Muay Thai Organizations

[maybethestars]

So recently I've been scouring the interwebs trying to find videos of the most recent Lion Fight, and some thoughts popped in my head. Lion Fight seems to be a relatively well-established, popular and respected Muay Thai Organization. To my knowledge, its the only one devoted exclusively to Muay Thai in the US, and its one I enjoy watching.

Out of curiosity, what do you guys think of other Muay Thai organizations such as Thai Fight and MAX Muay Thai? It seems Thailand is trying hard to promote the popularity of Muay Thai to the rest of the world with these promotions, though the one timeI tried to watch MAX Muay Thai I found that I could just not get myself to sit through them for some reason.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Out of curiosity, what do you guys think of other Muay Thai organizations such as Thai Fight and MAX Muay Thai? It seems Thailand is trying hard to promote the popularity of Muay Thai to the rest of the world with these promotions, though the one timeI tried to watch MAX Muay Thai I found that I could just not get myself to sit through them for some reason.

 

Personally I don't think either Thai Fight or Max Muay Thai is designed to promote Muay Thai to the world, at least as a priority. My sense is that these kinds of shows are really for Thai (television) audiences, and have something of a conservative feel. I think Thais more or less enjoy the contrast between the fluid Thai fighter and the (often) hyper-aggressive, sometimes off-balance western fighter. There are exceptions, but it seems in keeping with much of the lore of Muay Thai, that it is distinctly "Thai", that the Thai people are born to it, it is natural to them, and that it allows a smaller opponent to defeat a larger, perhaps more physically imposing one.

[WaffleNinja]

Im not sure if they are trying to promote Muay Thai to the world, but I love both promotions. Its really cool when Thai Fight does the fights without gloves. I always feel bad for anyone who faces Yodsanklai in those matches  :lol:

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

Lion Fight is probably the biggest in the US, although it's still very young and has practically no competition in terms of similar shows. Glory has appeared in the US a few times with some cross-over fighters from Lion Fight's roster, but they're K-1 and tend to pull from and show to a European pool.

Yokkao is trying to gain momentum with their shows - they're still quite new as a promotion and make most of their money through equipment and apparel, as well as seminars where they cart Saenchai and company around to the UK, Italy and now the East Coast of the US.

Thai Fight and Max are both pretty unwatchable for me. They're a carnival show as far as matchups go.

World Muay Thai Angels is the only all-female show, also jumping on the Thai vs. Westerner bandwagon of Max and Thai Fight and Yokkao. They've only been around for about 2 years and are still working to get their footing, but it's absolutely the biggest all-female promotion I've ever seen. Their first champion, Chommanee Sit. Taehiran won a million Baht upon winning the finale last year!

There are Toyota and Isuzu "marathons" here in Thailand fairly regularly. They're big shows, big names, you can watch them on TV. But not really for international audiences unless they go up on YouTube later.  Channel 7 is the best televised show here, in my opinion, and it's a pity Raja and Lumpinee don't televise their shows more often.

Enfusion is pretty popular, as far as my Facebook feed tells me, but I don't know how to watch it and it's K-1 or S-1, so not full Muay Thai. That's also more of a European scene.

[threeoaks]

Lion Fight is probably the biggest in the US, although it's still very young and has practically no competition in terms of similar shows. Glory has appeared in the US a few times with some cross-over fighters from Lion Fight's roster, but they're K-1 and tend to pull from and show to a European pool.

Yokkao is trying to gain momentum with their shows - they're still quite new as a promotion and make most of their money through equipment and apparel, as well as seminars where they cart Saenchai and company around to the UK, Italy and now the East Coast of the US.

 

"Cart Saenchai around" - too funny.  FNF in NYC is starting to get on the Thai v Western fighter train too.  

[maybethestars]

I've definitely heard of all those seminars that Yokkao has been holding with Saenchai. I'm kind of surprised that there are so many of these promotions that seem to focus exclusively on the whole "Western vs. Thai fighter" dynamic or mythology (is that the correct word?). I can definitely see why it would appeal to Thai audiences since its often the case the Thai fighter probably has a huge amount of experience in comparison ot the Western fighter, though I would like to hear whether others find it just as entertaining. Personally I would just prefer to see an exciting match-up, Thai vs. Thai or otherwise rather than a heavily unbalanced fight.

I've heard of Muay Thai Angels, though I was a bit skeptical at first since they seem to put a lot of emphasis on how 'pretty' the fighters are supposed to be.

As for the others....I know there are a bunch but I can't keep track of all the different rule sets they seem to use.

[Lobo11]

Wow.  So much awesome. Thai Fight, MAX Muay Thai, Enfusion, Yokkao, World Muay Thai Angels.  Raaahhhhhh!

I never heard of any of these.  What a noob I am.

Thanks all.