Muay Thai Sucks for MMA

MescalineDreams said:
Muay thai is great when Incorporated Into a well rounded striking game. and when properly adapted to MMA.

But, It's Important to train boxing separately right from the start. Muay thai gyms teach you far too many bad habits with your hands and those neural pathways can be difficult to change when they're so deeply Ingrained into you.

Traditional martial arts are definitely seeing a resurgence at the moment. The Footwork, movement, stance, wide base, diversity and creativity of attack and defense lends itself well to MMA. Particularly when combined with proper pure boxing training under a respectable coach.

Muay thai isn't at all out of place within the mix. There are many weaknesses as a core striking style, particularly in MMA.. but It has it's place and It would be silly not to incorporate some elements Into your overall game.
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Muay Thai is the single greatest art of all time. End of story.

Evidence here:

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First of all, muay thai is not boxing. They do not rely on big gloves to block. Original Muay Thai only uses roped fists or bare knuckle. Or more commonly known as muay boran. It's just that western/modern muay thai trains with big ass gloves. Nevertheless, mma fighters train/spar with mma gloves so it shouldn't matter anyways.

I agree with the lack of footwork but that's why you also train boxing footwork. This is MMA afterall. If you only stick to one art, you're only screwing yourself over. But if you can only choose one form, then muay thai is highly recommended.

I'd go Muay thai + boxing though.
 
Noah1212 said:
Dude he’s literally a Muay Thai fighter, that’s his background
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He is not literally a MT fighter? He started out fighting MT as an amateur but really fought mostly K-1 rules if I am not mistaken. His style is very broad, he has trained with New Zealand's top TKD exponents and obviously with MMA he has taken what works and what doesn't from his striking arsenal and applied it to MMA. He is by no means a pure MT fighter.
 
UraharaTaicho said:
He is not literally a MT fighter? He started out fighting MT as an amateur but really fought mostly K-1 rules if I am not mistaken. His style is very broad, he has trained with New Zealand's top TKD exponents and obviously with MMA he has taken what works and what doesn't from his striking arsenal and applied it to MMA. He is by no means a pure MT fighter.
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No one in mma is a PURE anything, that’s the point. Figure it out
 
Big Bird said:
Muay Thai is one of the few Martial Arts to properly incorporate some form of grappling and striking.

If I had to choose 1 discipline and only 1, Muay Thai might be it. Wrestling only works because of time limits.
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Yes and they compete with time limits so wrestling would be the one
 
Kleinschuster said:
HW title was Fedor. An all around talent. No2 was CroCop, pure striker. No3 Nog who went Zombie mode, rest was mixed.
LHW was Silva/Shogun - Muay Thai Stomping and Kneeing machines, then Arona a strong JJ guy, Jackson, that slammed but mostly knocked people out
MW Hendo, Saku - both kinda wrestlers
LW Gomi, Azedro, both knocking out machines

Strikers dominated by far IMO.
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Calling Saku a "kinda wreslter" is ridiculous.

There were a lot of different kinds of fighters in PRIDE, just like everywhere else. And wrestlers were prominent, just like they are everywhere else, and always will be in MMA.
 
Sensei Student said:
First of all, muay thai is not boxing. They do not rely on big gloves to block. Original Muay Thai only uses roped fists or bare knuckle. Or more commonly known as muay boran. It's just that western/modern muay thai trains with big ass gloves. Nevertheless, mma fighters train/spar with mma gloves so it shouldn't matter anyways.

I agree with the lack of footwork but that's why you also train boxing footwork. This is MMA afterall. If you only stick to one art, you're only screwing yourself over. But if you can only choose one form, then muay thai is highly recommended.

I'd go Muay thai + boxing though.
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So I guess those western modern Muay Thai fakers at Lumpinee stadium fighting with big gloves should know they need to be using ropes huh ??
 
HSM1 said:
Tbh Growing up I always thought Muay Thai was THEE backround needed to be succesful in standing MMA.
Yet it heavily relies on big gloves blocking strikes to your face. With no gloves or Little MMA gloves. You cant protect your face with those huge shields. You get clipped. Also as you saw in Shogun vs Jones, The footwork SUCKS. You get outworked by faster, Longer opponents.

I believe the best striking style for mma would be something like Whittaker's karate style, or MVP's style... Conor Mcgregors style.. or even a boxing style
Awesome kicks and footwork. Explosiveness.. Agility.. I feel like Muay Thai isn't practical. A katate or TKD styled guy will blitz on you easily, and move away before you can counter.
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Well having practiced MT for over 12 years I think your pretty delusional. The great thing about MT is you not only work on striking but a shit ton of grappling. Clinch work, side clinch, Over unders, sweeps, throws, etc....all part of MT. True, once on the ground then your'e in the BJJ world.

But trust me, when the fight/grapple starts on the feet a lot of guys who are "grapplers/BJJ" guys have a very difficult time getting me to the ground. Helps when you got strong neck muscles, and understand weight shifts and solid base skills.
 
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. High level muay thai has precise footwork which is needed for the variety of strikes that can be thrown, along with trips and throws.
Clearly if you put a muay thai fighter in a cage for an MMA fight he'll be at a disadvantage. That's why MMA is MMA and muay thai is muay thai etc.
 
TS is retarded.

No single martial art in its purest form works in MMA per se - pure wrestling and you get submitted, pure boxing and you get grappled/kicked to death, pure BJJ and you can't get the fight to the ground, etc.
 
Muay Thai training with focus on leg kicks, elbows and knees would be good for any fighter.

One thing I don't like about MT though is that they take the early rounds off. Never made sense to me. You would think it would occur to some of the fighters that getting aggressive early is going to be a big advantage.
 
Mma is its own sport. Striking has to be modified heavily no matter what the base is. That said, western muay thai is probably the strongest offensively (8 point striking, clinch fighting) and high level karate seem to be the strongest defensive striking style (footwork, low base makes them hard to take down, good counters).
 
I definitely can’t think of any successful MMA fighters with a MT background.
 
I always felt that a fighter who is 'springy' with his standup, who darts in and out with agility and quickness, is the preferred way to go, vs the fighters who like to be more flat footed. A good example of that was Condit vs Nick and Condit was just darting in and out landing all kinds of combos when Nick was too flat footed and slow to do anything about it. Robert Whittaker is a great example of it being used properly today. I don't think this style is inherent to any specific art but something the fighter must employee himself. When Wonderboy actually does strike, he uses this technique, although he is usually flat footed himself.
 
Op, that is way too much of a generalisation. Muay Thai styles can vary quite a lot and its really up to the individual fighter/coach where a fighters strengths are. You do get some Thai fighters that are a bit too "upright" and stiff in their movements, and/or MT guys whose hands could use some work. But ive also seen a lot of MT guys with lethal hands too. Obviously it goes without saying that every fighting style whether its MT, boxing, karate, judo etc etc needs to be adapted somewhat to excel in an MMA setting too.
 
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