boxing or muay thai ?

[-Hyperion-]

Thanks. The hands are fragile, boxers breaking their hands isn't uncommon and I know they hit harder than the average person (obviously) but they have handwraps and gloves on. Breaking your hand in the middle of a streetfight would not be fun. But with that said I'm not saying don't punch someone if you have to.

man the picture in your sig gives me the creeps...

[LoftyDog]

man the picture in your sig gives me the creeps...

When I see it I almost feel bad for him...then I remember what he did and laugh at it.

[phallus]

Thanks. The hands are fragile, boxers breaking their hands isn't uncommon and I know they hit harder than the average person (obviously) but they have handwraps and gloves on. Breaking your hand in the middle of a streetfight would not be fun. But with that said I'm not saying don't punch someone if you have to.

it's better to kick them, or knee them in the stomach muy thai style... don't risk breaking your hands, kids

[LoftyDog]

it's better to kick them, or knee them in the stomach muy thai style... don't risk breaking your hands, kids

Yeah. I wouldn't throw any kicks higher than the hips in a streetfight tho. Kicks to the knee would do just fine, not to mention all the things that can go wrong throwing a high kick. If you could pull it off it would be awesome tho. Knees are good too, esp. when you can pull the other guy in into them.

[yrrej]

I've seen Thai boxers win fights without throwing a kick. The fact of having more options doesn't mean one has to use them unless they are apropos. The more rules at the same level of skill, the less effective the art. Since Thai boxing has more weapons, therefore less rules, it is better at the same level of skill. One has to assume he will be meeting people of equal or better skill. Both are good, but there have been many Thai boxers who became world boxing champions. Very few pure boxers, however, have any luck in Thai boxing, mixed martial arts, or any other fight where people are equally matched but one has more weapons than the other. However, if one wants to be a pure boxer, he needs to fight other styles......

[Mistadobalina]

i also agree w/ topic starter. in fact, it's a bigger trend to see more often in current mma. almost every single top team has a separate boxing trainer as opposed to all the standup being dictated by just a single muay thai or kickboxing coach. seeing guys like chuck, arlovski, the nogueiras, josh barnett, kharitonov, both emlianenko bros, **** even tim sylvia and buentello, etc., you see that most are content and very successful by using a primarily boxing oriented standup style (forget the fact that chuck has a kempo tat on his head, it's pretty obvious that his fists do 98% of the talking), but accompany it with sufficient kick defense, and familiarization with knees in the clinch. and on top of that, i've seen more guys get KO'd in mma (or even k-1 matches for that matter) while attempting half-assed leg kicks than anything else. and like the other guy mentioned, a bad leg kick also leaves you off balance and more open to a takedown.

the muay thai clinch is a devastating weapon and is very effective, and if there's only one thing i'd take from MT it's that. so i'd take great boxing, with ****ty kicks, but a good clinch game and kick defense over an all around kickboxing style due to its weaknesses in defense, angles, range finding, and punching in general. a style similar to mike zambidis would fair much better in an mma environment as opposed to someone like buakaw, despite pramuk taxing zambidis' ass when they fought in k-1.

[Mistadobalina]

Unfortunatly, the majority of footwork in boxing makes it nearly impossible to defend takedowns. Espically when moving forward. Things like double jabbing have no place in MMA because they are inviting your opponent to shoot. In MMA if an opponent knows he can walk thru your punches, e.g the jab, then he will have no fear and will take you down at will. The jab should only be used to bait and to setup other punches. Chuck uses his jab well, in an MMA sense.

Thats why MMA strikers look for the one big punch and why traditional boxing footwork isn't the best idea when fighting a great grappler.

i gotta disagree with you double-jabbing statement since double-jabbing is used very often in mma, and the jab, regardless of what rules is still one of the most important tools of the standup game. crocop does it, as does sergie, barnett, minotauro etc. nogueira lacks KO power and his jab still works as well as a traditional boxing jab is supposed to, and he is still able to keep fighters at the end of his punches with it. GSP does it alot as well, and it worked great in his destruction of hughes. in fact, it played a big roll in deterring matt's willingness to get inside in order to shoot for a takedown. heh, even serra used double/triple jabs in order to get within striking range of GSP before owning him.

and besides, if double-jabbing is a big no-no, then you wouldn't be hearing all the standup trainers on the TUF series yelling "double up on the jab" or "just throw that jab out there" on the night of an elimination match.

josh neer dominated an excellent takedown artist in joe stevenson with jabs. as the night went on, stevenson became bewildered and sliced up, just standing at the end of neer's jab with no idea how to get inside, resorting to taking shots for neer's legs from a mile away-eating even more jabs in the process. joe wasn't simply walking through it and scoring easy takedowns like you described would happen if someone were to pump a jab out there. the same could be said for rich franklin as he put the beating on evan tanner.

the jab, if done properly is and always has been the number one momentum stopper. and it doesn't matter what combat sport it's being thrown in.

[THEBADBOY BG]

Boxing 4 sure!

[Mistadobalina]

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