This Saturday, Bobby Lashley (1-0) will take on MMA journeyman Jason Guida (19-17) at March Badness, a hybrid boxing-MMA event in Florida. Looks to me like there's about 40 or more pounds, and a couple inches separating Lashley and Guida. Not insurmountable odds, but defintiely an advantage for Lashley.
You'll see in the video that Guida tries to intimidate Lashley by asking how long he's been training MMA, but Lashley remains calm ... not that I expected doubt to show on the face of Lashley, even if it did have an effect.
It's kind of like a poodle nipping at the heels of a pitbull, that is, unless the poodle has a switchblade. And the switchblade for Guida is experience, the kind you get only by stepping in the cage again and again. On the other hand, Lashley trains with one of the best camps in the counry, American Top Team, so we'll see if the crash course in MMA he's been given pays off. Guida has just slightly more than a puncher's chance. If he loses, my only hope is that Lashley will get picked up by a bigger organization and we can truly see him tested.
The other thing I find interesting is that now that boxing is declining, we're going to see more of these hybrid boxing-MMA events. I think most fans won't buy it, though. It's kind of like when they tried to bring rock and rap together - to me, it just didn't work.
My point is that we'll see more of it, though - boxers, boxing promoters - trying to attach themselves to MMA, since it's on the rise, even though they may have bashed it in the past. For the record, I've neber heard or read anything about Jones speaking negatively about MMA - and if he wants to be a fan, that's cool.
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