In Muay Thai fighters exhibit great longevity and fight much more often with fewer risks. I would say the conditions of a fighter there better match those of Grebs cloth. The round scheme favour ability opposed to simply outlasting an opponent- We would also see a huge jump in competitive fights being made. Though I do think the fights would be less dramatic and the luster of the FOTC and similar bouts would be lost but I like the idea of fighters like in the AMs having 200 fight careers and going against everyone at the top multiple times.
These guys already come in obese and out of shape. Make it five rounds these guys won’t have enough stamina to walk their fat bodies to the ring. Something to be said about having good stamina. Training hard. Also some guys are notoriously slow starters. They’d never exist in this realm thus excluding them from ever earning ATG status. Then you have the other coin men like Tyson would have never lost. I hated it when they got rid of 15 rounds I certainly don’t like this idea.
A lot of Thai's longevity is actually due to their sparring practises. It is very, very rare for hard sparring to occur in gyms in Thailand, especially with the top fighters. Instead they prefer to light spar, do pad work and constantly compete. Veeraphol Sahaphrom took this attitude into Boxing and had 72 pro bouts despite having a long 165 fight career in Muay Thai, a lot of which was at the highest level. He only retired 10 years ago and was a staple of the late '90s and early 2000s.
Yeah you are right the sparring practice is a result of how frequently they fight and I think we should take some notes here huge Thai boxing fan myself. (Contemplated converting) A guy I knew debuted against a guy who was 2-0 in boxing and 174+ fights deep in Thailand and was fighting since he was really young. Poor guy got brutalised and dipped from boxing without realising he lost to a veteran fighter.
Honestly not arguing the point I love the 12-15 rounders. But I think the fatties will always be fatties regardless even if it was a 25 round scheme we would still have plenty of them look back to even the earliest years of boxing.
5 round fights are a brilliant idea. As you said, a boxer can simply win cause he outlasts his opponent.
