Muay Thai in MMA

[EMT]

There is no modern MMA without Thai Kickboxing. Low kicks, elbow and knee strikes are integral parts of Mixed Martial Arts. Stand up striking in the UFC is just Muay Thai and Western Boxing of course with some marginal amount of other martial arts. My point is that while there's a lot of boxing gyms in the US and also should be more Muay Thai gyms that would allow fighters to learn basics and progress to more advanced Muay Thai techniques. MMA is not a discipline on it's own - it is rather a combination of core martial arts. If you start with Muay Thai and then move with it to MMA your life will be easier than when chaotically trying to learn some basic Muay Thai striking in the middle of an MMA course...well my point is that a lot of people are trying to build a house starting with a roof but look at the most dominant champion -= they've always started with one style and then added up more and then maybe trained some MMA to smooth it up and not the other way around.


Muay Thai in MMA explained

 

[Headhunter]

So basically you're saying Muay Thais the best...sorry but I disagree on your post, how many pure Muay Thai fighters are there in mma right now,...Anderson silva, shogun, Joanna, valentina and that's about it. Most others come from different bases. Yes there's a lot of good stuff in Muay Thai for mma but there's also some not so good stuff like the high stances. These days there's people from pretty much every striking style in mma. There's high level karate fighters, taekwondo fighters, boxers, Muay Thai, kick boxers.

My point is you want to say Muay Thai is the best style to have well no it's not there is no /best/ style since you need a mix of pretty much every style. I'm not hating on Muay Thai because I train but I just can't agree with what you say

 

[CB Jones]

While I don't think you have to be Muay Thai....I do agree that you should focus on either striking or grappling as a base and after you become very proficient at that then start learning the other.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

While I don't think you have to be Muay Thai....I do agree that you should focus on either striking or grappling as a base and after you become very proficient at that then start learning the other.

What makes you say this? I would think that grappling and striking are different enough that you could learn both together without interfering with each other, as long as you accept you'll progress in both slower (due to time spent on each decreasing).

 

[DanT]

Disagree. Although Muay Thai is a great style, other styles can be used for stand up effectively in mma such as karate (machida), and sanda (cung le). You need to be good in one stand up style and one grappling style at least. You can be:
Boxing and wrestling
Sanda and BJJ
Muay Thai and BJJ
Karate and Judo
Etc.
You can be even really good at 3 styles! Like
Boxing, Karate, BJJ
Tae Kwon Do, Wrestling, Judo
Sanda, Judo, Wrestling
Etc.
I do agree that you should have a solid base in one or two styles before moving to more.

 

[CB Jones]

What makes you say this? I would think that grappling and striking are different enough that you could learn both together without interfering with each other, as long as you accept you'll progress in both slower (due to time spent on each decreasing).

I just feel like being able to completely focus on one before the other would be more efficient and easier.

 

[JowGaWolf]

There is no modern MMA without Thai Kickboxing. Low kicks, elbow and knee strikes are integral parts of Mixed Martial Arts.

The kick, elbow, and kneed strikes that you see used in MMA are not only restricted to Muay Thai. The thing about MMA is that the much of the striking that is done is just good basic techniques. Striking in MMA aren't advanced techniques. They are for the most part basic techniques that are performed at a high skill level. It's sort of like that saying " I don't worry about the guy who practices 1000 techniques. I worry about the guy who practices 1 technique 1000 times."

If you start with Muay Thai and then move with it to MMA your life will be easier than when chaotically trying to learn some basic Muay Thai striking in the middle of an MMA course...well my point is that a lot of people are trying to build a house starting with a roof but look at the most dominant champion -= they've always started with one style and then added up more and then maybe trained some MMA to smooth it up and not the other way around.

If a person learned "traditional" Muay Thai (not the sporting one). Then they probably wouldn't need much in terms of an MMA Course.

.

Some of the newer MMA fighters who don't come from a Traditional Martial arts background are often times not patient enough to want to spend the time it takes to become really good in 1 systems. They seem to prefer what ever techniques that get them into the ring fast.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I just feel like being able to completely focus on one before the other would be more efficient and easier.

I would agree with that for two similar arts, but not a striking and grappling art. It wouldn't necessarily be more efficient, since it's just like having two hobbies instead of one and progressing with both of them. It would also prevent issues that might arise later from having a purely striking/grappling stance/mentality, and having to adjust that.

I'm definitely not a fan of learning a ton of techniques to get you in the ring quickly, like @JowGaWolf is suggesting some people do, but I see nothing wrong with practicing one striking and one grappling art simultaneously.

 

[drop bear]

Doesn't help you are miles sway from Thailand.

You will find countries play to their strengths.

 

[EMT]

So basically you're saying Muay Thais the best...sorry but I disagree on your post, how many pure Muay Thai fighters are there in mma right now,...Anderson silva, shogun, Joanna, valentina and that's about it. Most others come from different bases. Yes there's a lot of good stuff in Muay Thai for mma but there's also some not so good stuff like the high stances. These days there's people from pretty much every striking style in mma. There's high level karate fighters, taekwondo fighters, boxers, Muay Thai, kick boxers.

My point is you want to say Muay Thai is the best style to have well no it's not there is no /best/ style since you need a mix of pretty much every style. I'm not hating on Muay Thai because I train but I just can't agree with what you say

Not the best style in general - cause you cannot compare Muay Thai to grappling styles - but most likely the best one for stand up striking. Like I said, train and build the core style and then add up some other techniques from different styles. If you choose Muay Thai as your core then you can augment it with some wrestling for takedown defence to be a more complete fighter. I'm not saying just use pure Thai Kickboxing in the cage cause that wouldn't work in MMA formula. Pick one style and build around it and I think Muay Thai is a perfect martial art to augment with different style. We cannot forget that Muay Thai absorbed Wester Boxing techniques from foreign fighters to make it more effective. It is a flexible style to combine with other styles.

Also, to your list of Muay Thai fighters in the UFC I would add Jose Aldo, Rafael don Anjos and Karolina Kowalkiewicz. Like you see with Joanna, Valentina, Anderson an the rest they make quite an impressive bunch of champions

 

[drop bear]

Not the best style in general - cause you cannot compare Muay Thai to grappling styles - but most likely the best one for stand up striking. Like I said, train and build the core style and then add up some other techniques from different styles. If you choose Muay Thai as your core then you can augment it with some wrestling for takedown defence to be a more complete fighter. I'm not saying just use pure Thai Kickboxing in the cage cause that wouldn't work in MMA formula. Pick one style and build around it and I think Muay Thai is a perfect martial art to augment with different style. We cannot forget that Muay Thai absorbed Wester Boxing techniques from foreign fighters to make it more effective. It is a flexible style to combine with other styles.

Also, to your list of Muay Thai fighters in the UFC I would add Jose Aldo, Rafael don Anjos and Karolina Kowalkiewicz. Like you see with Joanna, Valentina, Anderson an the rest they make quite an impressive bunch of champions

Yeah but if you have wold class boxing then that is the base you use for mma.

This is why Brazil fighters tend to be BJJers and not wrestlers.

Australian fighters quite often have a base in muay thai. and genterally pretty craptastic wrestling.

 

[Headhunter]

Not the best style in general - cause you cannot compare Muay Thai to grappling styles - but most likely the best one for stand up striking. Like I said, train and build the core style and then add up some other techniques from different styles. If you choose Muay Thai as your core then you can augment it with some wrestling for takedown defence to be a more complete fighter. I'm not saying just use pure Thai Kickboxing in the cage cause that wouldn't work in MMA formula. Pick one style and build around it and I think Muay Thai is a perfect martial art to augment with different style. We cannot forget that Muay Thai absorbed Wester Boxing techniques from foreign fighters to make it more effective. It is a flexible style to combine with other styles.

Also, to your list of Muay Thai fighters in the UFC I would add Jose Aldo, Rafael don Anjos and Karolina Kowalkiewicz. Like you see with Joanna, Valentina, Anderson an the rest they make quite an impressive bunch of champions

There is no best style every striking style apart from boxing has punches kicks knees and elbows

 

[Headhunter]

I just feel like being able to completely focus on one before the other would be more efficient and easier.

Not at all plenty of fighters now don't start off with one style. That's why there's mma classes not just striking or grappling class. The best example is Rory MacDonald he had no previous martial art experience before he started training and has become very well rounded

 

[Tez3]

The OP is basically an advert for his website.

trying to learn some basic Muay Thai striking in the middle of an MMA course...

Whether the misunderstanding is deliberate or not I don't know but no one does a course of MMA, you train it or you don't, you don't wander off and do a course as if you were learning a language.

Like I said, train and build the core style and then add up some other techniques from different styles.

Pick one style and build around it and I think Muay Thai is a perfect martial art to augment with different style.

No that's not the way it's done anymore, that's how we did it when MMA was just emerging.Fighters coming onto the scene now train MMA as a whole with the intent of competing. We did see this would happen and it's a good thing, it means well rounded fighters with MMA as their core style not a fighter with one style doing catch up with other styles. Coaches and fighters have been for quite a while now have been 'collecting' techniques from many styles and melding them into one core style MMA. Yes MT is in there for many, it's a very good stand up style but you will find these days it is part of a whole in an MMA fighters arsenal rather than a style on it's own with others tacked on. I find it's a good thing that MMA is becoming a tighter, more rounded sport. There will still be those who come from one style and fancy having a go at MMA so train a couple of others styles but MMA is evolving and that's going to be the 'old fashioned' way of doing it ( if it isn't already!)
Nice try at promoting your blog and website, I admire passion but really these days when it comes to MMA you are wrong.

 

[Headhunter]

There is no modern MMA without Thai Kickboxing. Low kicks, elbow and knee strikes are integral parts of Mixed Martial Arts. Stand up striking in the UFC is just Muay Thai and Western Boxing of course with some marginal amount of other martial arts. My point is that while there's a lot of boxing gyms in the US and also should be more Muay Thai gyms that would allow fighters to learn basics and progress to more advanced Muay Thai techniques. MMA is not a discipline on it's own - it is rather a combination of core martial arts. If you start with Muay Thai and then move with it to MMA your life will be easier than when chaotically trying to learn some basic Muay Thai striking in the middle of an MMA course...well my point is that a lot of people are trying to build a house starting with a roof but look at the most dominant champion -= they've always started with one style and then added up more and then maybe trained some MMA to smooth it up and not the other way around.


Muay Thai in MMA explained

Also to add there are no advanced techniques in Muay Thai. It's the same as boxing there's only a small set of moves which you learn very quick but can put them together in multiple combos. You're making it sound like if you don't do Muay Thai you can't do mma which quite is just ignorant to say. Look at Stephen Thompson, lyoto machida, chuck liddel, George's st Pierre, Robbie Lawlor, rampage Jackson and hundred of others who don't use Muay Thai as their main striking style yet they've all done okay for themselves I think

 

[Tez3]

Australian fighters quite often have a base in muay thai. and genterally pretty craptastic wrestling.

Much easier to go to Thailand from Oz than it is for us in UK/US, long haul for us. I think the MMA fighters will start becoming more rounded as MMA expands and becomes more mainstream, it's doing not too badly at the moment, a way to go yet before it's up there with boxing, rugby and Aussie rules lol but fighters will have to 'up their game' if and when it becomes a global sport which I hope it does.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Much easier to go to Thailand from Oz than it is for us in UK/US, long haul for us. I think the MMA fighters will start becoming more rounded as MMA expands and becomes more mainstream, it's doing not too badly at the moment, a way to go yet before it's up there with boxing, rugby and Aussie rules lol but fighters will have to 'up their game' if and when it becomes a global sport which I hope it does.

I don't watch much of it these days but it appears that there is a small increases of traditional martial artists who have become better with applying their system which is aways good. Hopefully they will eventually become teachess and coaches that will pass on their understanding of the techniques.

 

[CB Jones]

I still think there are many more that started in a specific style whether it be Karate, Boxing, Muay Thai, wrestling, judo, etc... and developed a core or base fighting style. And this will continue....wrestlers, boxers, etc... will continue to make that switch as they decide they want to try and be pros.

Once they decided they wanted to be a pro fighter they then began training in MMA and learning to be more well rounded.

But most of them tend to start with a base style and build from it.

Look at Connor Macgregor---striking background and then focused on ground game later.

Anthony Johnson---wrestling background and then learned striking later we decided to go pro

 

[Tez3]

I still think there are many more that started in a specific style whether it be Karate, Boxing, Muay Thai, wrestling, judo, etc... and developed a core or base fighting style. And this will continue....wrestlers, boxers, etc... will continue to make that switch as they decide they want to try and be pros.

Once they decided they wanted to be a pro fighter they then began training in MMA and learning to be more well rounded.

But most of them tend to start with a base style and build from it.

Look at Connor Macgregor---striking background and then focused on ground game later.

Anthony Johnson---wrestling background and then learned striking later we decided to go pro

Well yes that's a given because MMA is still young, still evolving but more and more we are seeing the young ones coming into MMA to train rather than taking it one style at a time. Sooner or later those who come from another style will find they've been left behind, as those who train MMA come to the fore. We are seeing it already, this next generation of upcoming fighters will be single style. McGregor in his late twenties, those ten years and more younger than him aren't going to be doing a single style then another then another, in his coach's gym already they are just training MMA.

 

[CB Jones]

I agree that you will see a lot of guys that have strictly MMA training.

But I think the majority of top guys will always be guys that have a strong background in either striking or grappling and have become exceptional at it.