Posted on November 02 2017
MMA has exploded in people’s awareness not that long ago – especially with the advent of some of the sports stars of the Ultimate Fight Competition, or UFC. This is the premiere organization in the world when it comes to the sport of MMA, and many people nowadays get drawn into this brutal sport. If you want to become a mixed martial artist, then you will have to work on all of the various aspects of fighting – you will have to work at your standup game and ground game as well.
But what do you do if you have dedicated your life up until now on a martial art that has no direct relation to MMA? Perhaps you have trained Thai boxing for the better part of your life, but now you feel that it’s too late to begin with MMA. Well, if you think this way, then you’re wrong. The fact of the matter is that you will be able to implement various aspects – if not all aspects of Thai boxing in MMA.
When you think about it – some of the best strikers in the world are the Muay Thai (Thai boxing) experts. Also, Thai boxing involves a lot of clinching. Well, as it turns out, both striking and clinching are very important in MMA as well. Just watch any fight in the UFC, and you will see these two important elements getting combined seamlessly.
And if you check the background of some of the legendary UFC champions in their respective weight divisions – you will find out that many of them are trained in Muay Thai. Joanna Jedrzejczyk is the woman’s strawweight champion in the UFC – and the main background of this fighter is expertise in Muay Thai. Georges St. Pierre is another legendary UFC fighter – and his background also involves a heavy dose of Thai boxing.
So, you can easily see that Muay Thai can be very successfully implemented in MMA. But make no mistake about it – you will have to work on your grappling game as well. There are cases when dyed in the wool boxers that didn’t have a clue on ground game entered the UFC for a fight – and they were mauled by experienced grapplers that were maybe not up to par when it comes to the striking aspect. So, make sure that you will work hard at the ground game as well.
The next step is to implement these two elements – Thai boxing with the ground game together. You can use the clinch in order to distract your opponent while hitting him with a Muay Thai knee at the same time – and when their focus is in the knees that you hit them with, you can quickly drop your arms below the waist of your opponent and secure a double leg takedown. And then you can take things from there.
So, as you can see, there are myriads of ways in which you can implement Thai boxing into MMA. Your imagination is the sole limit – make sure that you work hard at your craft, and success will likely follow suit.
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