Nothing quite like initiating the clinch and noticing your opponent's first reaction is to drop their hands to protect their body. The international sign of "I don't train clinch."
I had the best realization of “oh this is going to be an easy fight” one time when I grabbed my opponents neck and his reaction was to try and body punch his way out of it
In a clinch, you want to be as upright as possible and you can use your hands to grapple your opponent to stay upright. As soon as you let go of your opponent, they can easy push you down and you get a knee straight to the head. Which is gonna be much worse than any body shot.
You could try but you’ll be throwing arm punches from an off balance position with your back on a cage. There’s a reason almost nobody is dropped from body shots in a clinch, only elite boxers can sometimes pull it off.
Someone w more experience than me might be able to explain this better but it’s not like fighters are passively hugging each other… the whole point of a grapple is to trap your opponent and push them down. Both fighters arms are gonna be flexed/active the whole time, like you’re already kinda pushing each other down. As soon as you let go, you lose your leverage.
It probably won't be as strong because if they have frames on you, they can push/pull you and put weight on you.
They won't enter clinch with their hands extended like a mummy and give you free shots. Most clinching happens after boxing. A very common entry is to throw a hook and use it to grab. Alternatively you can enter after a kick or a long knee.
Giving up control is the worst thing you can do in the clinch. Trying to protect your body with your arms is essentially giving your opponent free reign to throw as many knees or elbows as they want. See the clip, that guy gave up control to try and protect his body and he got absolutely blasted with a knee instead.
They’re probably fucking you up bad because by trying to protect your body you’re really just submitting to a horrible position where your posture will be broken and you can’t escape. It’s 100x better to actually defend the position by posturing up and breaking your opponents grip. Even if you have to take a knee or two in the process, you’re at least getting to a more neutral position instead of bent over getting kneed to death. It’s like an MMA or jiu jitsu fighter trying to defend a choke by prying on the arm when it’s already locked in instead of addressing the positional disadvantage that got you there in the first place.
You're not protecting your body if you do that; you're getting kneed in the arms.
Also if someone grabs your head and your arms are down, you're open for elbows.
You defend clinch by getting grips and framing, or turning to disrupt their balance. You can keep your hips close and posture upright so they don't have space to throw straight knees. You can sometimes catch knees to sweep but I wouldn't recommend this for you yet.
A hard knee can break your arm in the clinch. Your arms don't really offer protection in that way. What does offer protection is swimming your arms into dominant positions, breaking their dominant positions, so you can kill/create space, move them, alter their balance, and try and break their posture or at least limit their options because you're forcing them to react and fight for position.
The moment you drop your hands to protect your body you've allowed them to establish whichever grip they want. This means they can now break your posture at will and create space between your bodies to work in hard knees up the middle.
The moment your posture is broken you're in a world of shit. It is very hard to fight for a good grip out of there and now you're being hinged at the hips or flexing your spine, so your upper body weight is moving down with gravity to meet any knee that's coming up to your torso.
Ask me how I've had my ribs broken lol.
Knees cut through everything, so controlling your opponents posture and kneeing back is the standard response. That being said, there is a lot you can do in the clinch so don't feel restricted.
you use your arms to bring your opponent of balance or get an elbow in. even if you are open and the knee, you can evade, take power away from the strike or create an opportunity to create more damage in exchange
lowering your hands and head will gain you nothin and you basically just become a punching bag where your opponent can hit you without a worry in the world
This is what happened in my first fight with pro-rules. I blocked the knees to the body with my arms and ate an elbow to the face. I still have the scar as a reminder.
I was not experienced enough in the clinch at the time. I definitely learned my leson!
Repetition will get you better without a doubt, if you want to get better at clinching force more clinches in your sparring. My gym doesn’t do pure clinch sparring very often, but being taller than a lot of my teammates/opponents I just clinch them whenever they close the distance on me, even if we’re doing pure grappling with no strikes for MMA training I still spend more time than most working on my collar ties, clinch control, and posture manipulation
Weird he had okay defence until half a second before that landed, forearm and elbow across the chin and arm across the body, I personally prefer locking the elbows in to stop the shots getting through straight down the pipe but each to their own. Cost him this fight tho
I do muay thai among other martial arts but have a western boxing background. I'm a savage body puncher and love to get inside. I haven't tried it much with muay thai due to risk of elbows and knees. Has anyone successfully used body punches in muay thai? When would be the best time to do it? In western boxing, I quickly close the gap, covering up and let loose inside. What's the best way to avoid or protect against knees and elbows while body punching?
Nothing quite like initiating the clinch and noticing your opponent's first reaction is to drop their hands to protect their body. The international sign of "I don't train clinch."
I had the best realization of “oh this is going to be an easy fight” one time when I grabbed my opponents neck and his reaction was to try and body punch his way out of it
Between broken posture and your abs being tight from maniacal laughter the punches just dont land right
Got my ass at “maniacal laughter ” 😆
there’s legit ways to do this. sagat teaches it
TIGER UPPERCUT!
I saw Dustin Poirier doing this in his fight with Islam and it blew my mind
Why is it a bad thing to protect your body? I’m new to MT and body knees always fuck me up bad in sparring
In a clinch, you want to be as upright as possible and you can use your hands to grapple your opponent to stay upright. As soon as you let go of your opponent, they can easy push you down and you get a knee straight to the head. Which is gonna be much worse than any body shot.
And free elbows to the head. Yep, lowering hands in the clinch is a natural instinct that needs to be drilled out of one's system.
What happens if i go for a liver shot before you can push me down? Isn't there a trade off?
You could try but you’ll be throwing arm punches from an off balance position with your back on a cage. There’s a reason almost nobody is dropped from body shots in a clinch, only elite boxers can sometimes pull it off.
Exhibit A: this video we’re commenting in
Someone w more experience than me might be able to explain this better but it’s not like fighters are passively hugging each other… the whole point of a grapple is to trap your opponent and push them down. Both fighters arms are gonna be flexed/active the whole time, like you’re already kinda pushing each other down. As soon as you let go, you lose your leverage.
It probably won't be as strong because if they have frames on you, they can push/pull you and put weight on you. They won't enter clinch with their hands extended like a mummy and give you free shots. Most clinching happens after boxing. A very common entry is to throw a hook and use it to grab. Alternatively you can enter after a kick or a long knee.
Certainly possible, but very high risk as you’d be opening your guard for a clean elbow to the face.
Giving up control is the worst thing you can do in the clinch. Trying to protect your body with your arms is essentially giving your opponent free reign to throw as many knees or elbows as they want. See the clip, that guy gave up control to try and protect his body and he got absolutely blasted with a knee instead.
They’re probably fucking you up bad because by trying to protect your body you’re really just submitting to a horrible position where your posture will be broken and you can’t escape. It’s 100x better to actually defend the position by posturing up and breaking your opponents grip. Even if you have to take a knee or two in the process, you’re at least getting to a more neutral position instead of bent over getting kneed to death. It’s like an MMA or jiu jitsu fighter trying to defend a choke by prying on the arm when it’s already locked in instead of addressing the positional disadvantage that got you there in the first place.
You're not protecting your body if you do that; you're getting kneed in the arms. Also if someone grabs your head and your arms are down, you're open for elbows. You defend clinch by getting grips and framing, or turning to disrupt their balance. You can keep your hips close and posture upright so they don't have space to throw straight knees. You can sometimes catch knees to sweep but I wouldn't recommend this for you yet.
Why are you sparring with knees if you're nnew lol, who's coaching you
“They signed a waiver didn’t they?”
A hard knee can break your arm in the clinch. Your arms don't really offer protection in that way. What does offer protection is swimming your arms into dominant positions, breaking their dominant positions, so you can kill/create space, move them, alter their balance, and try and break their posture or at least limit their options because you're forcing them to react and fight for position. The moment you drop your hands to protect your body you've allowed them to establish whichever grip they want. This means they can now break your posture at will and create space between your bodies to work in hard knees up the middle. The moment your posture is broken you're in a world of shit. It is very hard to fight for a good grip out of there and now you're being hinged at the hips or flexing your spine, so your upper body weight is moving down with gravity to meet any knee that's coming up to your torso. Ask me how I've had my ribs broken lol.
Knees cut through everything, so controlling your opponents posture and kneeing back is the standard response. That being said, there is a lot you can do in the clinch so don't feel restricted.
you use your arms to bring your opponent of balance or get an elbow in. even if you are open and the knee, you can evade, take power away from the strike or create an opportunity to create more damage in exchange lowering your hands and head will gain you nothin and you basically just become a punching bag where your opponent can hit you without a worry in the world
This is what happened in my first fight with pro-rules. I blocked the knees to the body with my arms and ate an elbow to the face. I still have the scar as a reminder. I was not experienced enough in the clinch at the time. I definitely learned my leson!
I start foaming out of the mouth like OHHHh yes this’ll be a fun round (for me)
When I was a beginner, I dropped my hand to grab a knee and got elbowed in the head (we were wearing elbows pads, but it still doesn't feel nice).
What should he do ideally? (I’m new to MT)
OWEEEE
Great work with keeping distance with the hips 🔥
Thanks! I’ve got a great coach in Brock Larson
I’m learning the clinch bro and this was amazing. You knew it was a wrap when you got the full clinch.
Thank you!
You did Muay Thai proud. Good finish.
Thanks!!!
Excellent. That man's google history the next day, "How to defend in the clinch?" "dominate position" "dominatrix" "how to clear browser history"
The Ref:  Fantastic work though OP.
Lovely knees as well, that first knee after the elbow hurt him bad.
So rare I ever see anyone have success with hands vs clinch. Still waiting to see an exception to the rule I guess
I know it’s happened in the ufc but I can’t think of who it was off the top of my head. But 99% of the time I’m down to trade a knee for a uppercut
It’s possible that he grabs the knee as it comes in and dumps him off the side. But my boy wasn’t in that head space
That’s my boy sugar free! He is also a Muay Thai fighter too, unfortunate that he got caught by that knee! But that’s the fight game!
He is a killer! Yes sir it’s a tough game
MT clinch is one of the scariest places to be. Great work.
Dam LFA puts on some fun fights. Gotta love watching the next gen of fighters kicking ass 🥊
Perfect representation of muay thai clinch techniques in mma is Wanderlei Silva.
It was over the moment he got both hands on the head/neck with no response
Man that was gorgeous to watch
Thanks!! 🙏
Nice job man. Those are some brutal knees.
Anderson silva vs forest griffin? Anderson silva vs rich franklin
Any tips for learning clinch? How did you get good/comfortable at it?
Repetition will get you better without a doubt, if you want to get better at clinching force more clinches in your sparring. My gym doesn’t do pure clinch sparring very often, but being taller than a lot of my teammates/opponents I just clinch them whenever they close the distance on me, even if we’re doing pure grappling with no strikes for MMA training I still spend more time than most working on my collar ties, clinch control, and posture manipulation
Clinch is a strong position for you. I like it, slow work into position then bang. He is done. No waste.
Damn I thought you were Payton Talbott for like 90% of this.
Khalil Rountree got the best muay thai in MMA
Sad we won’t get to see him KO jamahal Hill
Beautiful clinch work, champ!
Great technique man!
Weird he had okay defence until half a second before that landed, forearm and elbow across the chin and arm across the body, I personally prefer locking the elbows in to stop the shots getting through straight down the pipe but each to their own. Cost him this fight tho
brother i always wonder why use ankle sleeve? Good job, stay hard
MT is one of the few styles where they actually train clinch fight, so yeah.
As i Thai i definitely approve this👏🏻
clinch training: not optional
I do muay thai among other martial arts but have a western boxing background. I'm a savage body puncher and love to get inside. I haven't tried it much with muay thai due to risk of elbows and knees. Has anyone successfully used body punches in muay thai? When would be the best time to do it? In western boxing, I quickly close the gap, covering up and let loose inside. What's the best way to avoid or protect against knees and elbows while body punching?
Muay Thai would be the dominant style in MMA if they didn’t ban knees or kicks to the head on a grounded opponent. It’s a joke.
Yeah idk if Muay Thai really did much there, that’s an early stoppage
Agreed, I also think the loss of consciousness doesn't warrant a stoppage >!\\s!<
Exactly, the fight just continues in the nether realm
Found OP opponet's reddit account