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I should add to the run of thoughts above something I've written about elsewhere. The irony of the built in bias against aggression for its own sake is that Thailand's Muay Thai has produced some of the most skilled, aggressive, stalking fighters in combat sport history. But it doesn't do this through being biased for aggression. It actually does it through its opposite. Because defensive, countering, controlling fighters have traditionally had a scoring bias IF you were an aggressive, dern fighter you had to be very skilled, and effectively aggressive. You had a hill to climb on the scorecard, and do it against highly evolved defensive fighters. As The Bull to the favored Matador, you had to be a very good bull. It's more complicated than this, in that there is not just "one" Muay Thai in Thailand, and I do believe there is almost ideological struggle over ideal representations of excellence (the rural tough guy vs the Bangkok artful guy for instance), but there has been this tension within Muay Thai developed through its Buddhistic perspective on aggression. It's for this reason that we like to say that Muay Thai isn't about aggression, it's about dominance. And there are many ways of being dominant, especially in a scoring aesthetic that praises self control and the control of the opponent. I write this as the husband of a fighter who is a dern, forward-fighting Muay Khao fighter who has fought in the country more times than any other westerner (260), and has lost many, many times to the retreating, defensive fighter who held the scoring bias. Instead of feeling that the scoring wasn't "fair" (ie, Western, or non-Thai) we came to thoroughly embrace it and admire it as beautiful. The advancing fighter holds an extra scoring burden because of how aggression is viewed. It's a puzzle to be solved and brings out much greater possibilities in the aggressive fighter. This feels right to the sport and art of Thailand's Muay Thai.

This really wasn't meant to be about Mike Tyson per se. It just so happened that the beautiful, insightful quote came from his formative trainer, and Mike practically embodies the quick KO fighter. It all came together in a brief space of the writing. But I would never say that Mike Tyson was unskilled. He was spectacularly skilled. In fact Teddy Atlas in his criticism says the same thing. The younger version of him is one of my favorite fighters to watch, and he's inspiring. Sylvie's even stolen from him a bit. This is really about notions of the acme of the sport, what some might say is the deeper value of it as an art, or a meaningful practice beyond that of sheer entertainment. I've written about Thailand's Muay Thai as an artful in the article linked below. The example of Mike though, as a fighter who admittedly came from fear, makes a good wedge into the ideas that are opened up here. It isn't that there shouldn't be KOs, or that there shouldn't be aggression. In fact much of Golden Age Muay Thai was founded on the contrast between "The Bull" (an aggressive fighter, Muay Khao or Muay Maat) and "The Matador" (Muay Femeu). Traditional Muay Thai excellence requires aggression in its pairing. But...the acme fighter isn't The Bull. The acme fighter is the artful, technical fighter who can control The Bull. The concept isn't completely foreign to Western combat sports. Tough guy Rocky Marciano vs silky smooth Sugar Ray Robinson. Everyone understands that dichotomy. What the Ancient Greek orator Chrysostom is talking about in his elegy is an acme image of a fighter, the idea of a beautiful boxer, a boxer who embodies qualities beyond those of his skill set. Noble qualities. He ideally endures the test of fire of the battle, the possibility of loss, and does not seek to end it prematurely. He seeks to crumble his opponent, almost from within, like kicking out the legs of a table. Chrysostom is setting up a hierarchy between this ideal fighter, and other Ancient Greek boxers who were surely incredibly tough. If we wanted to do similarly in western boxing (which unlike Muay Thai does celebrate the knockout as a pure virtue) we might compare sleek footed Ali who won extremely arduous battles, yet was quite artful vs explosive Mike. There have been lots of heavy handed knockout fighters in traditional Muay Thai, many of them celebrated. But the idea that is opened up is that broadly, in traditional Muay Thai the knockout is not hunted for its own sake. It is not a virtue unto itself. If you gain dominance in the 4th round and weaken your opponent, you don't go and chase them into the corner in the 5th round and end them. A fundamental part of this is because of how aggression is viewed, and that there are aspects of the sport which go towards the values of art, and ideals of the perfection of oneself. Where I have written on Thailand's Muay Thai as art:

I think there is / were a wellknown thai Muay grandmaster, whom went the alone way. He did learned by watching... He had never a rational training. After a time, he got work as assistant corner man, and used his time to observe closely and learn... So, if you observe and learn deeply enough, doing the mental visualisation too; half of the job is done... How to build up your physique, is next... But there are surely many ways and ideas.

Hope she makes it over to Thailand ok. Keep us updated