During a visit with my oral hygienist, I started up an interesting conversation with her. She told me that she is really excited now that she is taking boxing classes. I asked her what is the name of the boxing instructor, and after telling me who it was, I told her to say hi for me. She was surprised that a karate guy would know a boxing instructor. I just said, us martial arts guys just know each other. Then she said, “Boxing is a martial art?”
I thought about this for a while, and realized that many people associate martial arts with arts from Asia. The truth is martial arts is probably one of the oldest forms of combative expressions. Martial arts exposure is all around us, whether we recognize it or not. Most kids in America have the opportunity to learn some form of it when they are young, like wrestling and boxing.
Wrestling and Boxing is more commonly viewed as sports here in America, but they are still a Martial Art.
Institute of Combative Arts™ 
merrium-webster says a martial art is “any of several arts of combat and self defense (as karate and judo) that are widely practiced as sport ”
sport is right in the definition. jack summers one evening mentioned to me that boxing is a martial art and never gave me a hard time for doing it in the dojo. actually he corrected my boxing technique a couple of times.
wrestling, well, that stuff is just great. the proof is clear in the ufc.