Boxing vs muay thai as mma base???

Manimal87

White Belt
@White
Joined
Jul 15, 2017
Messages
26
Reaction score
0
Is boxing really better for base in mma than muay thai? Because Quite all current champions are the best boxers in there divisions
 
Boxing and wrestling are the best bases for MMA, but you do need a very good understanding of BJJ and some kind of kickfighting too at a certain level.
 
a guy nailed it if talking about a base style that isnt general MMA

but I would argue MMA is the best Base for MMA unless MMA schools are not up to standard yet

why neglect low kicks when you can focus on hands and low kicks and be a better more adaptable strike,

why neglect anything high % in MMA?

why start with a stance suited for another sport?

etc etc
 
a guy nailed it if talking about a base style that isnt general MMA

but I would argue MMA is the best Base for MMA unless MMA schools are not up to standard yet

why neglect low kicks when you can focus on hands and low kicks and be a better more adaptable strike,

why neglect anything high % in MMA?

why start with a stance suited for another sport?

etc etc

Even MMA gyms don't let you just start doing MMA. They typically have a boxing class, MT class, BJJ class and wrestling class. You do those for a certain amount of time or until you demonstrate a certain level of proficiency, then you get invited to the MMA class. Some do have beginner MMA classes, but the guys doing just those are always worse than the ones who take the specialized classes. There's just too much to learn to start with an "mma base".
 
Even MMA gyms don't let you just start doing MMA. They typically have a boxing class, MT class, BJJ class and wrestling class. You do those for a certain amount of time or until you demonstrate a certain level of proficiency, then you get invited to the MMA class. Some do have beginner MMA classes, but the guys doing just those are always worse than the ones who take the specialized classes. There's just too much to learn to start with an "mma base".

thought something like that might be the case

do you think it will change in the future or stay the same?
 
Is boxing really better for base in mma than muay thai? Because Quite all current champions are the best boxers in there divisions

You think they got there because they ignored kicking? Excellence is one aspect might have opened up because of mastery in another.
 
a guy nailed it if talking about a base style that isnt general MMA

but I would argue MMA is the best Base for MMA unless MMA schools are not up to standard yet

why neglect low kicks when you can focus on hands and low kicks and be a better more adaptable strike,

why neglect anything high % in MMA?

why start with a stance suited for another sport?

etc etc
Your stance really adjusts depending on your opponent. If you're going to face a striker with a strong MT/ dutch KB background, keeping things 50-50 to be able to check is what would be used, whereas you're against a Chad Mendes type, you'd have to be more forward heavy ready to stuff TDs
 
a guy nailed it if talking about a base style that isnt general MMA

but I would argue MMA is the best Base for MMA unless MMA schools are not up to standard yet

why neglect low kicks when you can focus on hands and low kicks and be a better more adaptable strike,

why neglect anything high % in MMA?

why start with a stance suited for another sport?

etc etc
Low kicks automatically mean that you can't clinch, do takedowns, defend a takedown, or set up other strikes or level changes at the end your combo. Low kicks are high % but lower everything elses %.

Boxing is successful because punching is dynamic. It complements every other move you can do and sets everything else up.
 
I actually think that for striking Dutch KB is probably the best style for MMA. Very hands heavy, but with the ability to kick for power and defend kicks. Aldo these days has a very Dutch style, albeit an extremely defensive one. Whitaker can punch and kick very effectively as well.

It's also important not to look only at a point in time when gauging what takes people to the top. You wouldn't have to go that far back to find a lot of kickboxers at the top of various divisions, and most of the long time dominant champs were more KB based than boxing.

I'll add too that strategically two of the most dominant champions rely very heavily on Muay Thai ideas of outfighting moving directly into the clinch if taken out of kick range. Jon Jones and DJ are both basically outfighters who love to clinch, neither spend much time in what you'd normally consider boxing range. And while both are great wrestlers, their clinches are much more about doing damage with strikes than taking people down.

Boxing is definitely having a moment with Cody, Conor, and Stipe looking very very good lately, but it's hardly the dominant striking style in MMA. My personal opinion is that if you have good wrestling, you can layer pretty much any real striking art over that and have success. It's probably easier in many case to learn to box than learn to use all the weapons of Muay Thai (and boxing tends to emphasize defensive soundness more earlier on than MT, which is huge in terms of practical results), but I don't think it's inherently superior for the cage in any way.
 
Low kicks automatically mean that you can't clinch, do takedowns, defend a takedown, or set up other strikes or level changes at the end your combo. Low kicks are high % but lower everything elses %.

Boxing is successful because punching is dynamic. It complements every other move you can do and sets everything else up.

I don't think that's true at all. There's more than one way to low kick, not everything has to be a 100% committed blast that removes the possibility of follow ups. I low kick to set up the clinch all the time, especially using quick front leg low kicks mostly to screw with balance.
 
I actually think that for striking Dutch KB is probably the best style for MMA. Very hands heavy, but with the ability to kick for power and defend kicks. Aldo these days has a very Dutch style, albeit an extremely defensive one. Whitaker can punch and kick very effectively as well.

It's also important not to look only at a point in time when gauging what takes people to the top. You wouldn't have to go that far back to find a lot of kickboxers at the top of various divisions, and most of the long time dominant champs were more KB based than boxing.

I'll add too that strategically two of the most dominant champions rely very heavily on Muay Thai ideas of outfighting moving directly into the clinch if taken out of kick range. Jon Jones and DJ are both basically outfighters who love to clinch, neither spend much time in what you'd normally consider boxing range. And while both are great wrestlers, their clinches are much more about doing damage with strikes than taking people down.

Boxing is definitely having a moment with Cody, Conor, and Stipe looking very very good lately, but it's hardly the dominant striking style in MMA. My personal opinion is that if you have good wrestling, you can layer pretty much any real striking art over that and have success. It's probably easier in many case to learn to box than learn to use all the weapons of Muay Thai (and boxing tends to emphasize defensive soundness more earlier on than MT, which is huge in terms of practical results), but I don't think it's inherently superior for the cage in any way.

Both currently and historically most champs have been much more boxing oriented in MMA. The vast majority of champs are/were wrestle boxers, or extremely good at at least one of those.

Miocic, Velasquez, dos Santos, Lesnar, Couture, Cormier, Evans, Rampage, Liddell, Belfort, Ortiz, Bisping, Weidman, Woodley, Lawler, Hendricks, GSP, Hughes, Serra, McGregor, Alvarez, Edgar, Penn, Sherk, Holloway, Aldo, Garbrandt and Cruz are all champs who almost exclusively used their hands to win fights on the feet. Then there are guys who have more weapons in their arsenal but still rely heavily on either boxing or wrestling. Silva, for example, had knockouts with kicks, knees and elbows, but he's also one of the best boxers in MMA history and wouldn't have been half the fighter without his counter punching. You do have guys like Pettis, dos Anjos, Werdum, and Rockhold who were more like kickboxing and BJJ guys, but all of them had the breaks beat off them by a better boxer--dos Anjos walked Pettis down and boxed his face in for 5 rounds, Alvarez lit dos Anjos up and stopped him with a flurry of punches, Werdum got put out by Miocic, Rockhold got knocked out by Bisping, even Silva got knocked out by Weidman. Then there's the other guys you mentioned.

Jones is a good boxer, but not a great boxer by any stretch of the imagination, and it almost got him in trouble against Cormier and Gustafsson, but his build and incredible wrestling allow him to tie boxers up in the clinch. MM wins most of his fights with his takedowns, passing and submission game, or his clinch. So they make up for deficiencies in their boxing with their wrestling. That's certainly a feasible strategy, it just takes an extremely high level of wrestling to be able to pull it off.

Boxing simply combines with wrestling much better than other striking styles. The footwork and head movement translate directly into takedown offense and defense when done correctly, and punches are the most efficient, most effective weapons to strike with. Everything else can be set up by punches, and most strikes thrown are punches so it's much more important to be able to deal with them than with other strikes.
 
Low kicks automatically mean that you can't clinch, do takedowns, defend a takedown, or set up other strikes or level changes at the end your combo. Low kicks are high % but lower everything elses %.

Boxing is successful because punching is dynamic. It complements every other move you can do and sets everything else up.

totally agree with you
 
Both currently and historically most champs have been much more boxing oriented in MMA. The vast majority of champs are/were wrestle boxers, or extremely good at at least one of those.

Miocic, Velasquez, dos Santos, Lesnar, Couture, Cormier, Evans, Rampage, Liddell, Belfort, Ortiz, Bisping, Weidman, Woodley, Lawler, Hendricks, GSP, Hughes, Serra, McGregor, Alvarez, Edgar, Penn, Sherk, Holloway, Aldo, Garbrandt and Cruz are all champs who almost exclusively used their hands to win fights on the feet. Then there are guys who have more weapons in their arsenal but still rely heavily on either boxing or wrestling. Silva, for example, had knockouts with kicks, knees and elbows, but he's also one of the best boxers in MMA history and wouldn't have been half the fighter without his counter punching. You do have guys like Pettis, dos Anjos, Werdum, and Rockhold who were more like kickboxing and BJJ guys, but all of them had the breaks beat off them by a better boxer--dos Anjos walked Pettis down and boxed his face in for 5 rounds, Alvarez lit dos Anjos up and stopped him with a flurry of punches, Werdum got put out by Miocic, Rockhold got knocked out by Bisping, even Silva got knocked out by Weidman. Then there's the other guys you mentioned.

Jones is a good boxer, but not a great boxer by any stretch of the imagination, and it almost got him in trouble against Cormier and Gustafsson, but his build and incredible wrestling allow him to tie boxers up in the clinch. MM wins most of his fights with his takedowns, passing and submission game, or his clinch. So they make up for deficiencies in their boxing with their wrestling. That's certainly a feasible strategy, it just takes an extremely high level of wrestling to be able to pull it off.

Boxing simply combines with wrestling much better than other striking styles. The footwork and head movement translate directly into takedown offense and defense when done correctly, and punches are the most efficient, most effective weapons to strike with. Everything else can be set up by punches, and most strikes thrown are punches so it's much more important to be able to deal with them than with other strikes.

I disagree with a lot of people on your list, mostly because I think you're defining boxing too broadly and KB too narrowly. A lot of those guys had good hands, but they weren't really boxers as they didn't set things up like a boxer would, they didn't stand or move like boxers do, their defense wasn't all that boxing oriented, etc. GSP, Aldo, Silva, Liddell, Bisping, Weidman, Lawler, McGregor to a certain extent, and Holloway are all guys with good hands who also have good kicking games and tended to punch, move, and defend much more like Karate guys or Dutch KBers than boxers. I agree that hands translate better into the takedown game than kicks (though I think the sort of clinch striking that you see in MT does a lot more to open up TDs than anything you'd get from clinch work in boxing), but again hands and boxing aren't synonyms.

When you watch fighters like Miocic, Garbrandt, JDS, old school Rashad, or Edgar it's pretty obvious that they're drawing their footwork and defensive movement (as well as their shot selection and punch chaining style) from pretty pure boxing. I would thus define them as true boxing strikers in MMA. I think that's much less true of the other guys I mentioned, even if they do win a lot of fights with their hands.

I do think it's interesting to see how the influx of boxing movement and defense has put some more traditional MMA KBers in trouble, but then you have guys like Jon Jones who use a very effective range striking + clinch game to totally stymie the much better boxer in DC as well as guys who can move effortlessly between a more boxing approach and a MT approach like Masvidal and you wonder what the synthesis is going to end up looking like, or if rather than synthesis it'll just be KBers importing strategies that guys like Buakaw, Aikpracha, and Sittichai have been using to shut down better boxers in K1 and Glory for years.
 
I disagree with a lot of people on your list, mostly because I think you're defining boxing too broadly and KB too narrowly. A lot of those guys had good hands, but they weren't really boxers as they didn't set things up like a boxer would, they didn't stand or move like boxers do, their defense wasn't all that boxing oriented, etc. GSP, Aldo, Silva, Liddell, Bisping, Weidman, Lawler, McGregor to a certain extent, and Holloway are all guys with good hands who also have good kicking games and tended to punch, move, and defend much more like Karate guys or Dutch KBers than boxers. I agree that hands translate better into the takedown game than kicks (though I think the sort of clinch striking that you see in MT does a lot more to open up TDs than anything you'd get from clinch work in boxing), but again hands and boxing aren't synonyms.

When you watch fighters like Miocic, Garbrandt, JDS, old school Rashad, or Edgar it's pretty obvious that they're drawing their footwork and defensive movement (as well as their shot selection and punch chaining style) from pretty pure boxing. I would thus define them as true boxing strikers in MMA. I think that's much less true of the other guys I mentioned, even if they do win a lot of fights with their hands.

I do think it's interesting to see how the influx of boxing movement and defense has put some more traditional MMA KBers in trouble, but then you have guys like Jon Jones who use a very effective range striking + clinch game to totally stymie the much better boxer in DC as well as guys who can move effortlessly between a more boxing approach and a MT approach like Masvidal and you wonder what the synthesis is going to end up looking like, or if rather than synthesis it'll just be KBers importing strategies that guys like Buakaw, Aikpracha, and Sittichai have been using to shut down better boxers in K1 and Glory for years.

Those guys definitely fight a lot more like boxers than like kickboxers. Yes they have kicking games, but none of them really depended on their kicks the way someone like Rockhold or Pettis did. They're more like guys with great hands and average kicks. I also don't think they move more like kickboxers or karate guys, unless it's just because they weren't all that great boxers overall--just great compared to their competition. It's worth mentioning that the level of boxing is extremely low in MMA, yet despite that most guys are still primarily fighting with their hands because that's the most efficient and effective way to do it.

Jones did do a good job using his style against Cormier, but Cormier also isn't a very good boxer. He does a ton of leaning defensively and is always reaching to parry strikes, which credit to Jones for capitalizing on, but Cormier left the openings in the first place. Even then, Jones ate some huge shots and if Cormier had better cage cutting footwork Jones might have been in trouble. There's definitely potential for different styles to work like that in MMA, but with the small gloves and the threat of the takedowns boxing and wrestling will always be the best bases for MMA.
 
Those guys definitely fight a lot more like boxers than like kickboxers. Yes they have kicking games, but none of them really depended on their kicks the way someone like Rockhold or Pettis did. They're more like guys with great hands and average kicks. I also don't think they move more like kickboxers or karate guys, unless it's just because they weren't all that great boxers overall--just great compared to their competition. It's worth mentioning that the level of boxing is extremely low in MMA, yet despite that most guys are still primarily fighting with their hands because that's the most efficient and effective way to do it.

Jones did do a good job using his style against Cormier, but Cormier also isn't a very good boxer. He does a ton of leaning defensively and is always reaching to parry strikes, which credit to Jones for capitalizing on, but Cormier left the openings in the first place. Even then, Jones ate some huge shots and if Cormier had better cage cutting footwork Jones might have been in trouble. There's definitely potential for different styles to work like that in MMA, but with the small gloves and the threat of the takedowns boxing and wrestling will always be the best bases for MMA.
I don't agree with you calling someone like Holloway, aldo, gsp, etc. boxers. Holloway has a kickboxing background, aldo has Muay Thai, and gsp is karate/muay thai with a great jab. There are many kick boxers like holzken and van roosemalen who primarily use hands. We don't call them boxers because they aren't, they just have sharp hands and bad kicks.. doesn't make them a boxer though.

I agree with uchi mata in that im only comfortable calling garbrandt, couture, miocic, Edgar, jds, Alvarez, diaz and mcgregor truly boxers with a boxing background.
Pretty much everyone else started with kickboxing but relies primarily on hands. There's a difference honestly. but I agree the majority of guys gravitate towards hands no matter what the striking style they started with, simply because hands are extremely effective with small gloves.

The wrestler boxer is a very successful archetype in mma but many of those wrestlers haven't stepped foot in a boxing gym in their life. It's unfair to claim them as boxers. "MMA boxers" at most
 
I don't agree with you calling someone like Holloway, aldo, gsp, etc. boxers. Holloway has a kickboxing background, aldo has Muay Thai, and gsp is karate/muay thai with a great jab. There are many kick boxers like holzken and van roosemalen who primarily use hands. We don't call them boxers because they aren't, they just have sharp hands and bad kicks.. doesn't make them a boxer though.

I agree with uchi mata in that im only comfortable calling garbrandt, couture, miocic, Edgar, jds, Alvarez, diaz and mcgregor truly boxers with a boxing background.
Pretty much everyone else started with kickboxing but relies primarily on hands. There's a difference honestly. but I agree the majority of guys gravitate towards hands no matter what the striking style they started with, simply because hands are extremely effective with small gloves.

The wrestler boxer is a very successful archetype in mma but many of those wrestlers haven't stepped foot in a boxing gym in their life. It's unfair to claim them as boxers. "MMA boxers" at most

That only proves my point that boxing is a better base. Even guys who have trained to kick aren't doing it much, they're fighting more like boxers with some kicks thrown in. Despite the low level of boxing, guys still prefer to use their hands. That's why when guys like McGregor and Garbrandt come in who actually have a boxing background, they steamroll entire divisions. And neither of those guys has the greatest boxing background either.

Boxing and wrestling are the core of most MMA fighters' games. For most guys, everything else is icing on the cake.
 
The wrestler boxer is a very successful archetype in mma but many of those wrestlers haven't stepped foot in a boxing gym in their life. It's unfair to claim them as boxers. "MMA boxers" at most
But they'll have boxing coaches at their MMA gyms etc working with them
 
That only proves my point that boxing is a better base. Even guys who have trained to kick aren't doing it much, they're fighting more like boxers with some kicks thrown in. Despite the low level of boxing, guys still prefer to use their hands. That's why when guys like McGregor and Garbrandt come in who actually have a boxing background, they steamroll entire divisions. And neither of those guys has the greatest boxing background either.

Boxing and wrestling are the core of most MMA fighters' games. For most guys, everything else is icing on the cake.
I guess so huh. I'd love to see mma pay as much as boxing so we could see some mayweathers and lomachenkos in mma.

The biggest adjustment besides the range high level boxers would have to make is that there are certain boxers who rely on blocking with big gloves.

Floyds distance management and movement would be great to see in a cage.

Btw, would you consider it a 'win' for mma if McGregor manages to stun/hurt Floyd? Maybe even win a couple rounds?
 
I guess so huh. I'd love to see mma pay as much as boxing so we could see some mayweathers and lomachenkos in mma.

The biggest adjustment besides the range high level boxers would have to make is that there are certain boxers who rely on blocking with big gloves.

Floyds distance management and movement would be great to see in a cage.

Btw, would you consider it a 'win' for mma if McGregor manages to stun/hurt Floyd? Maybe even win a couple rounds?

I'd consider it a win for boxing if Mayweather survives the first minute.

He can't even read a book. How's he gonna read dat left hand shot?
 

Forum statistics

Threads
1,234,869
Messages
55,313,311
Members
174,733
Latest member
Bob Gnuheart
Back
Top