What is actually happening is young fighters are deciding early to go one way or the other. There are exceptions. But for the most part American fighters are opting for MMA off the bat. This is one of the reasons why you see almost no American domination in boxing, with the game being dominated by an international stable of largely American-coached athletes. Of course boxing is a nice slice of the MMA skill set. So, in many instances it might look like I guy just boxed amateur or for a couple of pro fights and then switched, when in reality he was looking to the more lucrative sport of MMA all along.

First off, almost everything is against the rules in boxing, which puts a lot of heat on the ref. This means that in boxing, with most refs, a fighter does not lose a point, or even get warned, unless he harms the opponent with the foul, or unless he was totally blatant and made the ref feel like he didn’t respect him. Honestly, every decent pro fouls, and the great ones foul a lot. The most commonly called foul is the least dangerous one that is used to limit harm to the fighters, which is clinching. This is so heavily officiated against because the refs cut their teeth in the amateurs where it is totally forbidden.

Here is a partial list of boxing fouls, all of which can be used in MMA:

1. Clinching

2. Measuring

3. Holding and hitting

4. Ducking the head lower than the waist

5. Shoulder butting

6. Cross facing

7. Hitting without a closed fist

8. Turning [moving the fighter with your hand on his hip as you turn, like a dance step]

9. Punching the hip and thigh

10. Using the elbows for striking

11. Stopping [stopping a punch where it is getting started, by checking with the open hand]

During the course of two fights yesterday I saw everything on this list used except 9-11.

Successful boxers must foul, and foul effectively, Maywheather and Hopkins built their careers and maintain them with fouls, mostly stopping and clinching.