I’m not going to review something this popular. Zuffa doesn’t need my help and GSP doesn’t need my props. This is simply a great deal. It cost the guy who leant it to me $10 and contains five hours of MMA highlights and bonus fights. This product is as slickly produced as an NFL feature and highlights what I think are some of the best athletes in the world; and some of the best martial artists—not necessarily the same thing.

I know that the traditional martial arts guys are groaning out there, as well as some of my boxing friends. Most of my boxing friends claim that top MMA fighters have less than amateur boxing skills. Likewise, many of the traditional or older martial arts instructors I know claim that MMA fighters have no skill; that Anthony Petis and Anderson Siva cannot kick correctly, etc.

I am only qualified to speak on the boxing I saw demonstrated on this DVD yesterday, keeping in mind, that the boxing toolkit is only one quarter [at best] of the MMA skill set. With that last point in mind let us boxing guys acknowledge that if we had a top MMA pro boxing better in the cage than Floyd Money does in the ring that we would be championing a dead sport. If a guy has to be able to kick, wrestle and do submissions, how in hell is he supposed to be better at boxing than boxing’s best? What is he supposed to train 20 hours a day by shooting up like Lance Armstrong peddling through France? Come on, get real.

Right off the bat we know that straight punches are going to suffer, because the best straight punches are thrown stepping in, and stepping in against a guy that can kick or tackle your legs is, well, not always advisable. I saw some good journeyman level pro jabs and straights, and am of the opinion that most of these guys could be the best pro boxer in their particular home town, just not the best one on the planet.

What really impressed me is that these fighters generally showed better body punching, hooks, and uppercuts than is typical among top ten pro boxers. Keep in mind that only two out of ten pro boxers demonstrate an effective uppercut against top opposition, and that four out of ten of these converted wrestlers do! It might be natural selection based on a stockier MMA build, or just that these guys are already used to targeting the body and chin from underneath with knees and feet, and hence have better timing at that angle of attack.

With that said, these top MMA guys are largely gravitating toward boxing range. Perhaps that is key to understanding why boxing—such an unnatural and brutally contrived art—developed in the first place. Dominant fighters permitted to do almost anything, seem to be inclined to beat their opponent at arm’s length. I am also stunned at the freakish athleticism of John Jones and Jose Aldo. I think Aldo would be a positively demonic weapon fighter, and could easily imagine him rampaging through an NFL locker room barehanded and laying out an entire defensive squad, like some chimp on crystal-meth ripping apart stunned zoo employees.