When Darren Till enters the ring in Derby on Friday night, he will be the latest in a long line of fighters who have transitioned between MMA and boxing.
The fight, which takes place at Vaillant Live in Derby under KSI’s Misfits Boxing (and will be broadcast live on DAZN), will see Till take on fellow former UFC fighter Darren Stewart. With no grappling, kicks, or an Octagon, the pair are set to face each other under boxing rules.
Till has had one professional boxing match so far, a technical knockout over Anthony Taylor in January. For Stewart, this will be his debut wearing boxing gloves. While the pair are far from the first to move into boxing as their MMA careers have gone on the wane, the transition has usually gone the other way.
Ray Mercer
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Perhaps the most-prominent boxer to have shifted into MMA has been “Merciless” Ray Mercer, who won Olympic gold in 1988 at heavyweight, held the WBO title, and is perhaps best remembered for his split-decision loss against Lennox Lewis in 1996 and a hellacious, five-round war that saw him stop Tommy Morrison in 1991.
Mercer made a gradual move into MMA, starting from boxing and sliding first into kickboxing. After a 2004 fight against Musashi in the Japanese promotion K-1, Mercer suffered an embarrassing loss the following year when he took a single, slight head kick from Remy Bonjasky in the first round that led to him turning away and submitting.
Mercer had seemingly tested the waters with various MMA promotions, but made his debut proper in 2007, losing by submission in the first round to the debuting Kimbo Slice. There was one last, golden moment in MMA for Mercer, though, when he defeated former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in nine seconds in 2009. Tellingly, it was through punches that Mercer finished the fight.
James Toney
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Multiple-weight world champion James Toney held titles from middleweight to heavyweight, had a cruiserweight classic in 2003 against Vassiliy Jirov, and essentially ended the top-level career of Evander Holyfield. Toney was one of the modern era’s great boxing masters who seemed to know every trick, roll, feint, and combination in the book. He was also cursed by a trend towards gluttony.
It was a surprise, then, when Toney was contracted to fight Randy Couture at UFC 118 in Boston. Couture was a multiple champion and pioneer in MMA who, while approaching the end of his career, remained within the sport’s top promotion. Toney, meanwhile, had no experience in either kicks or grappling.
The bout, which the UFC sold hard, ended badly for Toney. Couture took him down quickly, put him on his back, and submitted him within four minutes.
Art Jimmerson
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An honourable mention here. Now best known for participating in the first UFC event in Denver in 1993, Art Jimmerson was a top-rated cruiserweight when he decided to take part in the inaugural tournament with one bare hand and one wrapped in a boxing glove. Jimmerson was 28-5 when he went into the tournament, thinking that he would quickly knock out his opponents then go back to his real job.
Like Toney, Jimmerson lost in one round – to jiu-jitsu icon Royce Gracie. After Jimmerson’s boxing career, which eventually wound down to a 33-18 (17 KOs) record, was over, he went back to the UFC and worked as a boxing coach there. He passed away last May.
Muhammad Ali
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It was not strictly MMA, but Muhammad Ali went to Japan in 1976 for a ‘match’ against famed Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki. Upon realising what Inoki could – and planned to – do to him, Ali had the rules changed to negate Inoki’s grappling and kicking skills. Inoki spent much of the ‘fight’ on his back, ineffectively kicking at the legs of Ali. The next day, Ali was hospitalised with blood clots in his legs. Regardless of the outcome, everyone lost.
Tommy Morrison
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And, finally, a dishonourable mention – Tommy Morrison. The former WBO champion, whose career was derailed in 1996 by a failed HIV test and who passed away in 2013, tried his hand at a form of MMA in 2007. It was not entirely MMA as Morrison’s team ensured the rules were changed so that no grappling or kicking was involved. Morrison did, however, wear MMA gloves to break up the face of local man John Stover in a bout from which thankfully little video footage has emerged.
