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With that level of vagueness, no. I'd concede that if the fight STARTED on the ground, that the skilled MMA fighter would almost certainly be a heavy favorite.

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I'm by no means world class in anything. That said, I have no doubt that I could take down almost any boxer, of any size, very quickly. Admittedly, one ungloved, perfectly-distanced punch from a pro boxer would lay me out immediately, but it's hard to deliver a solid punch at a guy who is going for your ankles or stepping to your shoulder.

I think you vastly underestimate the ability of grapplers (and most martial artists, for that matter) to close distance, minimize damage from a single blow, and take someone down. It's just not even close.

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I agree that a skilled wrestler can be very good at leg-shooting for takedowns and could often get inside like thatr on a boxer. But a boxer could quickly learn the minimum to counter (splay legs back and drop weight on the shooter if the shooter gets inside) and combine that with rabbit punching. The shooter might avoid getting hit by regular punches but that doesn't mean he would avoid getting rabbit punched, perhaps with the weight of the boxer adding to the force. That could potentially be very bad for the shooter.

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Indeed. But wouldn't you agree that the training a boxer goes through to keep them from doing that in a boxing match might freeze him just a little.

And unless the boxer receives sprawl training before the fight, I don't think he'll learn quickly enough. That first takedown is probably going to be the beginning of the end unless the mma fighter allows the boxer up for some stupid reason.