Muay Thai vs Kickboxing, stance and pace

[serr]

What's the difference and why is it like that? I noticed in Muay Thai, they assume that stalking tiger kind of pose and stand right in front of their opponent while exchanging and blocking blows. Kickboxing seems to have more movement across the ring in general. Is it just a style thing or culture thing where in Muay Thai you're not expected to move around so much? I personally train Muay Thai, but I seem like I am the kind to move around more like in kickboxing, it looks flashier, but I'm wondering why the two fights differ so much in their movement across the ring, stance and pace?

 

[insomniacl]

One reason is scoring: punches and low kicks tend to score less in muay thai, you have to visibly hurt your opponent with them to be valuable. Knees and middle kicks score more, which is why you tend to see muay thai fights where they just kick back and forth until they clinch and knee. I guess this is an aesthetic preference, whereas westerners enjoy seeing punching a lot more.

Muay thai fights in Thailand are also always 5 rounders, where kickboxing is sometimes 3 only. The first two rounds are usually taken easy by the fighters and scored as even, for the benefit of the gamblers to give them time to make a pick, set odds and make bets.

Another thing that affects pace is that for Thai fighters, this is their job. They probably have to fight again in a few days, or a couple weeks. They're not going to go blasting low kicks into blocks and trading punches and risk damaging their body. Often you'll see in the 5th round the fighters dancing around because one has conceded, he knows he can't win on the scorecards unless he does something drastic.

 

[TonyK]

IMO a right adaptation of Muay Thai to kickboxing rules is more effective than what you probably mean as a "kickboxing" approach.

I'm not saying that you should fight like Petboonchu in the kickboxing ring, but for example, an approach of someone like Steve Moxon or Albert Kraus, of starting and finishing everything with punch combos and traditional boxing head and foot movement supposedly seems "alpha" at first, but can get (and was) effectively stifled by someone who knows how to open and close range with kicks and straight punches, mixes all strikes available and knows when and how to clinch for a few seconds and move economically. That's how Sittichai, Kaew and Yod are doing great under kickboxing rules.