ok boxing is amazing ima boxer and i fight mma i have my 1st paid(pro am) /title match 4 the 155 belt dec 16th and ok ima wrestler/boxer with a brown belt in bjj,judo,muay thai,american kickboxing, standing submission grappling,and fuma ryu ninjutsu(taijutsu) boxing requires skill but wat u must remember is mma is any martial art that is actually meant for fighting(krav maga shit like that is meant for biting ppl on the balls andshit not a clean manly fight)including boxing being used 2 fight a fight with few rules(they really have 2 many as far as no headbutts,no kneeing r kicking the head of a downed opponent and stuff like that i prefer rules of honor only really)so that men of different arts backgrounds and mixtures of these arts can fight and do their best
The differences in difficulty between MMA and boxing come down to this: boxing is a more closed system than MMA. If you're in boxing and just have trouble picking up the actual boxing (punching, punch defense, movement, etc) then you're constantly playing catch-up. However, if you take up MMA and have trouble with the boxing aspect, you might excel at another aspect (kicking, clinch fighting, takedowns, ground grappling, submissions, ground-and-pound, etc). There are plenty of MMA fighters who have poor boxing, but because MMA isn't a punching contest, they can be competitive by being strong in other areas. So boxing is more difficult because it's so specialized that if you're simply not good at punching, etc then you'll have more trouble picking it up; conversely, MMA is more difficult in some respects because you need a BROADER range of skills to be at least halfway good in. If you only focus on boxing, or kicking, or the ground game, then you'll eventually find other MMA guys that can beat you because you're not well-rounded.
By way of analogy, the best sprinter, best high-jumper, best long-jumper, etc are participating in individual events, not the decathlon. They could not participate competitively in the decathlon because they've become so specialized; likewise, a decathlete wouldn't be competitive at the individial aspects with the best in the world.