Beautiful Muay Thai
The technique coming from Boxing Works in LA is unlike anything else
Bryan Popejoy's gym in LA is known for its fighters' highly technical Muay Thai. Training out of Boxing Works, Jackie Buntan (signed to ONE Championship) and Janet Todd (retired from ONE after her fight last Friday) are so much fun to watch. Although it’s known to be one of the “hardest” contact martial arts, Muay Thai is at its core highly strategic. Winning a fight requires a game plan, and no matter how skilled a fighter is, they must be able to execute the plan. Boxing Works fighters have learned to play the game very well.
The foundations of a good Muay Thai fighter are stamina, strength, and composure. The best fighters have unbelievable work ethic to get to that point, but beyond that is where they differentiate themselves. Fighters must constantly think about distance, timing, rhythm, combinations, feints, footwork, hand position, balance, defense, and forward pressure. And much more! It amazes me that the brain is able to plan and execute this highly complex sequence of actions at high speed, while someone is actively trying to hurt you.
So what distinguishes the Boxing Works style from other styles of professional Muay Thai? Rather than focusing on toughness and physicality (which is perhaps a more traditional style, and still very fun to watch!), they emphasize precise footwork and timing, control of space, feints to strikes, and counterstriking. It also has a lot in common with some kickboxing styles.
The training at Boxing Works is drill-heavy, and Bryan seems to have drills for everything: e.g. how to angle out and throw a combo, how to defend and effectively counterstrike. It’s like practicing an instrument for muscle memory. Here’s an example of angling, demonstrated by Janet and Jonathan O’Neill, another great Boxing Works fighter (unfortunately Instagram videos don’t embed on Substack so you’ll have to click through each one):
And another angle one:
And here’s a defense and counterstriking drill, with Jackie:
And an example of the translation from drilling defense+counterstrike to implementing it in a fight. Repetition works!
And here’s an example of the clean angling and in-and-out movement by Jackie:
Although they train together, there are still many differences between Jackie and Janet. Jackie’s boxing combos are lightning fast and terrifying. As Janet said in an interview, you do NOT want to be hit with one of Jackie’s hooks. Some examples of Jackie’s boxing:
Janet is good at many things, but her same-side combos (e.g. right punch followed by right kick) seem to defy physics by being simultaneously fast and strong. Combinations generally alternate between left and right side attacks, because this makes the most sense from a power and weight distribution perspective (e.g. when you walk, you don’t step with the same foot twice in a row). But this is one of Janet’s signature moves! Here are two examples of her knocking out opponents with that sequence:
Boxing Works aside, I want to highlight some of my other favorite fighters and their styles. Here’s an example of a “harder”, more physical style between Capitan Petchyindee and Hiroki Akimoto, with lots of forward pressure and not much angling. Although this is a kickboxing ruleset with larger gloves (less risky generally than the 4oz MMA-style gloves you see above), both fighters have trained and competed in Muay Thai in the past. Akimoto’s leg kicks may not look like much, but his background is full-contact Karate, another one of the toughest contact martial arts with intense forward pressure. I’m guessing just a few of those kicks would be enough to KO an experienced amateur fighter. This is one of my favorite fights!
Here’s a more traditional Thai-style fight between two of the current top Thai fighters. You notice each moves with their own rhythm, which looks cool (it’s a spectator sport!), but also conveniently hides weight shifts for fast strikes. It’s not that this type of fighting isn’t technical; they are both clearly very strategic fighters. But you can see how their movement is very different from the Boxing Works style.
Another one of my favorite fighters to watch is Eddie Abasolo, who trains with the legendary Jongsanan Fairtex in San Francisco (who also trained Bryan Popejoy and my trainer!). I’m not sure how to describe Eddie’s style, other than I don’t think anyone else in the world could pull it off. The way he fights is theoretically risky because of his frequent boxing-like evasions. Normally in Muay Thai, these maneuvers put you at risk of getting kneed or kicked in the head. But Eddie gets away with it because of his superhuman reflexes and unpredictable rhythm. Although he (barely) lost his last fight to Luke Lessei, his smooth evasions and counterstrikes are beautiful to watch.
Aside from entertainment value, watching these fighters gives me inspiration to find my own style: what works best for my reflexes, risk tolerance, physicality, and stamina. Playing around with new strategies is the funnest part of Muay Thai!
❤️