No more Karate talk! Muay Thai > Karate, Silva > Machida

There is a legitimate discussion to be had about the merits of one style over another. The reason the UFC was founded was to find out which style works best (and to make the gracies a lot of money). So no, it is not all relative and it is not moronic to try to compare fighting styles. Particularly with the rise of Machida who is the most successful karate guy in MMA.

It's been a long time since there's been an important fight with a legitimate style question that wasn't a ground style versus a striking style or another ground style. We see Muy Thai versus wrestling and muy thai versus ju jitsu all the time, so this IS interesting. Even when we do see two opposing striking styles, it's typically just sort of standard boxing/kickboxing versus Muy Thai. When Machida comes to MMA using Karate and being successful, it only makes sense to ask the question "Well, which style is best?"

I think the idea of the post is probably right on. Muy Thai is probably better for MMA than Karate.

 

A kick is a kick a punch is a punch a knee is a knee it is all how one trains.

 

You do have a point just because all the knees to the body was landed by Machida. Hes the one who tried to clinch 80% of the time.

Although I must say, an MT like Anderson, I dont know what Karate beats that. Chuck Norris?

 

bollocks. there are different stances, different guards, different ideas about how to punch, different ideas about what move is favoured i.e. muay thai clinch and leg work over punching.

nice apology. *****.

 

There are different styles of Karate. Shotokan differes from Kyokushin which differs from Kempo etc.... Kyokushin Karate drills fundamental techniques of balance, distance, proper punching and kicking like no others. Its repetition of fundamental teachings day after day. Muay thai has more variety to the style, which could be perceived as more effective, but UFC requires you to learn different styles, and no fighter will go in with just the knowledge of their own field without learning other styles. So this whole argument becomes Relative, as I said before, it will depend on each fighters skills, and also their opponents skills and style. Its not that simple, where one is better than another. thats my 2 cents.

And BTW, MMA is not about which style is better, its about the individual, who is a better, more complete fighter.

 

almost nothing is absolute. a muay thai fighter will not beat machida even if muay thai is better than karate. the answer is relative and general.

generally i would choose a muay thai fighter.

 

Yeah, these mother****ers sound like characters out of some old Kung fu movie...

"My tiger claw > your whispering lotus style!".

Idiotic ****!

 

Couldn't agree more. Each MMA fighter has a different base and that base suits them more than the next guy. Matt Hughes' Wrestling based style isn't better than Alves' Muay Thai based style, it's just better for him. Same goes for Diego Sanchez' Ju Jitsu base compared to GSP's Kyokushin base (Although GSP is about the most diverse fighter in MMA these days, he really can do everything well)...

 

MMA isn't about styles ANY MORE because fighters found out what works best. Few top MMA fighters use karate or judo(probably shouldn't be included in the list) or capoeira or sumo any more because they have shown themselves to be ineffective styles. Recently it seems like everyone is some variation of Muy Thai/boxing/kickboxing and then some level of grappling either takedown defense/standup oriented or takedown/gnp or JJ.

Hughes' wrestling isn't better than Alves' Muy Thai BUT both of those fighting styles have shown to be effective in MMA already. Also, to say GSP has a karate base may be true but he certainly doesn't have a karate style (at least any more).

The world's best sumo would lose in MMA and his sumo training would help him make a transition to MMA a LOT LOT less than the world's best Brazilian Ju Jitsu guy. The world's best Wing Chun guy would do a lot worse in MMA than the world's best wrestler. Styles matter, it just doesn't seem like it as much anymore because MMA is more mixed than it used to be.

You are right Goose that it isn't as simple as which style is better, that is definitely true. But certain styles ARE better and that's just a fact. If you use some of the more extreme examples it becomes clearer.

 

I feel MMA is too young as a sport for us to make such conclusive statements. There is indeed a discussion to be had about which styles are more accessible/adapt more effectively to the state of MMA as it is today, but to say Muay Thai is better than Karate is simply wrong. We haven't yet had a Sugar Ray Robinson for MMA who could set a new standard in what is correct, effective technique.

The main problem with Karate as it is practiced today is the way fighters are taught to train. GSP still does have a Karate based striking style. He uses axe kicks and spinning thrust kicks that a Muay Thai fighter would never use. Kyokushin was adapted fairly recently by Mas Oyama in order to make ancient forms such as Shotokan, Goju Ryu and Judo more combat effective and relevant. Has GSP taken on some boxing and Muay Thai? Sure he has. But the modern, utilitarian movements of Kyokushin often go unnoticed. Particularly when compared to Machida, who's more traditional Shotokan style/stance sometimes looks visibly different to other striking styles.

It is deceptive of Machida to go on and on about Karate and lead people to believe that it's all he uses when he's been training in BJJ for so long. But Karate is an integral part of his style and he's proven it battle effective countless times. He now refers to his Shotokan/BJJ style as an all-encompassing "Machida Karate", which is fair enough. But the truth is he is a Karate based MMA fighter (And a ****ing good one at that).

The reason I said GSP was a true mixed martial artist was because he has gone from being a fighter who relied almost exclusively on striking to being one of the best wrestlers in the UFC. He's achieved a black belt in BJJ and uses Muay Thai and boxing to supplement his training. But it wasn't his cursory knowledge of Muay Thai that helped him knock the **** out of Thiago Alves. It was the way he trained all of the styles he adopts.

The thread starter makes it clear that he thinks Muay Thai is a superior style. It is not. What's more effective about Muay Thai is the way it is trained. Kids are fighting each other from primary school in Thailand. In Western countries where Karate became so popular throughout the end of the last century the notion prevailed that kids needed to be protected and could not engage in full contact sparring before they reached a certain age. Hence the shitty tournaments in which punching to the head is against the rules, etc. An average Muay Thai kid would lay a beat down on one of these Karate kids, easily. But if every Karate fighter in the world STOPPED punching air all day and started punching each other... You'd see very different results. A single mawashi-geri to the ribs will put anyone down. :smoke

 

In reviewing the fight - I agree with Anderson Silva that Lyoto Machida won every round with ring generalship and clean punching. The effective aggression went to Shogun but Lyoto blocked and or moved away from the majority of his attacks and countered almost everything Shogun threw.

 

chuck did Tkd awww yeah

older style tkd, but still tkd

 

WHAT Ive been saying all along!!! Lyoto won that fight