighting in kickboxing my weight was on my toes and I stood very tall compared to how I stand in MMA. For kickboxing you want your weight on your toes so you can lift your legs and rotate to kick. The key to an effective kick is to be able to deliver it with minimal movement so you do not telegraph your kick but have maximal impact. You also need to put your body weight behind the kick and the best guys do that rotation at the end of their kick.
You also want to be light on your feet so you can leg check as this is very important if you plan on having a decent carer in kickboxing after taking a few solid leg kicks you are limping for a week. As the striking range is very precise your foot work is a massive part of your defence, using very subtle in and out’s to get your range. In MMA the stance is wider, longer and heavier. I was very surprised when I saw the comparison between my kickboxing stance, tall and light on my feet, then how much it had changed after years training MMA and how I was a lot heavier and slower with my foot work. This may be due to being older and heavier however, but I am hoping it is more to do with the difference in requirements between kickboxing and MMA. Your stance had to be ready to change levels to defend the takedown in MMA. The effect this has in striking is it makes leg kicks very hard to defend but it gives you the chance on defence to be able to catch the leg kick and take them down. Regardless if you are defending takedowns or trying to get a takedown your stance is going to be long and wider than it would be in kickboxing and this make kicks both harder to throw and defend.
If you break down to just pure punches with MMA there are differences. Hitting with the little gloves is different, I have been doing MMA for years and I need sparring to be hard before I can throw punches with MMA gloves and not be concerned. If you are doing light sparring with boxing gloves it is relaxed and you are working things, light sparring in MMA gloves you just do not want to get hit and that is it. MMA gloves just feel different when they land compared to a boxing glove. Obviously there is more padding on boxing gloves and you don’t feel your opponents skull when you land a punch, yes you actually feel it on your knuckles. Then there are the awkward punches (yes I still throw them) that don’t land as you would like. I have both landed and been hit by lefts hooks when moving my head when the mid finger knuckles, or the knuckles you use to knock on a door. When they land around the eye it always creates swelling around the eye as it is more or less hitting bone on bone. Then how you hold your hands, yes you have your hands in more or the less the same place as pure boxing but the thing is your hands are open. This is a massive difference as you are constantly opening and closing your hands when sparring. The reason for this is that you need to have your hands open when you are defending punches where you are basically putting your hand through your hair, or attaching your palm to your head. You have your hands open otherwise if they are closed and you defend a punch wearing MMA gloves you get the door knocking knuckles slammed in to the side of your head – which hurts. This means your hands are open when defending and closed when attacking this can get confusing and difficult, and this is why there are eye pokes in MMA. This defence makes things a lot different as in boxing you defend a lot punches using your gloves, this also changes the distance. In MMA it is a lot harder to sit in the pocket and rely on head movement as there are kicks and knees to worry about. Therefore it makes the striking tactics of more get in and throw 1 -3 punches and then get back out. This changes your mentality on how you work your striking and what combos you can throw (or what I can throw). Then getting hit by a boxing glove is never pleasant but it is a hell of a lot better than getting hit by a MMA glove. The boxing glove is like a big thud, don’t feel it anywhere but just know your head got hit. That compared to a MMA glove you know exactly where you got hit and it stings. When you get hit with a MMA glove and it stings, and I hope I am not the only one here, it changes how you throw as when you get hit and it feels warm which makes you think you are cut or bruised ad that messes with your head. When striking you can’t defend like in boxing as you do not feel as safe taking shots on the gloves.
People can be hard on the striking in MMA and the boxing match between McGregor and Mayweather didn’t help with this argument. MMA have very good strikers, some of the best in the world, but as they have so many other things to train they are not comparable to elite boxers / kickboxers. If you put a top boxer against a MMA fighter in MMA gloves that would be more interesting as it changes the game like you would not believe. My background is kickboxing and I feel at home with big gloves on, but I can still feel uncomfortable with those little gloves. Added all up with the different stance, due to takedowns, the different gloves it should make more sense why the MMA striking is less with combos than either kickboxing or boxing as it is just different – not better or worse just different.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor