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Understanding the world of Kickboxing and Muay Thai
#1

Understanding the world of Kickboxing and Muay Thai

I've been training in the various MMA disciplines for years now but to be honest, I don't quite understand the world of Kickboxing, and more specifically, Muay Thai. With MMA, it's pretty easy to follow since it's the UFC as both promotion and sanctioning body and it's the clear cut #1 MMA organization. The Glory kickboxing promotion has brought some clarity to that sport, at least to my American eyes, but some things still remain unclear. So I wanted to ask a few questions about both the kickboxing and Muay Thai worlds to better my understanding:

Kickboxing:

- What are the major promotions and major sanctioning bodies?
- Who are the most well known names historically and today?
- Are kickboxers typically contracted to one promotion or are they allowed to fight in other promotions?

Muay Thai:
Same questions as kickboxing plus:
- How does the "stadium champion" thing work? Is the stadium itself a promotion or is it merely a venue for promotions to use?
- What's the sanctioning body for the stadium fights?
- What's with the names of Thai fighters? I understand that it's related to the gym they train at but is there anything more to it?
- What's a good way to watch Muay Thai matches live?

Thanks

Civilize the mind but make savage the body.
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#2

Understanding the world of Kickboxing and Muay Thai

For Kickboxing I could only think of Glory it's the major one actually. Good events, very technical and fast paced unlike muay thai where alot of the action stalls abit during the clunch. No elbows and they can clinch but only for a few seconds. Some fighters that I like are Rico Verhoeven, nieky holzken and Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong.

Other wise check out the old k-1. Lots of legendary fights

I keep hearing very good things about Lion Fight which is straight up pure muay thai I believe. Fighters that are considered legends in the sport are buakaw, John wayne parr and saenchai who recently fought in glory.
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#3

Understanding the world of Kickboxing and Muay Thai

Nek, that's a hell of a lot of questions for one post to answer; I am going to tackle them one by one as best I can and as simply as possible; if you want any more detail on any points, please ask.

For reference, my business is Kickboxing and has been my entire life, pretty much.

Firstly, I'm not sure the UFC could really be called a sanctioning body in the strictest sense of the word; in my eyes they are a promotion within a sport that doesn't have a proper sanctioning body, or at least not a national/global one.

"What are the major promotions and major sanctioning bodies?"

This varies from country to country. Globally, Glory is the only signifiant Kickboxing promotion; that is, one that has TV deals across the world and the finances to attract the very best fighters and who's titles are truly legitimate. It is still to reach the heights, in my opinion, of K-1's glory years but I think it may get there over the next few years.

There are many, many regulatory bodies for Kickboxing in Europe, let alone the World. At a guess, I would think there are over 20 in the UK alone. Most call themselves global bodies but are in fact just one man in an office somewhere in the UK or Italy (the major founders of kickboxing orgs). Each of these bodies will issue their own titles at regional, national, continental and global level. Some just award titles; others award coaching qualifications and grades too. Others will attempt to issue guidelines that its members should follow (think health nd safety or child protection etc). Often this will depend purely on the political and salesmanship skills of the man in charge.

The thing is though that every single one of these groups has no real authority; the reason for this is that if a member decides they do not wish to comply with anything at all, they can just up sticks and move to a new group or even just start their own.

Here in the UK, the government has never been able to bring martial arts under the government's sporting body "Sport England", that would bring all members into line with accepted practices and standards and prevent the constant splintering of bodies into small, everyone has titles, nonsense. Every time they have tried with the Olympic sports of Karate and TKD it has ended in disaster with fraud etc bringing about the downfall of the over-arching umbrella org. So non Olympic sports have simply no chance of ever being properly regulated.

Without one body regulating Kickboxing, the sport cannot grow beyond it's low level.

The biggest European sanctioning-only bodies are currently ISKA, who sanction Glory and have done a great job of legitimising themselves further with this connection (although they are now beholden to Glory and the relationship could end at any moment) and WAKO. Both groups have been around a long time and do not really get involved in anything beyond competitions and titles etc.

As for promotions, there are hundreds of small kickboxing shows happening every weekend across Europe, with the biggest being in Holland I would suspect.

Kickboxing is still hugely popular in Europe, way more so than MMA.

However, you need to be aware of the differences in Kickboxing styles as well, of which there are three, American Rules, Dutch/K-1 Rules and Thai Rules.

Both American kickboxing rules and Dutch Kickboxing rules are derived from Karate originally.

American Rules was a development of Full Contact Karate, which was absolutely huge back in the 70s/80s in the USA. Its no leg kick, no elbows, no clinch rule set was designed purely for TV audience. The stars of this era are still well regarded names; Chuck Norris, Benny The Jet, Jeff Smith etc. The fights were spectacular and really exciting.

American rules is still hugely popular in the UK and Ireland and Italy, with large participation across Europe to this day. You can recognise these guys by their separate Boots and Shin guards, their long trousers and flashy techniques.


Dutch Rules Kickboxing also derived from Karate, Kyukoshin style (which is an amazing, brutal sport). Dutch Rules is my personal favourite type of combat sport. It is often referred to these days as "K-1 style". K1 style emphasises devastating punches from a modified stance and brutal power kicks. There are minimal clinches and no elbows. K-1 style is not very popular in the UK but is definitely the pre-eminent style of Kickboxing on the mainland & eastern Europe and in Japan and Oceania. The Dutch are the global masters of this style and the names of the top Dutch fighters will always be considered legends of Kickboxing (Hoost, Hari, Aerts, Bonjasky etc etc etc).

The issue with Dutch Kickboxing is that it is interwoven very tightly with organised crime in Holland; as a result, it's quite a shady business over there. These connections always make growing and legitimising a sport very difficult.


Thai Rules Kickboxing is best left to the second part of your questions.
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#4

Understanding the world of Kickboxing and Muay Thai

Glory Kickboxers are tied to the promotion.

Outside of that level, and a handful of shows in the UK and Holland, it is rare for Kickboxers to be paid more than a pittance, if at all, for competing.

So as a rule, I would say there are very few.

What is more likely are fighters tied to gyms via contracts.
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#5

Understanding the world of Kickboxing and Muay Thai

I'll come back to the MT part of your post later, ironically after a few hours MT training.
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#6

Understanding the world of Kickboxing and Muay Thai

What crash previously said Glory is the main international kickboxing stage. Things are picking up in China with Kunlun fight and America with Lion Fight. Glory could be bringing more action with them signing Saenchai, who is at the moment arguably the best thai fighter at 66kg~. Thailand has a separate old school muay thai promotion called MAX Muay Thai which are not fought with gloves but with ropes, it is pretty entertaining to watch and the thais dominate this sport against the westerners. You can watch most fights on youtube by googling Kunlun, Max MT or Lion Fight. There are dedicated channels to watch for thailand muay thai called muay ties (but it is a much slower pace).

My personal favourite dutch fighter is Ramon Dekkers, who pretty much went to Thailand and beat the best and introduced a new style of kickboxing in that era, with heavier hands and more explosive style. Ramon trained Nicky Holzken who is the current Glory champion, so the style is still effective. Nicky has also competed in professional boxing.

Since there a quite a few promotions, they are generally not stuck in one promotion and do fight in a few promotions, but I may be wrong.

Stadium champions is Lumpinee or Ratchadamoen. Promoters are what control the events and set up fights for gamblers. They are the highest level fights in Thailand along with Channel 7 fights. If you win one of the titles you are considered the best for that period.

Essentially thai gyms sponsor the fighter with food, home and training. In the prize winnings that the fighter wins it is split between the gym and the fighter. They take the name of the gym to show where they are fighting out from. Gyms also have different styles like muay khao(knee fighter) or muay femur(technical fighter), so depending on the gym you fight at, thats the style the fighter will fight in.

Who to watch now currently for Muay Thai: Nicky Holzken, Petroysan, Yodsanklai, Saenchai, Buakaw
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#7

Understanding the world of Kickboxing and Muay Thai

Muay Thai questions


Well, each of the major stadiums (there are four in Bangkok which you can google if you're interested). Each has their own rankings and champion for each weight class.

Lumpinee, for example, has 11 promoters, I believe, who's job it is to find the best fighters for the stadium.

There is no sanctioning body, I believe for the 4 stadiums. They manage everything themselves.

The fighters take the name of their gym after their fight name, which isn't their full Thai name. So you may see a fighter, like Buakaw, for instance, change his fight name as he moves gyms (which is very hard in thailand and is whole other topic in itself).

What do you mean by watching MT live? In person or on tv or what?

In person, you will find Muay Thai fight nights in most countries most weekends outside of holiday season. In Thailand you can watch live MT most evenings in the major cities. TV depends on where you are in the world I should think but I wouldn't expect much live coverage!


Most of these questions could have been answered with google, to be honest. Although always happy to save you the effort [Image: tongue.gif]
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