TheAbyss said:

In a few months I was thinking of starting a combat sport.

I have the choice between mma / kickboxing / jiujitsu. Jiujistu I plan to do later and I know it is very good. But first I want to learn how to fight standing up.

My only experience is having done Vietnamese martial arts for a couple of years as a kid. It would be nice to do martial arts all the time but these are not as effective nowadays or at least the way they are taught.

So does that leave MMA or KICKBOXING? The choice is basically between doing a sport with a mix of styles or just focusing on one style.

My goals are to have a better performing body. To learn a basis of combative experience and eventually know how to defend myself in a dangerous situation on the street (if I cannot run away).

Which one would be the best choice?


In Italian cities it's becoming more and more fashionable to simulate what's narrated in shitty rap/trap songs, the 16-24 year olds can't distinguish music from reality. It is trendy to have 'gangs', to pick fights, to steal, to beat each other up. The rudeness around is alarming. Plus mass immigration and the presence of gypsies degrades everything.

((A curiosity, in the subways of Milan and elsewhere, there are female gypsies who keep stealing handbags etc. every day, when they are caught by the police in custody they are released after 24 hours, why? Because they claim or pretend to be pregnant. So there is a regulation that forces the police to release them. And they go back to stealing the next day, there are many videos around now people know about them, a serious problem in addition to the discomfort to the citizens is that they cause great harm to tourists who are unaware of this, creating a bad image of the country. Not to mention the documentless refugees who steal and vandalise and are never caught by the police))

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TheAbyss said:

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Veritá_666 said:

I would personally opt for a martial art, according to my oppinion it is better than boxing. Boxing seems a clumsy and crude discipline (just my oppinion).

Martial arts give you the ability to defend yourself against anyone and block even a large opponent.

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Veritá_666 said:

TheAbyss said:

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Boxing seems a clumsy and crude discipline (just my oppinion).

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Veritá_666 said:

TheAbyss said:

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I would personally opt for a martial art, according to my oppinion it is better than boxing. Boxing seems a clumsy and crude discipline (just my oppinion).

Martial arts give you the ability to defend yourself against anyone and block even a large opponent.

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Ramier108666 said:

Perhaps you should try Penchak Silat. It’s pretty good to try.

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CaspianTheDreamer said:

MMA is the only thing thats actually useful in street fights and self defense. Maybe learn self defense techniques too and learn how to use different weapons.

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Egon said:

If you are going to learn BJJ anyway so might as well focus on Kickboxing and become proficient in striking. Why not try both? The advantage of MMA is that you will apply some of the techniques of BJJ without the kimono which is more realistic, but again with MMA you are halving your training session in grappling and striking.

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F_For_Flamingo said:

If you plan on doing jiujitsu later, I would advise that you go with muay thai, if there is a muay thai gym in your area. And if you are choosing between kickboxing and mma, I think that kickboxing is the better choice.

Whatever you choose, i wish you good luck on your martial arts journey!

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Mazdd said:

Veritá_666 said:

TheAbyss said:

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I would personally opt for a martial art, according to my oppinion it is better than boxing. Boxing seems a clumsy and crude discipline (just my oppinion).

Martial arts give you the ability to defend yourself against anyone and block even a large opponent.

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In theory. I heard that today's martial arts are more like fitness, and they dont teach any strength trainings.
There are lots of videos on yt where master of some martial arts gets fucked up by a casual MMA fighter.
Todays martial arts luck in real world scenerios when it comes to figthing.

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Mazdd said:

There are lots of videos on yt where master of some martial arts gets fucked up by a casual MMA fighter.

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hailourtruegod said:

I would recommend kick boxing as well if that's your choices. I've taken kick boxing and shadow kick box when I can and plan on taking BJJ next.

If I could I would take Muay Thai but best next thing is kick boxing if not just as good. I'm sure there can be arguments for which one of those is better but kick boxing seems to be easier access for most of the world and does get to the point as opposed to other types of martial arts.

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hailourtruegod said:

Don't forget to do your daily yoga as it will help you advance in this field faster than those that don't do yoga and only get their stretches during training. Not just because of being flexible but grounds you and helps one focus during sparring or fights. Daily power meditations adds to this exponentially as well.

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TheAbyss said:

Which one would be the best choice?

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The Alchemist7 said:

TheAbyss said:

Which one would be the best choice?

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I've been interested into Dim Mak but with a single effective punch in a particular area (there are several areas) one can be killed and is not a situation you would want to be in.

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The Alchemist7 said:

However if you get to master such practice I'd assume you would be able to strike and cause enough damage to put the attacker down but not kill them so you have enough time to either run or stop the fight.

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TheAbyss said:

F_For_Flamingo said:

If you plan on doing jiujitsu later, I would advise that you go with muay thai, if there is a muay thai gym in your area. And if you are choosing between kickboxing and mma, I think that kickboxing is the better choice.

Whatever you choose, i wish you good luck on your martial arts journey!

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Actually, there would be a muay thai gym, but it is a bit further away and taking into account timing and my future commitments right now I have to drop it.
However a new question arises, is it better MMA or Muay thai? XD

Ignorant question (muay thai practitioners don't take offence) I read once that in a muay thai you don't work much on footwork, which I thought might be important in an outside situation. Is this true?

However I know someone who practices muay thai who has become really strong. His mere presence is threatening and you realise he could beat the shit out of you if he wanted to.
Unfortunately I've heard from his friends and from him himself about how he often gets into fights in clubs and that he beat up like 3 guys by himself and so on, like every weekend for a while lol. Unfortunately this thing is degenerating but to say that it makes a difference to know how to fight and everyone should know how to defend themselves a little.

Thanks by the way ^.^

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SSinHeartandSoul said:

TheAbyss said:

F_For_Flamingo said:

If you plan on doing jiujitsu later, I would advise that you go with muay thai, if there is a muay thai gym in your area. And if you are choosing between kickboxing and mma, I think that kickboxing is the better choice.

Whatever you choose, i wish you good luck on your martial arts journey!

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Actually, there would be a muay thai gym, but it is a bit further away and taking into account timing and my future commitments right now I have to drop it.
However a new question arises, is it better MMA or Muay thai? XD

Ignorant question (muay thai practitioners don't take offence) I read once that in a muay thai you don't work much on footwork, which I thought might be important in an outside situation. Is this true?

However I know someone who practices muay thai who has become really strong. His mere presence is threatening and you realise he could beat the shit out of you if he wanted to.
Unfortunately I've heard from his friends and from him himself about how he often gets into fights in clubs and that he beat up like 3 guys by himself and so on, like every weekend for a while lol. Unfortunately this thing is degenerating but to say that it makes a difference to know how to fight and everyone should know how to defend themselves a little.

Thanks by the way ^.^

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If you are gunning for being able to fend for yourself in a street fight i would definitely recommend Muay Tai over the other options. Muay tai combines kicks and punches quite well which the other option do not, kickboxing is 95% punching and 5% kicking, MMA is more like 40% puch 10% kick and 50% grappling (Grappling in a street fight is a huge nono especialy if its not a 1 on 1 fight)

All in all i would say that Muay Tai is more well rounded and would be a better choice for self-defense. So if this option is open for you definitely give it some thought.

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hailourtruegod said:

I would go for muay Thai from a good gym/trainer because it involves more knees and elbows and that itself is more useful in a street fight than just punches and "long reaching" kicks in my opinion. It brings more options to use.



I have to strongly disagree on your statement about kick boxing as it's no where near the truth. I had to incorporate more punching on my own time when I was taking kick boxing classes as I felt we did no less than 80% kicking. Not that I was complaining as it's fun for me doing kicks and learning new ones.

Even some cardio routines involved leg work only while others involved most of it. 

We did make time for more punching in some days perhaps to make up for the lack there of, now that I think about it.

In the purely kick boxing proffesional fights one can see every 3rd to 5th strike is a kick if not doing more kicks than that. It usually doesnt fall under 40% even in the later rounds. Lowest I've seen personally could be argued 30% but it's relative to the fighters. Each weight class might differ in this but I have never seen anywhere near "5%" in such fights.

If one has a kick boxing trainer who is only teaching them punches mostly then they have a bad trainer or a trainer trying to compensate with andrapods who don't do any type of stretching let alone yoga so when they go for a side kick they barely can raise their whole leg at hip level. Regardless this isn't a good trainer because he/she can have their students do specific stretches to help them reach high with their kicks no matter what kind. Or straight solid kicks at the least.

This is specifically targeting the false statement that kickboxing is "5%" kicking or anywhere near that. If this was the case then it wouldn't be taken up by professionals whatsoever.



Muay Thai looks more well rounded as you said and I personally would go to a highly skilled trainer for it and even wish to travel to Thailand to experience it from there since from what I saw professional mma fighters who trained in Thailand say it's nothing like the training outside of that country since it's a literal lifestyle for them in that country.

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SSinHeartandSoul said:

hailourtruegod said:

I would go for muay Thai from a good gym/trainer because it involves more knees and elbows and that itself is more useful in a street fight than just punches and "long reaching" kicks in my opinion. It brings more options to use.



I have to strongly disagree on your statement about kick boxing as it's no where near the truth. I had to incorporate more punching on my own time when I was taking kick boxing classes as I felt we did no less than 80% kicking. Not that I was complaining as it's fun for me doing kicks and learning new ones.

Even some cardio routines involved leg work only while others involved most of it. 

We did make time for more punching in some days perhaps to make up for the lack there of, now that I think about it.

In the purely kick boxing proffesional fights one can see every 3rd to 5th strike is a kick if not doing more kicks than that. It usually doesnt fall under 40% even in the later rounds. Lowest I've seen personally could be argued 30% but it's relative to the fighters. Each weight class might differ in this but I have never seen anywhere near "5%" in such fights.

If one has a kick boxing trainer who is only teaching them punches mostly then they have a bad trainer or a trainer trying to compensate with andrapods who don't do any type of stretching let alone yoga so when they go for a side kick they barely can raise their whole leg at hip level. Regardless this isn't a good trainer because he/she can have their students do specific stretches to help them reach high with their kicks no matter what kind. Or straight solid kicks at the least.

This is specifically targeting the false statement that kickboxing is "5%" kicking or anywhere near that. If this was the case then it wouldn't be taken up by professionals whatsoever.



Muay Thai looks more well rounded as you said and I personally would go to a highly skilled trainer for it and even wish to travel to Thailand to experience it from there since from what I saw professional mma fighters who trained in Thailand say it's nothing like the training outside of that country since it's a literal lifestyle for them in that country.

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I am in no way an expert when it comes to martial arts, so i was just conveying what i have seen and experienced. Take what i said with a grain of salt especially cuz it is not possible to put a definitive number on any martial art, every trainer or school trains in a different way while loosely following certain guide lines.

Very informative tough thank you for correcting me there.

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