Wtf happened to MT in mma?

[sfortune85]

I swear, it is so fucking underutilized now its not even funny. A few years ago it was the go to striking and now all I see is this bullshit mma adapted kickboxing.

LEG kicks are so underrated, because everyone is so scared of wrestlers taking them down. Well the more you kick someones legs the tougher time they will have shooting for that double...

MT clinch. I see alot of clinching but very few people effectively using and controlling fighters in the MT clinch. The last time I really saw it was Anderson against Rich Franklin. This could be because clinch defense has come a long way, but I still feel like it is underused.

So many fighters, (like Penn, Edgar, Diaz, etc.) are content to stand there and box for 15 or 25 minutes, now these guys have great boxing, but it seems like EVERYONE is following this trend now. 1 or 2 leg kicks per round with poor form is NOT Muay Thai. Maybe some people won't understand, but I feel like there is too much cautioness (ex: Kenny Florian against Maynard) to really start working some Thai combos, not this bullshit 1 kick at a time.

Reason why people get taken down is because they don't throw combos. The majority of striking in MMA is so un-technical it'll make most boxers/nak muays cringe. Most of the fights just lob big shots at each other. Maybe an occasional 1, 2. Shit, I know I need to throw at least 4-6 punches to set up a kick so my ass doesn't get swept in MT. But everyone in mma seems content with 1, 2, maybe leg kick

Can anyone list fighters that actively use Muay Thai with proper technique regularly in their fights?

There aren't really any pure MT fighters but these guys come to mind:

Jose Aldo
Sam Stout
Allen Belcher
Melvin Manhoef
Ubereem
Thiago Alves
Pat Barry
Antoni Hardonk
Anderson Silva (...sometimes)

 

[Lionidas]

Could it also be that the days of Authentic Muay Thai are almost gone and the more hybrid styles of Muay Thai are becoming more prominent?

Yes.

The trend of MMA is 80% punches, 20% kicks.
This is a bullshit percentage but I think it's somewhat true.

 

[SAAMAG]

Rambaa somdet is doing good at using his Muay Thai in MMA.
He probably doesn't get top level wrestlers like in America but he's developed some good take down defense and works off his back well.

Check him out here
Rambaa Somdet M-16 Making Waves in MMA at Muay Thai Training Camps | Muay Thai Training Camps

I like Rambaa. I never followed his MMA career though because it's not over here and it's hard to get info unless I'm scouring the internet which I don't do often.

Good find. He's been helping to train MMA folks for years in MT, and started doing MMA himself to improve his ground game...now he's fighting and does well.

Check out 4:20 of this fight, pretty much what everyone has been talking about lately in this thread with regard to kneeing against a takedown attempt. I did that to one of the guys at my local MMA gym but when he was shooting, not after. Works well for me.

 

[golvmopp]

Reason why people get taken down is because they don't throw combos. The majority of striking in MMA is so un-technical it'll make most boxers/nak muays cringe.

Boing boing boing winner winner chicken dinner!

One of the most maddeningly surprising experiences I had sparring was with a guy who I could continuously light up in close quarters, but as soon as I gave him leeway, he'd put together a 2- or 3-punch combo and ALWAYS land a low-kick in the end.

Disruptive rhythm is the most underrated and -used tool in the striking arsenal in MMA. The only good example I can think of, off-hand, is Shogun vs Coleman II, where Shogun had Coleman up against the fence and kept double-timing his low-kicks, with plenty of handwork to keep Coleman's guard up.

 

[SteelHammer]

The same thing happened to it that happened to boxing: it's been discovered that mediocre MT + mediocre boxing + decent sprawls or wrestling ability + some subs and sub defense, combined, can own any single martial art, which means that whatever skills you bring into mma have to be edited to fit mma. Boxing's stance and crouches are removed, MT's constant heedless kicking is risky, wrestling without sub defense won't work, etc. mma has become an extremely effective mixed-source style of its own.

 

[Titosuave21]

Lots of strikers are just terrified of being put on their back. If they would just train submissions, escapes, & sweeps off their back than we would see more kicks, but I've seen alot of fighters throw very lazy kicks so there definitely needs to be more technique in the strikes. Muay Thai is all about fully commiting to your strikes (punches, kicks, knees, elbows) Plus there's not very many world class muay thai fighters in mma except for a few. I think it would be pretty interesting to see more people train in not only Muay thai but also catch wrestling, then the fighters who prefer to stand would have very good submissions but also wouldn't have to cross-train so much, they would just focus on two styles to train.

 

[gotobread]

 

[Connoisseur]

MMA standup looks nothing like pure striking rulesets like Muay Thai, K-1, Boxing, etc because the grappling dramatically alters it.

There are guys who use it effectively, as aforementioned- Shogun, Aldo, Alves has beat many top WW's with his MT skills aside from GSP & Fitch, Rambaa Somdet is a lighter weight MT wrecking ball, Feijao just annihilated King Mo w/ his muay thai skills (leg kicks, knees from the clinch, elbows), Anderson has clowned on guys with his thai- based striking attack (flying knees, kicks, etc).

Muay Thai is very well respected and highly integral part of MMA, and almost all high level guys train it's techniques. You just don't see the same kind of Muay Thai you'd see from Buakaw or Saenchai in MMA.

 

[FyouKantCme]

mma is mostly grappling. did all you guys just realize this? it's been this way for a while.

 

[dayroc]

Seriously, there is so much more to MT than low leg kicks.

How about straight mT combos like Jab, cross, left hook, right low kick,left push kick or clinch and knee?

Or even simple stuff like low kick and quick push kick to defend?

talking about this is getting me excited to hit the gym. :icon_lol:

 

[barnowl]

I like Rambaa. I never followed his MMA career though because it's not over here and it's hard to get info unless I'm scouring the internet which I don't do often.

Good find. He's been helping to train MMA folks for years in MT, and started doing MMA himself to improve his ground game...now he's fighting and does well.

Check out 4:20 of this fight, pretty much what everyone has been talking about lately in this thread with regard to kneeing against a takedown attempt. I did that to one of the guys at my local MMA gym but when he was shooting, not after. Works well for me.

That is pretty much the same response I train/teach to defend against doubles. Not really legal in MMA, but very effective.

There never will be really strong striking as general thing in MMA becuase it hurts a lot more to practice than wrestling or BJJ. For the same reasons, we will always see MMA being a predominately ground game oriented sport.

 

[TwoFour Lowkick]

Seriously, there is so much more to MT than low leg kicks.

How about straight mT combos like Jab, cross, left hook, right low kick,left push kick or clinch and knee?

Or even simple stuff like low kick and quick push kick to defend?

talking about this is getting me excited to hit the gym. :icon_lol:

Yeah, at my old gym I found it so easy to spar the MMA guys in stand-up. I'd throw a jab, right hook to the body, left uppercut to the jaw, right lowkick, teep. They have no idea what to do with it. One dude told me to stop throwing so many combinations, because they're too hard to defend and not realistic :redface:

 

[barnowl]

Yeah, at my old gym I found it so easy to spar the MMA guys in stand-up. I'd throw a jab, right hook to the body, left uppercut to the jaw, right lowkick, teep. They have no idea what to do with it. One dude told me to stop throwing so many combinations, because they're too hard to defend and not realistic :redface:

He could oh K.O.'ed me with a feather after that statement cause I would have been laughing to hard.

 

[ufcufcufc***]

Aldo is an exception because he is explosive. I don't know.You'll never see clinching in MMA or Teeps/Body kicks in MMA like in k-1/MT due to grapping. MMA is so complex, you have to worry other things.

cant you just stomp your leg down? i guessing wrestlers have a good grip, so that doesnt happen?

 

[EVIL5150]

Yasubey Enomoto looked pretty good against Kenta Tagaki. He was using some good kicks and knees from the clinch.

 

[Craftster]

Because the majority of legit muay thai trainers are only training muay thai fighters.

 

[Marcius]

In my opinion, the rules favor wrestlers to a degree. The fact that you cant kick an opponent's head when one knee is down. It makes it possible for wrestlers shooting in for a takedown and then putting themselves in a safe position if it don't work. If it works, they get the takedown.

 

[Bebop]

feijao vs king mo fight is a great example on how to utilize MT in mma especially against wrestling. I think the mma fighters that use MT effectively in mma are the ones that are committed to using there MT in a fight(Shogun, Aldo, Silva). I mean by that they just aren't throwing a leg kick-jab-straight type combos but use real MT blasting elbows from different angles, usings knees to counter etc. In the Feijao fight he went straight to kneeing in the clinch he didn't wait and grapple to give King mom chance to get a takedown or something and they were heavy knees.

hell yeah. king mo was gonna lose one way or another. he had no answer for the clinch and ate some good knees.

 

[BIGthingsSON]

Thing is that risk of getting taken down really destroys a fighters confidence in his combinations. It really isn't fun having someone with a superior grappling game on top of you. Guys like Anderson , Jose Aldo, Damien Maia, and Nog really don't have that fear. They know that once their back touches the mat it's just their world. I feel that once guys really start working sweeps from butterfly, deep-half , ect that we'll see the striking in MMA improve. That fear of getting taken down can REALLY stall your stand-up game bad.

 

[whitep0wer]

The people that are bored with the grappling part of mma just need to go watch local toughman competitions..