6.5 Limbs Muay Thai and Rushed Fighting

[edwardsutherland]

Just saw Sylvies fight number 259 which was Kard Chuek. Kevin on his commentary spoke familiar sentences. "The ref is breaking the clinch immediately", "they are not letting clinch happen in this fight". Thankfully Sylvie won the fight despite the referee!

Knee and clinch fighting known as Muay Khao, are Sylvies expertise, but are the one aspect of fighting, and the only part that can be interrupted soley at the discretion of the referee !!  

If the ref does not want Sylvie to win, or does not like clinch fighting, or thinks it is boring, then he can, by constantly seperating the contestants influence the outcome of the fight!

In Sylvies case it can mean an unecessary loss! If a referee would interrupt kicking or boxing or elbows he would be booed out. Hence Muay Thai cannot honestly be called the art of 8 limbs anymore! Sylvie should be allowed to clinch undisturbed in a fight, and unfortunately this tendency and the propensity to shorten fight lengths to only 3 rounds are making many contests basically kickboxing matches with elbows. 

When fights are rushed down to 3x3 minute rounds, technique goes out the window, so the only thing that counts are offensive weapons and the ability to clobber your opponent as fast as possible.

My suggestions: 

Muay Thai was not always fought with boxing gloves, so hemp bandaging(Kard Chuek style) or mma type gloves are a great option and should be left open to the agreement of the contestants. 

Fight durations should be viable and agreed upon by the contestants, not the promoter- why not have 3 x 5 minute contests or a 6 rounds of 3 minutes or  7x 2minutes.

Having someone of clout such as Dieselnoi or Karuhat write a letter to the Muay Thai authorities to stop discriminating against Muay Khao stylists and reversing the trend evident in Max, Thai Fight, One Superseries, of shortening fights and not allowing any clinch action.

 

 

 

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

Thanks for this, I made a similar comment on Youtube to a comment remarking about how 3 round fight formats cannot allow longer clinch. Sure they can. It would be like separating fighters every second strike... how boring is that?

[edwardsutherland]

Regarding the topic of 3 round fights,  last year I  sent a couple of emails to One Championship complaining about this practice, but I received no replies.

MuayThai has not become more attractive by shortening the rounds. Quite the contrary!

If you have two equal fighters, usually after 9 minutes it goes to the scorecards, and it is mostly a split decision, and inconclusive who won.

In my opinion it can be argued that MMA is the primary reason for the demise of Muay Thai and K1 kickboxing, or more accurately, MMA stole the show (and the money) from Muay Thai. 

Muay Thai has to compete with the longer rounds of MMA and western boxing, and with such short and rushed fighting it appears to casual onlookers as inferior to the above!

Ironically, in MMA there is a better capability for a fighter to clinch and knee without disturbance by the referee because the ref is not allowed to interrupt !

This is how it should be in Muay Thai !

Maybe I should email Stephan Fox about this. Is that a good idea?