"Kickboxing is a true fighting sport. All the time you are exchanging punches and kicking. No clinching. Sometimes, it's much more tougher than MMA itself. MMA requires a lot of wrestling and fighting on the ground. From that point, MMA is harder, but kickboxing is much more dynamic. It takes a lot of energy to kick and punch. Basically, both of them are hard to train for. (Kickboxing) requires more energy because there is more punching, more kicking. In MMA, sooner or later, you come to the clinch and you have the opportunity to hold the guy for 30 seconds, one minute, go to the ground. Here, you have to exchange punches all of the time."
Longtime mixed martial arts (MMA) and kickboxing veteran, Mirko Filipovic, gives his take on the differences between the two sports. According to "Cro Cop's" comments to FightChannel01, while both are very hard to train for, at the end of the day, kickboxing is much more dynamic given the fact that it requires more striking as opposed to MMA, which often times has a lot of grappling involved. Something the PRIDE FC legend wasn't necessarily a fan of during his reign of dominance in MMA. Ironically enough, of Mirko's final four losses, three of them came by way of knockout. After ending his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) career on a three-fight skid, the Croat went an even 1-1 overseas before deciding to focus his efforts back to his first love, kickboxing. He'll look to get back into the win column when he attempts to defeat Remy Bonjasky for a second time on March 8, 2014 in the main event of GLORY 14 in Zagreb, Croatia. Maybe a return to the all-striking sport will be just what the doctor ordered for the slumping fighter. Perhaps that's the reason Pat Barry opted to return to kickboxing, as well.
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