Can Canelo like head movement work in MMA and Muay Thai/kickboxing?

Yes but isn't that exactly what Canelo does? He's not out there bobbing and weaving like Tyson, his head movement is sublime, he's there until he's not there. And it happens so fast, even the very best can't keep up with him.
No he uses a lot of head movement for mma/kickboxing/muay thai standards. Hes also content to sit on the ropes and just move his head. You can move it like him, just not nearly as frequently or you WILL get timed.
 
Also boys, if I wanted to develop top level head movement, would I have to train at a boxing gym? And how much can I train it by myself?
You need a boxing gym, it'll never be the same and as focused at MT gyms. You nay get lucky with MMA gyms if they have a strong boxing program with coaches.

As for on your own, if you mean on your own like shadow boxing and using ropes it won't be real as its not live, you need partners to help with this for drilling, then to test it live
 
I knew someone was going to say this, and yes there are some MT fighters that train boxing also and have accepted its usefulness. I'm absolutely all for that.

I'm talking about non-acceptance by the MT sport and training community as a whole, not just some of them, some standouts who elected to cross-train it on their own are not enough. The prevailing attitude from MT trainers is that boxing training is redundant and the more technical aspects of boxing are not applicable to MT so they shouldn't be trained. I think they're just threatened by the possibility that something useful is out there that they don't already know, which is absurd because that's true for every coach in every discipline.

It reminds me of when BJJ professors say that striking is obsolete and that wrestling isn't necessary. Their BJJ groundgame encompasses all of fighting perfectly. It's pathetic and most people are smart enough to see right through it without an intense dissection of the clear results.

I'm not against MT or anything like that, it's just the stubbornness of larger part of the community to accept that they don't already know all the useful parts of western boxing just because they put gloves on their hands and "allow" punches in their curriculum, and their refusal to integrate basic-intermediate boxing concepts into MT itself beyond their already incorporated sloppy basics. Like I said, it WILL change, but at this rate it will take another 50-100 years

the sport is changing. The way people fought in the golden age of MT is not how they are fighting today, just as the way people boxed 100 years ago is different from today. Its evolving indirectly through MMA influence taking over the world, which is essentially any influence of any and all martial arts, boxing included. IMO cross training in boxing is a must now to get to a high level.
 
It absolutely can work.

The "haha but you could get hit by a leg kick/high kick/knee when you're off-balance/ducking/etc" argument is vacuous. Of course if you completely misread the situation, and you're outskilled, you can be punished -- for ANYTHING you do. Why aren't people told that kicking won't work in Muay Thai? After all, you're on one leg, and that's real bad for your balance. What if someone kicked you? You can't even check it! And when you throw a punch, you can only defend yourself with one hand. Imagine if you were kicked in the head or punched or kneed....

And so on. Do it well, it'll work. Do it badly, it'll get punished, just like anything else done badly. Above all, combat sports are interactive games. Both guys are acting and reacting. A lot of these discussions come down to someone pretending that there's some predetermined pattern that always takes place, after which it's the other fighter's turn to decide what their next move is, and so on. Not how it works. A good fighter with good head movement won't duck if the other fighter is in position to knee or kick them in the head, but will do it if they're not. Just like a good fighter won't start throwing a high kick when someone is an inch away, punching them in the face. Yet that doesn't mean high kicks are bad, or "will get you punched in the face."

Time and place.
 
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