I fucking hope so! Then all the constant race/ethnic/National wars in forums will finally stfu.
Honestly I love Kickboxing and Muay Thai but it makes it really hard to love when every outlet for public discourse on both topics are marred with endless threads and posts about how “Thais can’t box”
“The Dutch are terrible and will never be successful in Thai land”
“Dutch have better hands”
“Dutch have worse kicks”
“Dekkers was an overrated hack”
“Saenchai is a hack”
“K-1 screwed over Thais”
“Thailand screws over Farangs”
And what other racist, bigoted, nationalistic, or culture worshipping arguments you can think of.
It’s like, FFS guys Thais aren’t homogeneous, neither are the Dutch. What makes the difference is time training and amount of training. Look back at the boxers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they fought constantly to live to survive. Many had records of 90+ fights and some even hundreds of wins. So do many Nak Muay because that’s not only a cultural thing but a necessity for them. And even if it isn’t a necessity to live there’s still a culture of fighting even at a young age.
So yeah over time that skill gap will be filled, and westerners adopt training habits of the Thais like light technical sparring, training with a strong emphasis on conditioning, and high volume of fights even if they’re at a lower level. They could breach the gap in both Kickboxing and Muay Thai skill wise.
Of course everyone is individual and their mileage will vary, and if it’s a Farang in Thailand under Thai rules they will need to familiarise themselves with not just the rules and scoring, but also the culture and etiquette of fighting, like when to push the pace and betting culture around the matches.
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