Boxing vs Muay Thai as a Striking Base in MMA

How can Masvidal be a boxer when there are videos of him learning Muay Thai in Thailand?
 
Gotta look at a large sample space.

So far, Muay Thai/Kickboxing is better.

Also, elite boxers haven't really joined MMA in big numbers. We don't know.
 
Muay Thai is superior because you use all weapons. However SOME shitty Muay Thai fighters can have worse hand technique than Western boxers, which is almost never the case in any serious Muay Thai gym.

I trained both Muay Thai and Western boxing. All Western boxing taught me was the hand technique. But beyond that you get killed if you in as a boxer with boxing style in a muay thai fight. A boxer's stance and most importantly defense doesnt take into account elbows, knees, and kicks. A pure boxer who has no muay thai knowledge of proper defense against this will get mauled/badly injured.

Pure Boxing is good for one thing: Tight enclosed spaces and street fights where you may not use leg technique (due to fear of slipping or not enough space). However in an organised fight environment with a fighter being able to use all weapons, boxer gets killed.

Sure some people will say "boxer with superior hand technique will come in and KO muay thai fighter". Yeah thats if Muay Thai fighter doesnt knee the guy, or clinch him and elbow him.

Keep in mind most UFC fighters have either wrestling or western boxing as base so their muay thai is not indicative of skilled muay thai. To find skilled muay thai you have to look at kickboxing pros like Nieky Holzken.
 
OCEANCIDAL said:
As it stands now though, a boxer who learns how to check kicks and mix it up has the advantage.
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A boxer will have to do a lot more than just 'check kicks'. He will have to change his stance completely. That aside, he will be eating kicks to the arms, long knees, teeps. And if the Thai boxer wants the fight in the clinch, he will be elbowed, kneed and tossed around with no opportunity to fire back.
 
Arkham's Notorious Geyser said:
Max Holloway is certainly more boxing heavy.
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Doesnt change the fact that his background is in kickboxing

He just adapted it to mma like wrestlers do with wrestling etc (more punch centered but he still has good kicks)

Personally i think dutch kickboxing style is best
 
well Wonderboy thoroughly outstruck Masvidal, so Karate is the best "base" for MMA, most folks just don't know it yet.

And UFC mma doesn't even allow kicks to downed opponents! Think about that for a moment.. Karate is the best.
 
RAFI BOMB said:
After watching Masdival knockout Till, it got me thinking about which striking style is the best base for mma fighters. The common assumption has been that muay thai is the best base and then it can be supplemented with other disciplines such as boxing. But after seeing Masdival vs Till, Masdival vs Cerrone, Diaz vs Cerrone and Rose vs Joanna, it seems like a boxing centric attack might be superior.

Muay thai fighters, or at least many muay thai fighters in mma, seem to lack head movement and seem unable to defend against many boxing attacks. Maybe there are different styles of muay thai, or maybe true muay thai is better equipped to deal with some of the boxing attacks. It just seem like many muay thai centric style mma fighters are lost and confused when facing a boxing centric opponent.

I am not arguing that muay thai doesn't hold value, just that maybe fighters should focus on boxing as a striking base and then supplement it with muay thai instead of the other way around.

Thoughts?
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if you think Jorge was just boxing you are blind. He was catching kicks, digging in big bodykicks etc. Jorge has very good Muay Thai technique. Dont get yourself confused. He is a true mixed martial artist
 
CPH said:
A boxer will have to do a lot more than just 'check kicks'. He will have to change his stance completely. That aside, he will be eating kicks to the arms, long knees, teeps. And if the Thai boxer wants the fight in the clinch, he will be elbowed, kneed and tossed around with no opportunity to fire back.
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You're right, there are a ton of adjustments that would have to be made. I was just pointing out what is probably the biggest weakness for someone who takes more of a boxing stance in MMA. I also included that the boxer needs to, "learn how to mix it up" which is an understatement, but that was meant to cover what you just addressed.

My bias is in favor of Muay Thai. That's what I started training first and what I still favor when striking, so I'm certainly not trying to downplay its effectiveness. I just noticed that when I went from doing more kickboxing sparring to focusing on MMA, a lot of the tools that I had been using against boxers were more difficult to implement because of the differences in range, stance and takedown threat.

A Muay Thai fighter's stance has to change even more than a boxer's stance does, when transitioning to MMA. Stand straight up so that you can fire off teeps and roundhouses and you're going to be getting blast doubled through the mat pretty easily. The Thai plum is borderline nonexistent in modern MMA. Put a Thai boxer in the ring with a straight boxer and yeah, it's going to be elbows, knees and tosses. Put them in MMA with the takedown threat and give them both a little of of grappling knowledge though, and it turns into more of a dirty boxing situation with occasional knees and much more rarely, you'll see a few elbows. Mostly what we're looking at in the UFC today is a boxing heavy approach, with bits and pieces of Muay Thai thrown in.
 
For me, boxing was easier to integrate with a grappling style.

I also tried MT for a couple of years, but the stance, the rhythm and the distance just felt wrong for an offensive grappling style.

I guess it depends on the sub-style- there are different kind of boxing and maybe MT can be done in different ways too- and on physical characteristics. A tall lanky dude with pillow fists would benefit more from MT, a stocky guy with short limbs and power from boxing etc.
 
Cole train said:
Doesnt change the fact that his background is in kickboxing

He just adapted it to mma like wrestlers do with wrestling etc (more punch centered but he still has good kicks)

Personally i think dutch kickboxing style is best
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His background is in Kick Boxing yes but he's developed his boxing to that of a level that it exceeds his Kick Boxing, you can see he prefers a boxing approach when it comes to striking and only works in kicks when he feels comfortable enough.

Why is this a debate? Till is an example of a Kick Boxer whose still a Kickboxer in MMA standards.

Holloway is an example of a Kickboxer whose evolved into more of an MMA Boxer.
 
Arkham's Notorious Geyser said:
His background is in Kick Boxing yes but he's developed his boxing to that of a level that it exceeds his Kick Boxing, you can see he prefers a boxing approach when it comes to striking and only works in kicks when he feels comfortable enough.

Why is this a debate? Till is an example of a Kick Boxer whose still a Kickboxer in MMA standards.

Holloway is an example of a Kickboxer whose evolved into more of an MMA Boxer.
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dude you were answering said his background was kickboxing,you said hes boxing heavy currently

i just said that his background is kickboxing which he adapted to mma which means hes a kickboxer turned mma guy.

the argument was about his background how i understood it or we all undertood incorrectly each other lol
 
I wouldn’t read that much into it... sometimes you just get caught, it’s not the style’s fault
 
Krimzon said:
well Wonderboy thoroughly outstruck Masvidal, so Karate is the best "base" for MMA, most folks just don't know it yet.

And UFC mma doesn't even allow kicks to downed opponents! Think about that for a moment.. Karate is the best.
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And Shogun flattened Machida in one round, clearly, Muay Thai beats Karate.
Also kicking fighters on the way down is often done in MT, if we allowed it in the UFC, MT would still rule.

Chagaev said:
I guess it depends on the sub-style- there are different kind of boxing and maybe MT can be done in different ways too- and on physical characteristics. A tall lanky dude with pillow fists would benefit more from MT, a stocky guy with short limbs and power from boxing etc.
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There's at least as many different style of Muay Thai as there is in boxing; there's clinch specialists, kick specialists, punchers, all-rounders, pressure fighters, outside fighters, and even fighters who specialize in throwing & sweeping their opponents. It's an incredibly diverse combat sport, though less so in recent years thanks to the gambling & scoring system.

gapwax said:
Masvidals head movement is something to behold. Not sure that you can get it from MT. In Muay Thai you mostly getting the agressive moving forward striking, combining boxing, elbows, knees, kicks. His movement is probably something he get very early when he was exposed to some boxing training, or in the actual street fights. Tho the later is very questionable
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Meet Somrak Khamsing. He straight up clowns his opponents with some of the best head movement you'll ever see.
 
aerius said:
Meet Somrak Khamsing. He straight up clowns his opponents with some of the best head movement you'll ever see.
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This dude was also an Olympic gold medalist in amateur boxing, no?
 
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