I think Muay Thai is used quite a bit in MMA, even though it's not always given as much credit as other disciplines. I think this is partially down to commentator biases in the UFC, i.e. whenever MMA fighters are on the ground, everyone talks about BJJ, and stand-up is referred to as boxing, but whenever a kick is thrown it's just called a "kick".
In reality I see plenty of fighters using the teep to keep distance. Kattar won his last fight with a spectacular elbow that wouldn't be out of place in a Muay Thai fight. I'm pretty sure the whole idea of landing kicks with the shin rather than the foot is also a Muay Thai thing, right?
Anyway, I should really watch more Asian martial arts. Rizin is meant to be pretty good for this, isn't it?
>>9801 The reason it's not used as much in MMA, although it is the base for a lot of high level fighters striking, is because boxing and wrestling/judo/BJJ have been proven over the years to be the best base for the sport so people focus on those disciplines if they want to be an MMA fighter.
Sambo, which is a mix between wrestling and judo, resulted in a 29-0 champion in Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Kickboxing is just as good a base for striking and has better exposure in the West, where most MMA fighters train. It's not that Muay Thai is bad it's just that there are things just as good that are easier to get access to for athletes looking to compete. To learn Muay Thai at a high level, you need to move to Thailand and most are simply unwilling to do that.
There are tons of Muay Thai gyms in the UK, but most of them are awful. There were like four or five in Stoke alone, and a bunch in surrounding towns.
So there's two major problems with most UK Muay Thai gyms. One is that most are run by people who have learned and trained kickboxing not actual muay thai. If you watch a proper Thai match you'll see how different it is to what most people here learn and train. The other is that training real muay thai is just insanely horrible. With boxing/kickboxing you can just put on some 16oz gloves and big old padded shin pads and most likely everyone's going home from training with nothing more than a split lip or a bit of a headache. Muay thai, on the other hand, has all kinds of nasty knee and elbow work from the clinch and no one wants to go to work the next day with their nose plastered all over their face from an elbow they never saw coming.
Also muay thai is used a lot in MMA. Kicks below the waist are banned in traditional kickingboxing, and Anderson Silva destroyed Rich Franklin with the thai plum clinch. Twice.
There's a lot of cracking Muay Thai at One Championship and most of the fights are free on YouTube.
Looking forward to Elias Mahmoudi's next fight.
You can throw knees in sparring if you wear knee pads. I've had my ribs broken during sparring before and it is a bit shit. People shouldn't be walking away from sparring sessions with any injuries other than bumps and scrapes
There's a lot of cracking Muay Thai at One Championship and most of the fights are free on YouTube.
Looking forward to Elias Mahmoudi's next fight.
You can throw knees in sparring if you wear knee pads. I've had my ribs broken during sparring before and it is a bit shit. People shouldn't be walking away from sparring sessions with any injuries other than bumps and scrapes
