[TravelerKai]

(06-24-2016 04:59 AM)IDrinkYourMilkShake Wrote:  

(06-23-2016 03:41 PM)TravelerKai Wrote:  

(06-23-2016 01:54 PM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

The thing everyone needs to remember when discussing Muay Thai outside of Thailand is that the scoring changes the training.

Westerners don't like clinching and don't really like sweeping. Western judges and audiences struggle to understand, let alone implement native Thai scoring. There are a handful of MT judges in the whole of the UK that I would trust to correctly score a bout by native rules (I've been on many seminars on the subject...it's just not that straightforward).

So, Western judges tend to score bouts on the 10 point system, as that's what they are programmed to do and it helps a clueless audience understand why x fighter won the fight. Punches are considered equal to kicks unlike Thailand. Westerners would be perplexed at the first round in MT not really scoring, for instance. Clinch scoring? No chance.

So because of this, and the influence of other combat sports, Westerners fight MT differently. Because of this, we train differently too.

Preach!

It is HARD to get MMA fighters that have trained somewhere else before to fucking clinch people! Don't even try to teach them butterfly knees. I try to tell them they can pad the score card big time doing this and they refuse to do it because they are afraid they will get lifted or thrown, doublelegged, etc. It's a stupid fear. If you cannot knee quick enough to avoid that, you might as well go train with wrestlers not MT people. Or as CBW said, other styles of kickboxing.

For me it's just annoying as fuck trying to teach authentic Muay Thai and dudes want to dance around all day and not throw knees or elbows. I actually stopped teaching it to a couple of guys because they got on my nerves so badly about it.

The ironic thing about all of this is that the best wrestlers in UFC history (arguably) Dan Severn and Randy Couture made a king's ransom worth of a living off "dirty boxing" and clinching people. Ask anyone that ever fought or sparred with either guy and they will tell you how annoying it was because there was just no fucking escape. They rode your ass and got into your head badly doing it. Guys got very frustrated trying to pull away for the tenth time during a match. You would too.

I could talk about training and people's bad habits all day long. Honestly I thought it was just an American people/UFC thing. I had no idea other trainers have the same issue abroad. I once got hoarse screaming at a guy from the corner to knee a dude's thigh he had the back on. He had already kicked him in the same leg a million times before. Ridiculous.

So true man!

Real muay thai has tecniques for catching legs that are about to knee you when clinching, and bear-hugging to slamming someone on the ground from the clinch is also part of it, so like you say they practice to be quick as hell. So no excuses for not trying to learn it and apply it into MMA. Btw, both Randy and Dan where greco-roman right? Because doesnt greco-romans usually clinch more then freestyles (generaly)?

Here is a good example of someone that has blended in real muay thai with MMA. Hop to 4:50 for some good clinch-knees.

I forgot about this part. This is very interesting. I gotta bring this up to some wrestlers I know and get their opinion on this. Some of the guys I know wrestled Greco, Freestyle, folk etc. pretty much equally split.

I forgot about the guys that only wrestle Freestyle only or Greco only. There are advantages and disadvantages of specializing and being diverse on that. Freestyle guys hate giving up their backs and it is easy to exploit them from a BJJ perspective just because of that. Your average freestyle guy will spin around like a torpedo until he gets where he wants. It's like their brains are washed from all that repetition. So I can see how a Greco guy can be comfortable with clinching.

I'm tempted to ask Dan Severn himself. He is very nice and would answer some questions about this. If I did videos like Roosh does, that would actually make for a good interview. Eh, maybe someday...