Muay Thai style vs Kickboxing style

[Dionas]

Hey guys, I am Dionas from Greece and this is my first post here. I have an upcoming fight under muay thai rules in 2 months. My opponent only recently have started training muay thai, but he has a good kickboxing background. My question is if you have any recommendations about fighting against a kickboxing style opponent. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

off the cuff, crowd them often so memorized combinations are hard to pull off. Elbow, kickboxers hate it. Clinch, kickboxers hate it. Teep a lot, kickboxers tend not to be super experienced vs teeps.

[AndyMaBobs]

Unless Dionas is fighting A-Class, he won't be allowed to elbow, but clinching isn't a bad idea if you're strong there. Teeping on the outside will be useful too, because if he's the type of kickboxer I think he would likely be, he'd be more accustom to front kicks which are designed more to cause pain than they are to off balance or maintain distance.

You will want to be either all the way in, or all the way out - as (while I'm speaking in stereotypes) if he is an experienced kickboxer there is a good chance he will actually be faster than you in combination. When you clinch up you will want to specifically tangle his arm with your arm, go outside, place your fist into his chest and get tricep control with the other arm. 

If he's new to muay thai but he's a kickboxer (I'm assuming K-1 style because you've mentioned that you're from Greece, I know that's a stereotype but that's the more popular style out there) - then I would expect him to rip out of the clinch with punching combos and that will be very dangerous for you if you don't tie his arms up fully. Don't think that because he's a kickboxer he won't be able to bust out of your clinch, because they do it all the time. If you just grab hold of him, he'll break out, if you tangle up his arms you'll give him more trouble. Sylvie has a good seminar on how to do it, if it's something you don't feel confident with.

Have fun!

 

[Dionas]

Thank you both for your answers. I am not fighting A-class, but we are allowed to elbow. In fact my plan for this fight contains a lot of elbowing and clinching, but I am assuming that my opponent will be ready for something like that since he also knows my background. I am also trying to find ways to take advantage of his 'hop around' kickboxing style (I dont know if I am saying this right)

[AndyMaBobs]

1 hour ago, Dionas said:

Thank you both for your answers. I am not fighting A-class, but we are allowed to elbow. In fact my plan for this fight contains a lot of elbowing and clinching, but I am assuming that my opponent will be ready for something like that since he also knows my background. I am also trying to find ways to take advantage of his 'hop around' kickboxing style (I dont know if I am saying this right)

That's great news. Rare opportunity to elbow!  Will you have elbow pads?

If you want to slow him down if he is a bouncer, I'd recommend going for low kicks. I'd try to use the clinch best you can, just make sure you're controlling his arms. Don't make the mistake of thinking Muay Thai > Kickboxing, because you may find that he's more confident striking, because it was all he was doing for a while. So IMO control his arms in the clinch, go for knees and elbows. 

Wishing you the best!

[Dionas]

2 hours ago, AndyMaBobs said:

That's great news. Rare opportunity to elbow!  Will you have elbow pads?

If you want to slow him down if he is a bouncer, I'd recommend going for low kicks. I'd try to use the clinch best you can, just make sure you're controlling his arms. Don't make the mistake of thinking Muay Thai > Kickboxing, because you may find that he's more confident striking, because it was all he was doing for a while. So IMO control his arms in the clinch, go for knees and elbows. 

Wishing you the best!

Yeah we will be wearing protective gear including elbow pads. Thanks for your advice mate and wish you the best too! 

[AndyMaBobs]

26 minutes ago, Dionas said:

Yeah we will be wearing protective gear including elbow pads. Thanks for your advice mate and wish you the best too! 

Nice one dude. Have fun in there.

[alexeric]

How do the two differ? I do Thai but last night did kickboxing class since I was too late to make it to Thai.

Seemed more punch orientated and we did no clinch work but this may have just been the structure of that individual class.

Enjoyed it, and will go back, will it help improve my Thai also?

[AndyMaBobs]

19 hours ago, alexeric said:

How do the two differ? I do Thai but last night did kickboxing class since I was too late to make it to Thai.

Seemed more punch orientated and we did no clinch work but this may have just been the structure of that individual class.

Enjoyed it, and will go back, will it help improve my Thai also?

If you're doing it at the same place, with the same coaches there probably won't be tons of difference in how you learn to punch and kick. Depending on where you go the rhythm is quite different. Kickboxing is fought with a lot more urgency because the fights are two rounds shorter + scoring favours aggression. It'll help your Muay Thai for sure.

As for how they're different? It really depends on what sort of kickboxing you're learning. If you're learning what typically gets called 'K1 rules' nowadays, you're learning the same tools from Muay Thai, but without elbows and clinch work is much more limited (K1 used to allow for more clinching but Buakaw and Overeem were too dominant with it). Teeps are a rarity, Giorgio Petrosyan is the most dominant combat sport athlete of all time, and a large part of his success comes from shoves and teeps + that guy has beaten quite literally every top name except for Masato and a draw against Buakaw. 

You should learn some clinch work, because in kickboxing you need to know how to punch and clutch, because the pace is so fast. I'd say it was probably just that particular class.  If your focus is Muay Thai, I'd suggest to train kickboxing every so often but I wouldn't focus  on it. If you'd rather kickboxing competition you can really stay and train in either, just so long as you're okay with losing weapons if you're training Muay Thai and competing in kickboxing, but you certainly won't be lost so long as you're sparring regularly with people who have a kickboxing style.