https://web.archive.org/web/20120510030723/http://crane.50megs.com/index6r.htm Here is some of that old history of mt vs kung fu. Not everything is there though but good enough.
The idea that this inspired the PRC to create Sanda is nonsense. I also hope you use common sense and think about the absurdity of this theory after reading the details of the Chinese martial arts scene. First, these were random part-time Hong Kong Kungfu practitioners with no status and do not belong to any government organization, much less PRC ones. Hong Kong was not even under PRC rule at the time and there is zero evidence the CCP or the PRC martial arts community even knew these matches were going on as China is largely cut off from Hong Kong and there was no popular broadcasting of these fights.
Second, we are talking about random foreign fighters being invited to fight local fighters under MT rules. Why do you think China should care about non-mainland KF fighters losing to MT under MT rules and then create Sanda which has another set of rules? China creating Sanda due to KF losses makes about as much sense as saying MMA was created to fight MT because American boxers kept losing to Thai fighters under MT rules in Thailand. There are lots of martial arts in China ranging from mostly striking to wrestling ones like shuaijiao, so pray tell how you pit a shuaijiao practitioner with a MT fighter? Under what ruleset? If it's MT rules then obviously the shuaijiao practitioner will lose, but if its under shuai jiao rules, the MT fighter will be thrown around throughout the match. These competitions with set rules do not prove which style is better, they only prove which style is better under a said rule set, and anyone with common sense should know that.
If you want to dig into this, I've also come across documents of KF vs Muay Thai fights in places like Malaysia which recorded that KF people won under local KF rules. There are even legends of KF fighters catching a Thai fighter's kicks and throwing him right out of the Leitai. These victories mean very little because they are fought under specific rulesets, nor were they famous, and even their authenticity isn't all that clear. I can tell you right now that nobody I know in the Sanda community in China even heard of these fights.
The earliest Sanda vs Muay Thai fight hosted jointly between PRC and Thailand only dates to 2001, and I recall very clearly how the Chinese news at the time made a big deal out of pitting two styles that never competed against each other and analyzed that Sanda won from points because its primarily straight sidekicks whereas MT kicks were primarily roundhouses. MT had virtually zero influence on early Sanda, if anything, Japanese kickboxing might have had some indirect influence because of its popularity worldwide from the 70s onwards. Sanda seems to have exchanges with KB in HK in the 1980s and 90s. These were much more popular than Thai martial arts at the time.
I have never seen a baji practicioner throw legit knees with the hip like muay thai. If u have footage please show me. Also im not talking about muay thai vs sanda. Im talking about muay thai vs real kung fu masters. There was a bunch of black and white pictures of the fights. After all the brutal losses sanda got made...
Pure Sanda rules do not even include knees, and knees were never part of Sanda until professional Sanda tournaments like the King of Sanda were introduced after 2000, at least in China. Also, the whole problem with these silly arguments that one sport was created to fight another ignores the fundamental fact that the rules determine the style, not the other way around. Now, the blatant problem lies in the fact that early Sanda is more wrestling than striking and has a very different scoring system because of the shuaijiao elements. To compare Sanda with Muay Thai is to fundamentally misinterpret early Sanda as primarily a striking art; so why should a wrestling-heavy art be created to fight MT? It makes as much sense as saying Judo was created to fight boxing; two different sports that have no common grounds to compare.
This is false. There are no records of this Thai Boxing vs Sanda at this period. Keep in mind as well commie China would have kept strict records of who was coming and going from their country at the time so a team of Sanda fighters heading to Thailand to compete would have been documented.
The truth of the matter is Sanda was inspired by Sambo rather than Muay thai. Though not directly in martial application. The Chinese saw what the Russian government was doing at the time with Sambo and decided they needed to follow suit and synthesize effective martial arts together into one. And after they blended the Kung Fu techniques deemed to be effective they blended it together with Western Boxing rather than MT as commonly thought.
I always suspected there was a Sambo influence on Sanda, as they are both heavily wrestling-based and have a focus on transitioning from striking to takedown, and the kick-catching takedowns are especially very similar. The earliest Sanda fights look little like Muay Thai:
Wushu free fighting. Leitai. Sanda 1986 Chengdu, China - YouTube
Sanda rules got unified in 1984, and boxing gloves were introduced along with it actual boxing. So Sanda by the early 1990s looked like this:
Old school Sanda fighting - YouTube
There were lots of sidekicks and much less roundhouse. The early Sanda roundhouses are also much snappier and more like Karate or TKD than MT. One can see that Sanda striking is clearly not mature at the time and is evolving from trial and error.
However, I would put modern sport Sanda's origin at 1978-1979; that's when instructors like Mei Huizhi tried to test a combination of shuaijiao, boxing, and wushu in full contact sparring matches under the influence of the kickboxing wave worldwide. There is no evidence at all that the Chinese guoshu styles in 1920s were related in any way to the Sanda matches in 1979. Also, Sanda striking is absolutely unrelated to traditional Kungfu other than a few moves in the early 1980s. Most of the common KF kicks (snap kicks, crescent kicks, toe kicks, and oblique kicks) were not used because of the ruleset and instead applied mostly sidekicks, front kicks, roundhouses (not a standard KF kick), and spinning kicks (not really a standard move in traditional KF). These kicks had a unique Sanda style which probably came from Sanda's own evolution (probably indirectly influenced by kickboxing on tv and through exchange bouts with Hong Kong KB, but I don't think there were any kickboxing coaches training the Sanda team at the time). I recall explicitly that the axe kick was taken from TKD in the 90s and the broadcasters on TV said that. By the 1990s, because of gloves, they ditched pretty much any KF punches and replaced it with boxing. So its true that Sanda is not traditional Kungfu, but it is also absolutely not Muay Thai and absolutely did not come from it.
The only thing really traditional about Sanda is Shuaijiao. I need to emphasize that Shuaijiao is a huge part of early Sanda (and still is) which renders the idea that its just MT or KB with takedowns null. Sanda rules seem to evolve out of Shuaijiao rather than striking as the 2 point for takedown while standing, and one point for falling on top of the other person are straight out of shuaijiao rulebook and takedowns score more than striking. The punches in early Sanda are very rudimentary and mostly single shots with little combo before boxing became more practiced, whereas catching kicks is one of the most important techniques. Indeed, the earliest Sanda coaches such as Mei Huizhi (one of the principle founders) had shuaijiao backgrounds and were also wrestling or Judo coaches. Original Sanda is more like kick wrestling with dabs of punches added (fighters mostly tried to score with kicks and catching them to score takedowns, and fast wrestling makes up a huge part of scoring too), not kickboxing with takedown, and it still is to an extent; the striking was simply immature and unsystematic, and most early Sanda fighters won through wrestling more than striking. I recall my Sanda coach telling me that fighters with a wrestling base do better and usually win the championships.
As someone who trained in both, even the combos of pure Sanda differs from MT. Sanda has a lot more lead leg attacks such as sidekicks and front roundhouse followed by the cross. It also has more same-side combos such as a back roundhouse followed by a back hook and a front hook (one also sets up throws with it, such as a front roundhouse followed by a kick catch takedown).
The hand combinations are always weak and lack technicality even today, so Sanda fighters generally have to do more heavy boxing training when they transfer over to KB.
Today, Sanda does appear to look more like MT because of international MT and kickboxing influence. However, watch a pure Sanda match in the Wushu championships under full Sanda rules (using leitai, not a ring), and not some professional kickboxing (or professional Sanda match, since thats also geared more towards striking) match and you still see how its rather different from MT, standard kickboxing or even shoot boxing. This is what a full Sanda rule fight looks like:
Russia vs Iran -80kg Sanda Finals World Wushu Championships 2013 - YouTube
As one can see, the wrestling element is arguably greater than the striking and there are little room for striking combos; its almost like a game of kicking and trying to catch the kick while throwing in punches and clinch wrestling into the mix. The only thing that seems to be noticeably different is that the frequency of sidekicks have declined drastically and there are much more roundhouse kicks now.