When it comes to the aesthetic/beauty of being Nak Muay, I still liked Thais better than any farang. Living there for 24 years, I've never seen one able to perfected the art in every aspects. Most camps in BKK, Phuket, Pattaya, Samui also held secrets they're willing to teach only to Thais and foreigners who born, bred and speak Thai.
Kickboxing is a truly international sport and much more widespread than MT which is just a national-traditional sport of Siam. You got Dutch/Standard, American, Japanese, and other ways of perfecting KB. MT is more inclusive and Thais are also old-fashioned, proud of their art, and preferred to learn what they do best from their ancestors unless they wanna make a name for themselves going international route with other disciplines. This is mostly the case before ONE was established and took over fighting scenes in SEA.
There're considerable amount of old-schooled MT pugilists who criticised him not completing with local legends instead choosing the K1 route given the reason "I wanted represent Muay Thai to the world/international viewers" while this's party true, he desired fame, recognition, and money first and foremost. Despite that, he's an absolute legend '70 to '00 fight fans are looking up to and arguably had one of the best K1 runs of all time comparable to that of Fedor's.
Farang/ฝรั่ง means/แปลว่า White-skinned Westerners (Americans, Europeans, Oceanians).
คนต่างชาติ means/แปลว่า Foreigners (Anyone who isn't born, bred, speak Thai natively, and Thai ethnic.
Yup. MT strikes are much more lethal compared to Dutch/Standard Kickboxing and other forms of KB. It's comparable to Lethwei and Kyokushin in deadliness. But the beautiful display of its technical aspect is undeniable. And there're cases many judges gave the win to the fighter with less output, but better composure and throwing strike traditionally instead of only focused on landing more/causing damage.
Agreed. Buakaw was the best semi-Muay Thai Kickboxer who've chosen KB route going international. And I wished to see him competing in Lumpinee and ONE to give a glimpse how he'd have done against post-2012 generation and aggressive youngsters nowadays.