Lethwei: The Wild West of Kickboxing

Artur Saladiak has won the light middleweight Lethwei world title.

34189158_1687124051366263_2920302767408939008_n.jpg


It has got me thinking more though about the level of competition in Lethwei if middling muay thai fighters like Saladiak and Dave Leduc can come over and have such immediate success.

It's hard to make this not seem like an attack on the fighters, but I don't mean it as such - but Dave Leduc is a guy who pretty much only competed against low level opposition in Bangla stadium, and is now in a position where he's won the Golden belt and can just hang on to the belt by fighting to draws.

While it's undeniable that the level competition is much lower in Myanmar, I'm curious as to whether these guys are fighting the best of Lethwei or more favourable opposition. It's a little hard to tell because the only fighters who have wikipedia entries are the ones that Dave Leduc has fought (and they are all clearly written by either him or his team), fighters like Tway Ma Shaung have nothing like that. It's a lot of digging to find... anything.

I'd be interested to know your thoughts @shincheckin
 
listrahtes said:
Well after all it is the epitome of martial arts and the fullest of themselves "smug" martial arts guys I have met were always TMA guys because no one pounded a sense of reality into them. The biggest trap for your character in ma is to live in an illusion about your own abilities and well thats hardly possible in full contact but the norm in many TMA gyms.

We have "grandmasters" in my country in tma without any skill at all but the smugness is 10x Chris Eubank sr. ;) If a full contact fighter feels he is superior to a point fighter it is simply because he is regarding MA.
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TMA's the place to be an Uber Nerd........at least Eubank Sr could box......
 
AndyMaBobs said:
Artur Saladiak has won the light middleweight Lethwei world title.

34189158_1687124051366263_2920302767408939008_n.jpg


It has got me thinking more though about the level of competition in Lethwei if middling muay thai fighters like Saladiak and Dave Leduc can come over and have such immediate success.

It's hard to make this not seem like an attack on the fighters, but I don't mean it as such - but Dave Leduc is a guy who pretty much only competed against low level opposition in Bangla stadium, and is now in a position where he's won the Golden belt and can just hang on to the belt by fighting to draws.

While it's undeniable that the level competition is much lower in Myanmar, I'm curious as to whether these guys are fighting the best of Lethwei or more favourable opposition. It's a little hard to tell because the only fighters who have wikipedia entries are the ones that Dave Leduc has fought (and they are all clearly written by either him or his team), fighters like Tway Ma Shaung have nothing like that. It's a lot of digging to find... anything.

I'd be interested to know your thoughts @shincheckin
Click to expand...

It's all about the money......bigger the prize the better the prize fighters......
 
AndyMaBobs said:
Artur Saladiak has won the light middleweight Lethwei world title.

It has got me thinking more though about the level of competition in Lethwei if middling muay thai fighters like Saladiak and Dave Leduc can come over and have such immediate success.

It's hard to make this not seem like an attack on the fighters, but I don't mean it as such - but Dave Leduc is a guy who pretty much only competed against low level opposition in Bangla stadium, and is now in a position where he's won the Golden belt and can just hang on to the belt by fighting to draws.

While it's undeniable that the level competition is much lower in Myanmar, I'm curious as to whether these guys are fighting the best of Lethwei or more favourable opposition. It's a little hard to tell because the only fighters who have wikipedia entries are the ones that Dave Leduc has fought (and they are all clearly written by either him or his team), fighters like Tway Ma Shaung have nothing like that. It's a lot of digging to find... anything.
Click to expand...

There are a few things to take into account here.
  1. First of all yes the overall skill level of Lethwei is lower as there's less money and very few foreigners fighting in it. It's simply not as big a sport. It's like comparing ice hockey with field hockey, where one has many more international players, professional leagues, lots of sponsors, stadiums, training centers etc.

  2. Secondly, being great in Muay Thai doesn't mean you'll be great in Lethwei, and being mid-level in one doesn't mean that you can't achieve something in the other.
    I know that you wrote an article about how similar they are or essentially the same thing, but actually they're quite a lot different in style. Muay Thai is a lot more technical as there's a point system and judges to impress, that's why it's less brutal to watch with a lot of kicks being thrown and both guys a lot of the time trading blow for blow while standing in front of each other especially in the first few rounds. In Lethwei there's no aesthetic, it's about finishing your opponent hence why punches and headbutts are a lot more common than kicks.
    To go back to my point, someone who might not be very technical in Muay Thai but is very tough and for who the mentality of going for the kill in a brawl style is what suits them, they will do better in Lethwei (example Dave Leduc). Just like you could have a Muay Thai fighter with great technique but who lacks that finish mentality or KO power and who usually wins his fights by decisions who would just not manage to win those raw bare knuckle fights in Lethwei because he can't finish his opponents or gets overwhelmed by the aggressivity.

  3. The final point about those 2 fighters you mentioned: just like in Muay Thai, Lethwei's biggest and most competitive weight categories are all under 70kg. When you start going up of that limit there are simply less fighters and the divisions are not as competitive and skilled.
    Dave Leduc usually fights in Lethwei between 75 and 80kg and he got his world title at open weight - his height advantage is massive too. If he won a title in Muay Thai at that weight all the elitists from this forum would disregard him as elite even if he won a stadium title at that weight.
    Artur Saladiak won his title during a World Lethwei Championship a few years ago in the 71kg category, again a less competitive category, but not only that, during that championship there were judges and decisions because they wanted to make Lethwei more accepted and appealing as a sport, so Artur won the title by decision instead of knocking out his opponent. In traditional Lethwei rules still fought in the stadiums that would have been a draw.
    To put the weight classes into perspective, in the weight classes from 50kg to 67kg there isn't any foreigners in the top10 (apart from maybe the Japanese Daiki Kaneko who's probably ranked between 5-10 at 65kg).
 
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Tayski said:
There are a few things to take into account here.
  1. First of all yes the overall skill level of Lethwei is lower as there's less money and very few foreigners fighting in it. It's simply not as big a sport. It's like comparing ice hockey with field hockey, where one has many more international players, professional leagues, lots of sponsors, stadiums, training centers etc.

  2. Secondly, being great in Muay Thai doesn't mean you'll be great in Lethwei, and being mid-level in one doesn't mean that you can't achieve something in the other.
    I know that you wrote an article about how similar they are or essentially the same thing, but actually they're quite a lot different in style. Muay Thai is a lot more technical as there's a point system and judges to impress, that's why it's less brutal to watch with a lot of kicks being thrown and both guys a lot of the time trading blow for blow while standing in front of each other especially in the first few rounds. In Lethwei there's no aesthetic, it's about finishing your opponent hence why punches and headbutts are a lot more common than kicks.
    To go back to my point, someone who might not be very technical in Muay Thai but is very tough and for who the mentality of going for the kill in a brawl style is what suits them, they will do better in Lethwei (example Dave Leduc). Just like you could have a Muay Thai fighter with great technique but who lacks that finish mentality or KO power and who usually wins his fights by decisions who would just not manage to win those raw bare knuckle fights in Lethwei because he can't finish his opponents or gets overwhelmed by the aggressivity.

  3. The final point about those 2 fighters you mentioned: just like in Muay Thai, Lethwei's biggest and most competitive weight categories are all under 70kg. When you start going up of that limit there are simply less fighters and the divisions are not as competitive and skilled.
    Dave Leduc usually fights in Lethwei between 75 and 80kg and he got his world title at open weight - his height advantage is massive too. If he won a title in Muay Thai at that weight all the elitists from this forum would disregard him as elite even if he won a stadium title at that weight.
    Artur Saladiak won his title during a World Lethwei Championship a few years ago in the 71kg category, again a less competitive category, but not only that, during that championship there were judges and decisions because they wanted to make Lethwei more accepted and appealing as a sport, so Artur won the title by decision instead of knocking out his opponent. In traditional Lethwei rules still fought in the stadiums that would have been a draw.
    To put the weight classes into perspective, in the weight classes from 50kg to 67kg there isn't any foreigners in the top10 (apart from maybe the Japanese Daiki Kaneko who's probably ranked between 5-10 at 65kg).
Click to expand...

All good points, but here are my counter thoughts:

I do agree that it's different, but it's not quite so different to the point where the level of success you'd have would change that much IMO, it's hard to say for sure though because there aren't lots of cross over fighters.

Well here's the thing though, Leduc isn't really winning and dominating the scene like the internet claims. He's fighting to a draw, and has openly said that he's not interested in the WLC rules, which to me kind of seems like a cynical way to avoid loss unless he's KO'd - which granted is a risk whenever he fights but with his great reach advantage all he really needs to do is just maintain distance for 5 rounds. I agree that muay thai elitists would give him a hard time either way, but it's not like he was fighting the better guys at his weight division to start with anyway. Youssef Boughanem (who coincidentally fought Tun Tun Min) is a guy who we all know isn't fighting the strongest opposition, but he's definitely fighting the strongest around his weight class, and Leduc simply wasn't.

That's why I'm maybe a bit more cynical.

Side note: that's not the same Daiki Kaneko who boxes is it?
 
AndyMaBobs said:
Artur Saladiak has won the light middleweight Lethwei world title.

34189158_1687124051366263_2920302767408939008_n.jpg


It has got me thinking more though about the level of competition in Lethwei if middling muay thai fighters like Saladiak and Dave Leduc can come over and have such immediate success.

It's hard to make this not seem like an attack on the fighters, but I don't mean it as such - but Dave Leduc is a guy who pretty much only competed against low level opposition in Bangla stadium, and is now in a position where he's won the Golden belt and can just hang on to the belt by fighting to draws.

While it's undeniable that the level competition is much lower in Myanmar, I'm curious as to whether these guys are fighting the best of Lethwei or more favourable opposition. It's a little hard to tell because the only fighters who have wikipedia entries are the ones that Dave Leduc has fought (and they are all clearly written by either him or his team), fighters like Tway Ma Shaung have nothing like that. It's a lot of digging to find... anything.

I'd be interested to know your thoughts @shincheckin
Click to expand...

your exaclty right about that, and we dont know. I would imagine theres "lumpinee" of Lethwei somewhere, where is it, and whats it called, we dont know. That would probably be worth digging to find out. Then we could see if they are fighting against lethweis best or not. One thing to take into consideration is the weight, Leduc seems like a bigger guy.

I would agree with you that the skill level doesnt seem vary high and im sure there many factors to that such as war, poverty, the sports popularity, income for fighting,etc

Kard Chuek is not very different from lethwei minus the headbutts however the headbutt game is pretty simple to understand IMO so I dont think a high level MT/Kard Chuek fighter would have much difficulty transitioning into Lethwei. The sport is more technical than MT due to the 9th limb IMO. This kinda goes back to my earlier post on this thread i think it was about how I was surprised at the increase in skill level for lethwei 2018. The sport seems to be growing, indirectly through MT and Thailand. I think Dave Leduc said something along the lines of he sees it doing for Myanmar what MT has done for Thailand. All fighting sports seem to be growing really, indirectly from the whole worldwide MMA following.

anyways yeah man I would agree with you that the skill level doesnt seem top level and we really dont know the skill level of the opponents either.
 
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shincheckin said:
your exaclty right about that, and we dont know. I would imagine theres "lumpinee" of Lethwei somewhere, where is it, and whats it called, we dont know. That would probably be worth digging to find out. Then we could see if they are fighting against lethweis best or not. One thing to take into consideration is the weight, Leduc seems like a bigger guy.

I would agree with you that the skill level doesnt seem vary high and im sure there many factors to that such as war, poverty, the sports popularity, income for fighting,etc

Kard Chuek is not very different from lethwei minus the headbutts however the headbutt game is pretty simple to understand IMO so I dont think a high level MT/Kard Chuek fighter would have much difficulty transitioning into Lethwei. The sport is more technical than MT due to the 9th limb IMO. This kinda goes back to my earlier post on this thread i think it was about how I was surprised at the increase in skill level for lethwei 2018. The sport seems to be growing, indirectly through MT and Thailand. I think Dave Leduc said something along the lines of he sees it doing for Myanmar what MT has done for Thailand. All fighting sports seem to be growing really, indirectly from the whole worldwide MMA following.

anyways yeah man I would agree with you that the skill level doesnt seem top level and we really dont know the skill level of the opponents either.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have heard (but I'm not sure the truth in) that Yodsanklai has a bit of experience in Lethwei, I know he's done kard cheuk, but if anyone can dig that up, that'd be dope.
 
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