Bad Seed

I think its a numbers thing, there seems to be BJJ gyms all over the place so its super accessible. Also when I talk to casual fight fans about Muay Thai I usually get the response "ya its so brutal all the elbows and leg kicks and blood wow" so not surprised some shy away from it. Another common response:

I very well may have mistakenly made that connection while synthesizing your post in my head, if so my bad. I dont mean to derail the thread with a Greek mythology discussion but my thoughts for anyone interested: The breastless archery thing still seems weird to me. Archery makes me think of Artemis, the Greek hunting goddess known for mad skill with her bow. Also doing a bit of googling it seems the a- mazos etymology was most likely a folk etymology, and considering the art depictions the breast removal myth attested by Justinus is considered by some to be inspired by the folk etymology.

The romantic era was so cool, not suprised they had a proto-Conan masterpiece like this. The idea of her physically altering herself in a radical way like that in order to fit into the male side of a dichotomy seems a bit odd to me though. When I think of warrior women I dont think of them as a walking dichotomy of male and female. Where Ive seen traditional accounts of warrior women(Greek, Scythian, Norse, Welsh) it doesnt seem like they dwell to much on them not fitting perfectly into a gender role, they seem to have a worldview that allows for more complexity than that. Maybe its just because they all come from a similar culture sphere. I wonder if this is maybe a Christian influence or simply from the mind of von Kleist.

Long live the GOAT:

Cool fight. I remember when the MMA fighter Cris Santos was smashing girls forever and there were rumors of her outperforming men in the gyms me and a lot of other fans wanted to see her fight a dude. I know a lot of fight fans will say woman x stands no chance but put on the fight and they will buy a ticket.

About the stadium belts being held by less-than-amazing fighters, there is a trend not just with Japanese fighters but with any non-Thais where promoters will take a fighter ranked 8-10th in the rankings, often with a favorable style matchup and put them against a foreigner for the title. The way I see it is much like winning a world title in pro boxing, its basically a trophy that says you beat an elite fighter, but you're not necessarily and often not the best. We know this sort of thing happens but there is a big difference between this and actual fight fixing. The evidence for Japanese fight fixing seems to all be from over 20 years ago and I have seen some modern Japanese fighters who can absolutely hang with the best Thais and their fights don't look fishy or atypical in any way really. The Chinese fighters who beat Thais usually do so in sanda or kickboxing rules, although they seem to be getting better at Muay Thai. A Chinese guy almost KO'd Chujaroen and ended up getting a draw in that fight.

"Rich kids dont fight" -Bernard Hopkins On the art/craft thing, I often suspected the term martial arts came from someone just rendering the Latin term ars martialis into English, which should probably be translated more like warcraft.

I feel it needful to mention that Fujiwara Toshio was a highly capable fighter. Its actually not too unusual for Rajadamnern to contest the title in Japan. I remember this happened not too long ago when Genji Umeno fought Yodlekpet and again when he fought Kulabdam and I think it has happened other times too. They fly out Raja judges to make sure there is no bias or incompetent judging. I dont think its illegitimate that he won by bouncing his opponent's head off the canvas, I've seen Saenchai do this before. I know the bodylock technique he used right before that is a grey area of legality but at most I would say it was a bit dirty. To put this in perspective non-Thais are often give every little advantage they can get in the ring when they fight elite Thais and can't produce results anywhere near what Fujiwara did all the way back in the 70s.

https://www.awakeningfighters.com/athletes/eva-naranjo/ ^A fairly good profile on Eva, although it doesnt record her winning the WPMF 115 world title. I couldn't find anything on Jose. Muay Thai isnt in the Olympics but it is in the World Combat Games which may have been what the news report was talking about. Spain did get a gold medal there. I remember there used to be a good Spanish fighter from 7muaythai Gym.