ESB ATGs Muay Thai / KickBoxing fighters Thread

So whats your guys opinion of the British Muay Thai Scene and our fighters??

Ronnie Green is easily the best fighter we have produced, but dont rate the current lot of liam harrison, dicks, wakeling in the slightest. They try and replicate the thai style to much and become boring. Much prefer the Dutch style to watch then the UK and even the Thai style to be honest

 

Dutch style is much easier to watch if you're a boxing fan. Punching and kicking is pretty easy to follow.

Thai style needs to be experienced and until you went with a real Kru, its hard to appreciate all the subtle defensive moves and counters. I spar with my brother who used to have the same type of outside boxing style mixed in with MT that I have and when he trained with Jongsanan and Enn, he became much harder to attack. His timing, patience and countering is much much better now.

That said, I still like watching the Dutch style more but I appreciate the subtleties of Thai style.

 

My opinion is all scenes whether British, French, Dutch, Japanese, Cambodian etc. etc. are all inferior or kindergarten in level compared to the Thai scene and always will be. :deal

I felt like you’re trolling but can tell you’re actually not and are serious. I presume you’re a boxing fan not an MT guy so I’ll forgive you’re horrendous blasphemy. :bart Saying the Thai style of MT is boring is like saying Brazilian football is boring! Muay Thai is and always will be all about Thailand. Each other scene around the world with its fighters can build itself up and compete against each other on the international stage, but the benchmark will always be Thailand and whether an individual fighter can compete on equal levels with a Thai of the same weight.

The UK has actually produced many good MT fighters, Ronnie Green as you already mentioned, the Walker brothers, Peter Crooke, Timmy Izli, Floyd Brown, Kash the Flash, The Harrison brothers, Damien Trainor to name a few from the past and in the current crop standouts are Jordan Watson, and although I don’t like his style too much Liam Harrison between those two which top Thais haven’t they fought….Buakaw, Saiyok, Yodsanklai, Seanchai etc etc. On the last K1 Rising bill I saw a young Brit prospect , things look OK to me. Any country would be proud to call them their own, only a Brit wouldn’t rate them and talk them down. There has always been a constant stream of quality Brits making their way to Thailand even form before the Sandy Holt days. Many famous and not so famous Brits have fought and held their own against quality Thais in Bangkok and in the provinces over the years, some you’ve heard of some are anonymous but most have showed skill, quality and above all true bulldog spirit.

If you want to talk about a MT scene that lacks quality look no further than the USA. I don’t know why but except for a very few standouts the scene is just always well under par. And as for the “Dutch” style I suggest you watch some Kongtranee and Coban fights as they were showing the “Dutch” style long before anyone started using that stupid term. All styles are tiny steams of the great Thai Muay Thai river. :nod

As for boring Thais I suggest you watch the clip below between two top ATGs Sakmongkol and Jongsanan and then go back page by page over this thread where you’ll discover some pretty top draw fights recent and old.

Go make a cup of tea, get comfortable and enjoy::thumbsup

Recent fight at Omnoi, Phetchartchay vs Hongtonglek:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fobuj8J-vZA[/ame]


A great fight from 2010 Pornsanae(red) vs Pakon(blue) (Don’t cut it short watch til the end!)


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfsDtJ5pD5Q"]www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfsDtJ5pD5Q[/ame]


Two top ATGs going to war in the 90s Sakmongkol (blue) vs Jongsanan (red):


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKcrPWC4hlc[/ame]


If you find the above “boring” you really are wasting your time watching MT, you should try snuff movies!

 

Yep, 135 lbs Lumpini belt on the line. Not my favourite kind of fight, but top flight stuff none the less. :good

Singdam "Black Lion" just too sharp and comfortable. Everything the quality Wanchalerm tried Singdam had the answer for. Wanchalerm's right kick started out pretty well for him in the first two rounds until he was getting outmatched by the better, faster sharper right kick of Singdam and that was the story of the fight really.Singdam was too hard to get to and everything Wanchalerm did Singdam sid sharper faster and with more power. Wanchalerm failed at range to hence felt the need to press and then put Singdam in the driving seat.

I agree with Yaca Singdam is an ATG, as one of the top fighters of his era post 2000. He's still Lumpini champ is consistantly rated in any top 3 and look at the names he's beat, add you can add Seanchai to that list to. :shock:

 

CHAMUEKPET HAPALANG

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Number of fight: 250. 200 wins. 48 Losses. 2 Draws



I mentioned ATG 9 time stadium champion Chamuepet before, but now finding this recent interview of him on Siamfightmag.com has me all excited! here's just a small juicy bite of the interview to wet your appetite:

:shock::shock::shock:this is a goldmine of info! The full interview along with some pictures can be found here:
http://siamfightmag.com/index.php?o...alang&catid=58:a-la-une-en&Itemid=263&lang=en



these are video reposts but enjoy:



this fight is very one sided, try to ignore the commentators and referee who are clearly bias or better yet don't and watch them make asses of themselves.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoTKImZlErQ[/ame]




Great fight Chamuekpet is like Rocky in this fight! Chamuekpet(red) Ole Kiatoneway(blue)
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMApdiSA5UE[/ame]





I also know that Chamuekpet had a very long career I he was still competing even in his early 40's. Also trained at Hapalang gym with ATG Dieselnoi.

 

Ive been involved in muay thai for over 10 years and the fact its becoming so 'Thai' in the uk (in terms of the ridiculous judging system and boring thai style is a reason im losing intrest)

AND i still think european muay thai (ramon dekker, bonjasky, gilbert ballentine, etc) is far more entertaining then the Thai's. The first 3 rounds the thais do sod all just tip tap ****, before unloading the final 3 rounds.

The dutch style is more entertaining to the general public although i admit it is less effective then traditional muay thai.

Of those mentioned, harrision brothers and to a degree peter crooke are the only ones i rated. Kash and Izil where kickboxers (although i know kash fought a thai called 'superman' or something like that). The old school like ashley guishard, phil nurse, harrison brothers like mentioned, were much better then anything the UK has now

 

did you watch those boring videos Boran posted where nothing really happened until the 3rd round? damn I bet you didnt even watch them... I hear this Muaythai fighters are boring thing a lot these days. While its true everyone has different tastes, it seems to me that people who repeat this mantra are mostly uninformed and havent watched much Muaythai at all. Why dont you see if you can top the Jongsanan vs sakmongkol fight with a vid of your European muaythai. Remember this was simply 1 of their eventual 8 fights between Jongsanan and Sakmongkol there's a lot more unseen fights.

And for the record Dekkers is no more exciting than say someone like Ramba, anuwat, wangjannoi, Bovy, Pornsanae ect. ect ect. what are you talking about? Some fighters are aggressive some are defensive their is no one Thai style. in fact their are as many Muaythai styles as their are boxing styles. I personally find Sagetdao to be boring, he tends to do the same smothering controlling clinch thing that seems a lot like MMA's lay n pray to me. More emphasis on control than damage. Where a guy like Dieselnoi was devastating in the clinch. even among styles their are verities of approach and intensity.

 

their are far less ko's in muaythai than in boxing or kickboxing even. a KO artist like Anuwat only claims 41 ko's in 90 wins! Chamuekpet claims 15 ko's out of 200 wins. where a so called feather fisted willie pep had 65 ko's out of 229 wins.

Kickboxing is clearly different Fujiwara had 123 wins and 99 by ko! Zambidis has 85 kos out of 151 wins.

It isnt just weight Veeraphol was a ko machine at bantamweight in boxing 66 wins 46 ko's but in 150 Muaythai wins only 30 ko's.

 

Good call with this post Yaca.:good

Chamuekpet not just an ATG but ATGGMT (all time great god of Muay Thai). The names in that interview reads like a whose who of most of the ATGGMT of the Golden Age and he was beating them for belts to! (I agree props to Serge at Siam Fight Mag, you can tell it's a real labour of love. The current article on the old Magazine covers, brilliant !) I enjoyed that interview, I never knew about his small pro boxing career. Glad to see at least one Sor Thanikul fighter in his list of tough opponents, Samingoy Sor Thanikul. By the way it doesn't say it but he was also known as Chamuekpet Tor Yuenyong at some stage. Good luck to him in Japan.

That first fight. :-( "This is a 5 round Thai fight....." Yep, with no knees, elbows, clinches, leg grabbing, they should of banned kicks to! Helluva a kick to the head, ouch!

The second fight thanks for posting, that's a gem! Two true Thai ATGs going for it. :happy

What can you say but seek and destroy! Those heavy handed combos form Ole in rd 2 really woke up the Dragon for the 3rd!:scaredas: Like you said he did a Rocky, you watch the 1st and 2nd and you think Ole's gonna do a "Seanchai" on him, great movement, timeing and countering with Chamuekpet taking some serious shots that would have stopped lesser fighters. And then bang he awakes.....knees, knees, elbows, knees, punches, knees, kicks, pressure, more knees, pressure, pressure kaboooooom! (Another example of Thais doing nothing or "slapping" for 3 rounds LOL).

Just to make you really jealous.... look whats on the couch next to me right now.........

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And you know what's funny about it? Look at the number above his name on the front....... it's called Chamuekpet "6" times champion, that is sooooo Thai to get that so wrong. It's pretty good it's got 12 of his fights, not all the famous ones but does include his title bout against Jack Kiattiniwat.

(Still haven't got round to watching that Lumpini card!:-( Waiting for a few hours to myself).

 

Hey Donnie, :good

Good to have a bit of unconventional MT debate on here, as you can see we’re pretty big on Thais round here. Your 1st sentence really shows how times have changed. When I first got into MT in 89 and up through much of the early and mid-nineties I thought the opposite, I dreamt the European scene was more like what I saw on in all those early video tape fights form Thailand!

It just wasn’t except for a few gyms most of which were based up North it was all just a bit too bouncing on toes throwing kicks and boxing type combos, without much thought to what some is actually supposed to do in the clinch. That’s one of the main reasons I went out to Thailand all those years ago was to improve my overall skills, but to really learn what went on in a clinch. Most people that have come to MT post the MMA explosion of the early 2000s don’t realise just how ill equipped most westerners who had never trained in Thailand were in terms of real MT and just how Kickboxing orientated most MT gyms were back in the 80s and 90s.

You mention Timmy Izli being a kickboxer and yes mostly he was, but I used to train in Cobra and spar with Tim and I’ll tell you his low kicks were all Thai! And he did fight Thais, I remember him fighting Thai ATG Jomhod (Tim who was tough as nails but got bashed to bits). Cobra was a good example of what was going on at the time, kickboxing and MT fusing as more and more people were slowly getting exposed to MT. I remember at Cobra you had a core group who did go out to Thailand and train, Rob Cox for example, and these guys helped infuse Thai technique and it was the same all over Europe, only America was lost almost in its entirety to above the waist kickboxing. Most of those names on that list of good Brit fighters above were mostly kickboxers before they were MT guys even the legendary Ronnie Green was a Kickboxer first. Not to knock the great man, but look a few pages back at his fight with Sombat, Ronnie had no idea what to do in the clinch and the truth is most European fighters never did until the explosion of the 2000s. All those guys were a product of the time; the only game changer was if you went out to Thailand or seeked out authentic Thais to train with in Europe.

This is all probably the roots of what everyone now calls “Dutch MT”, but that’s basically the way everyone fought back then who did MT, hard kick and punch combos with the odd barrage of slightly misunderstood knees. Again look at the early legendary Dutch guys Dekkers, Hippolyte etc. not really comfortable in the clinch. I admit I used to worship those guys and still do and yeah sure I love a good Dutch fighter that goes forward, but the games moved on in the West, people’s eyes are open post the 2000 boom in internet and MMA, people know what real MT is these days, especially with more guys like Buakaw, Seanchai and Yodsanklai fighting more often in the west before retirement age. I realise the general public want to see dramatic kicks and punching combos, but if you give them quality knees and elbows, I’m sure they’ll appreciate them just the same.

This leads me on to what Vic is asking about above in his posts about Kickboxing vs. MT KO ratios etc.

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Just think about it logically::think

Thailand has in excess of 65,000 pro fighters who come into the sport to earn a living at a young age. The country has countless stadiums, promoters and gyms etc. It’s a well-oiled fight machine geared for gamblers. The UK has maybe say 60 pro MT fighters, Holland 150, France 150, Japan 200 who knows I’m guessing, and they come into the game as young men for a hobby, but you get my point right? In the West we just don’t have the depth in numbers of fighters in any scene to match make well, hence higher KO ratios with western fights than Thai fights cos they aren’t matched as evenly as they are in Thailand with guys that have basically conditioned themselves since kindergarten. :shock:

Higher KO ratios to many fight fans equals excitement, but not necessarily quality, badabing! What I’m trying to say is if any western country can produce 5 good fighters that can hold their own against a Thai that country have beaten the odds and well done to them.:thumbsup

One last thing, Donnie you've been around the MT game for 10 years, you of all people should know how hard it is to fight in reverse over 5 rounds like the Thais do. Most western fighters go hammer and tongs and have little left in the 4 and 5th even when they try to replicate the way Thais take the 1st two slow or as you said do that “tip tap ****”. The amount of conditioning and mastery of technique needed to put it on in the 4th and then turn it up in the 5th against an evenly matched and very technically proficient fighter (as all Thais are) is almost super human and that “tip tap ****” **** in the first two rounds is still thrown with intent and power and hurts.

Boy, that turned into a marathon, sorry to anyone still reading!

 

Twelve fights of Chamuekpet and are probably not available on the web either. Chamuekpet always comes to fight. Comes forward smashes with damaging knee strikes and what looks to be P4P some of the hardest kicks you'll ever see. Complete with an unshakeable chin and iron will to match.

in the fight against Ole Kiatoneway it was like you say Ole was was looking untouchable doing exactly what he wanted to and then Chamuekpet just takes over the fight and when he gets the ball he never wants to give it back. Ole couldnt keep his opponent off him. He would avoid on shot just to get smashed with the very next one. Ole's slick style just wasnt enough on that day against a great like Chamuekpet.

That vid of Chamuekpet schoolin that kickboxer reminds me of one Changpuek Kiatsongrit vs Rick Rufus. Even though Changpuek's jaw was broken in the first round I still know which fighter I would rather have been... not Rufus. The referee was even the same.
[ame]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4927177132680635888[/ame]

 

Agreed. The fact these guys are born into it plays the major part IMO :good

 

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Pulling out all the big oldskool ATGs this week Yaca.:good

Changpuek ATG without question, beat alot of guys and helped plant the seeds and cement the legend of Muay Thai in the west. :bowdown

Great clip, with arguable the most misinformed commentators of all time ....." Rick Rofus probably hits harder than anyone the Thai has ever fought....." as Rofus hits the deck! :huh And that 3 point foul deduction takes home cookin on to a whole new plane! :-( By the way the Thai gentleman that takes Changpuek's Mongkol of is Thailand's biggest Godfather and owner of Sor Thanikul, Mr. Klao Thanikul.

Other than that what can I say other than, lucky punch, broken jaw, super human powers of recovery, pure Thai fighting spirit, inevitable outcome!

Maybe pictures say it better:

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