Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold recently shared his unfiltered opinions on various combat sports, ranking them from easiest to most challenging in a recent interview.
When asked to rank boxing, MMA, kickboxing, and bare knuckle combat, Rockhold didn’t hesitate to place mixed martial arts at the top of the difficulty scale. “MMA, there’s nothing harder,” the veteran declared, drawing from his experience.
His reasoning stems from the multifaceted nature of MMA, where athletes must master striking, grappling, wrestling, and submissions while transitioning between different combat ranges.
Following MMA in his rankings, Rockhold placed kickboxing as the second most challenging discipline. The sport’s combination of punches and kicks requires athletes to defend against attacks from multiple angles while maintaining balance and timing across various striking techniques.
Perhaps more surprising was Rockhold’s assessment of traditional boxing versus bare knuckle competition. Despite boxing’s technical demands and rich history, he positioned it as less challenging than the bare knuckle variant.
Rockhold’s critique of bare knuckle competition was particularly harsh, dismissing it as lacking in technical merit. “It’s not who’s the best boxer, it’s who’s willing to lose their face first,” he explained, suggesting that the absence of gloves fundamentally changes the nature of competition.
He went on to describe bare knuckle events as chaotic affairs, stating, “You got a metal ring, you bounce the ring, you bounce back. The whole thing is just built for a brawl. It’s an intense brawl, there’s no rhythm, there’s no technique to it.”
Rockhold also talked about his own approach to competition during the interview. “I’ll fight to the death if I can use my whole body, but I ain’t gonna do it for bare knuckle boxing,” he stated.
