Is Boxing Chess? Is MMA Poker?

[Orange Lightning]

The best MMA fighters are a couple of moves ahead when they are fighting, they do one move with the intent of it leading to another and then another until the have the result they want so chess it is.

Do you not try to do the same thing in any fighting? I see this especially in Boxing. Sometimes, it's the only way to safe and certain blows.
I don't just mean mma. Any sport fighting that limits the rules, IMO, allows the fighters to focus on just those things, improving their ability to react to what is allowed. So they need to do more planning to catch the other fighter off guard.
In MMA, everything is allowed. So while the dynamic of strategy exists, as it does in any game, you have a higher chance to be caught unawares by what you're opponent does.

I'm not saying MMA isn't strategic. xD Just a little more random than fighting where there are rules that limit your options. Totally unrestricted fighting is incredibly random. In more random events, a person's skill or strategy can have a lesser effect on the outcome of a less random event. Cause and effect is slightly less plain and as a result, I think it's harder to realize the results of good strategy in more random events than less random ones.
And because of that, I think highly restricted fighting like Boxing is more akin to chess, and MMA is more akin to a card game.

The video discusses Bruce Lee's five ways of attack using some boxing clips. It shows what I mean with my top point with Boxing pretty well.

 

[Orange Lightning]

That works also. Nick Diaz, Wanderlei Silva and Chael Sonnen run that way.

Without going too much into it, Xingyi is a superb boxing style of Wushu. In its principles it's so utterly simple, but the applications are limitless. It's a straightforward, no-frills kind of Kung Fu. Historically the lineage (way after Shaolin temple though) starts with the legend of one of China's greatest Marshals, who taught the original art to spearmen who would lose their weapons in the heat of battle, and had to survive until they could pick one up again. There are forms that do work with the spear in the more advanced levels though, and from what I've studied it's also effective for dealing with multiple attackers. Such is the life of the classical spearman - the cannon-fodder of the old world.

Put simply, it's a style that uses offense as defense. In principle it encourages fighting in a linear fashion (drilling into the opponent and backing off, but don't take this too literally. Feel free to sidestep when necessary!) and encourages just driving through the opponent's guard (hello, linking forms, eight posts and the theory of mutual destruction) with complementing strikes. Kicks are minimal. It's not even pretty to look at lol. The the untrained eye it's just drunken pugilism on a payday friday night. But it's fast, strong, intense and aggressive.

Xingyi free-fight applications

Thanks. It sounded and looks a lot like Wing Chun. In can see how the methodology for cutting off inside line attacks could work against spear thrusts. Seems like you'd have to be awesome at it though. Spear thrusts can be really fast and non telegraphed.
Interesting indeed. I look this up later when I have better bandwidth. Thanks.