Im just wondering,I've seen and heard the stories about the fights in thailand during the 70's when kung-fu,karate and i believe taekwondo had gone down to challenge the pro thaiboxers of that time. and pretty much got thrashed.Not that Im knocking other arts,but i just find it almost amazing that Muay Thai can just utterly annihilate almost every other style that has come across it.Does anyone have any theories or educated guesses as to why it is so strong an art form?
Lots of very tough sparring and simple techniques to learn. Low kicks are easier to learn than jump spinning back kicks and are more pratical.
I think, due to the tough sparring and the tough drilling that they do as well, that Thai boxers are also very well conditioned and extremely tough.
Just a very simplistic explanation, and I am sure that others will elaborate on this.
Look guys,
I think MT is great,but for a little history lesson I'v got just four words for you:
Benny "The Jet" Urquidez
As a general rule MT fighters are better but trained in the stand-up game, but Benny took all the greats of his time. It's the fighter not the system that is great.
Mark
OneScoup is correct. "The Jet" got mauled in Muay Thai, so he only fought WKA-style after that. The Muay Thai elbows, knees, and low kicks were way too much for him.
Thank you for clarifying that OneScoup. God, do I get tired of the Benny "the jet" argument. Not to say if he actually trained real muayThai, he couldn't have done well, but he didn't.
The art with the freest rules will win... Muay Thai usually beats TKD, Sanda usually (not always) beats MT, MMA would usually beat Sanda
no major surprise, Muay Thai done by professional Muay Thai fighters is very good for Muay Thai competitons, so when a bunch of poorly trained guys showed up in Thailand to fight in stadiums, the LOST, no major ooo aaahhh to it
I am not that familiar with San Da or San Shou. Are these styles widely considered superior to Muay Thai?
Well thats funny because I fought a guy recently who is MT and as much as I respect Muay Thai I could give him a run for his money and he had been studying 6 years. You see so it is the person not the art.
Well all due respect Outkaster, but I doubt he was a Lumpinee Stadium champion. There's plenty of people at the local Muay Thai gyms (and any other Martial Arts school) who have trained for years and arent necessarily the greatest fighters. Some people just dont have the talent or personality to be good fighters no matter how many years they have trained. Somehow I dont think you would be giving Dieselnoi a run for his money.
as i learned from forum member KWJ, it's not WHAT you train , it's HOW you train
"Just because something hasn't competed in mma tournaments doesn't mean it sucks. That's like saying boxing, savate, and everything besides grappling sux. If you mix sanda with bjj it is no longer sanda, just as if you mix bjj iwth mt it is no longer muay thai. Pure Muay THai hasn't won any championships in mma and the best fighters are in Thailand, Sanda has it's own circuits and many argue the best fighters are in the Orient."
Thats all I was saying. I was not saying anything bad about the art I think it's cool. I was just saying that I sparred a guy that was pretty good at and I was still able to find holes in what he was doing. I have been taking kickboxing classes for a while and the leg portion was easy to adapt to,now the hands portion I need a lot of work on. I was not trying to start a flame war.
Muay Thai dominates because you have cool shorts and get to listen to funny music while you are fighting =)
Olympic TKD is WTF shit and I really do not agree with a lot of what they do only because there is no hands work there. I am working with some Mauy Thai guys and the legs portion is pretty cool and easy to adapt to.
But the only decent guy he beat was another pure stylist..
"Yoshida and Royce Gracie are pretty much pure bjj and judo. You could say they cross trained a but Royce has pretty much the same level striking as he did in ufc so that's mute."