What was muay thai scoring like in the 80's to the 90's?

[Kanka]

The stadium scoring is a topic that has been discussed alot around here, but has not really adressed in depht.

As we all know fights play out differently in Thailand compared to outside of Thailand. Though, there seem to be differences in the fighting dynamics even within Thailand. Big stadiums seem to be largely affected by gambling, which creates an incentive to fight in a certain way that alot of people don't really like; clinching, trading kicks, scoring points by dumping the opponent etc. Fights in smaller stadiums on the country side on the other hand seem to be more inclined towards to striking and less to clinching. Fights from 20 years ago also seem to be more striking based and alot more dynamic. Some fighters (Saenchai, Samart, Somrak etc) have even adressed this publicly.

Whenever an elite stadium fighter gets knocked out by a foreigner that is supposed to be very inferior nowaday, i can't help but think that the thai fighter was too conditioned by stadium fighting and therefore not very used to unorthodox moves. Surely, those unorthodox strikes are highly unlikely to bring sustained succes to any fighter, but they seem effective in some occasions.

This makes me wonder how they scored fights back before gambling took over?

 

[Snubnoze707]

@anorak would be the best to answer this.

I remember Jongsanan talking about this at a seminar I attended and he said they favored aggressive fighters trying get the finish way more. I seem to remember him saying fighters would get paid better when they finished fights but my memory is a bit foggy.

 

[UWanaPlayDaGame]

What do I know but from what little I can tell simply from watching golden era fights and comparing them to current fights it looks like there wasn't this big tendency to clinch, throw slappy knees and show that you're the stronger man.

I'm sure gambling was huge in the 80's and 90's too but for some reason it looks like the gamblers developed a special liking for the muay khao style. Maybe because it is a "safer" style? in the meaning that you don't rely as much on finesse/timing and as long as the fighter is well trained and in good shape he can perform well and satisy the gamblers even on an "off" night.
IMO it looks like in the early 90's there were many more muay mat style great fighters and guys were much more lilkely to exchange strikes from range than clinch excessively.

Now with that said it may be that we pick the best fights from past eras and if we start watching an old one that looks boring then we skip and handpick another one; maybe someone 20 years from now catching up to Satanmuanglek's fights, Sangmanee vs. Thanonchai rivalry and the likes of Yodlekpet, Petdam and Rodtang will look at it and think muay thai fights were awesome in the 2010's and that muay mat style was prevalent.

 

[Snubnoze707]

Now with that said it may be that we pick the best fights from past eras and if we start watching an old one that looks boring then we skip and handpick another one; maybe someone 20 years from now catching up to Satanmuanglek's fights, Sangmanee vs. Thanonchai rivalry and the likes of Yodlekpet, Petdam and Rodtang will look at it and think muay thai fights were awesome in the 2010's and that muay mat style was prevalent.

This is certainly a valid argument from a fan's perspective and you're right, just basing on our opinions of being introduced to the "Golden Era" from YouTube, we're basically only seeing the awesome fights.

I think our perception isn't far off however when you take into account the opinions of the fighters and people that were close to the sport during that era. They will tell you it's much different from the sport today because of the influence of gambling and various other reasons.