KUN KHMER! Cambodian Kickboxing (And MMA?)

Gday warrior-brothers, fight-fans and general forum-scum!

Thread-intro:

The big thread for Cambodian Kickboxing(No, we're not going to take it to Kun Khmer vs Muay Thai and what came first / is original, even though we could ). I just got into the fight-game here in Cambodia(my debut fight below) and will be posting generals news and fights.. might even get into making editing and creating highlights/docus on the fights/fighters here or at least post others as they pop-up.

What is Kun Khmer?

Kun Khmer is the same thing as Muay Thai, but, Khmer fighters are generally much better at elbows and punches while MT fighters tend to be more of kickers(I call it a degeneration of the sport as it's become like this to please the big casual crowds in the big Bangkok stadiums.. among other things. Kun Khmer is more traditional/oldschool i'd say(a bit more like "old" thaiboxing.. the older eras where people actually knocked eachother out with punches and not just headkicks/100 legkicks)).

The biggest star of Kun Khmer:

Eh Phuthong, retired 75ish-kg fighter with great fight-iq and a rather distinct style. Won and fought against all foreigners and is in the kingdom about as famous as voldemort himself. Will post more on him later as I find the best fights.. below a highlight:



Current champions(of which im proud to know): Long Somnang(60kg or close), Long Sophy(67kg). These guys have a ton of fights on youtube if anyone is interestd but no highlights or such I find atm. There's more champions ofcourse but I can't spell their name and don't know them

There's a ton of new fights every week in the kingdom, almost all channels(the tv-channels are the promoters/fight-orgs here, basically) post a handful every day.


MMA is also on the rise here, it's gaining ground quite rapidly with One FC and other orgs in the SE-Asia region luring fighters with compared to Kun Khmer extremely high salaries. Can any mod acknowledge that it's ok for me to post cambodian MMA fights here? anyways..


Intro of me:

30 year old, Swede, undefeated street-brawler and just had my first ring-fight. Kun Khmer against an experienced(30+ fights) fighter.. also a perfect matchup to force me to learn the power of the elbow and cardio(my opponent is a strong-headed elbow-specialist)



Considering the zero to minimal fight-prep, pre-fight illness(was bedded with diarrea and throwing up due to some evil food-poisoning for 4-5 days just 10 days ago) and very poor condition i'm in the loss is expected, accepted and even wanted

As said, thread dedicated to Kun Khmer fights and fighters.. I'll be updating with my own fights I guess but also that of team-mates and belt-fights. Ok, go on and discuss, spam or stfu... have a good day

What exactly are the scoring differences between thaiboxing and cambodian boxing, if any?

To be honest I'm not sure.. i'm not into "details", didnt bother to check up before fight.. ill get to it now though for the sake of this thread

edit:

Can't really find anything about it but I think the rules are the same and judging is 90% the same.. I found another forumpost explaining some history and differences(link below) that also say that KK fighters are more aggressive, better punchers and don't really clinch that much and if they do I think judge breaks it up faster. Probably because fighters here elbow much better, so, in the clinch there will be 1-2 elbows and then it's a lock-up. He also made the same overall conclusion as me about todays MT and the "golden era"..

"For me, a lot of Kun Khmer fights are like watching the golden era in Thailand, the fighters are relentless and I've never seen them dancing off round 5. "

http://8limbs.us/muay-thai-forum/topic/302-kun-khmer-cambodian-boxing/

Welcome brother! Your posting of info on the current Khmer scene in English will be a great addition to our community. I can tell you that the scoring of KK is noticeably different from MT. The Khmer fight more like Westerners and they use elbows very often, leading me to believe they are a high scoring move. When I watch the borderland fights with Thais it usually looks like when a Thai fights a Westerner and the Thai is backing up and midkicking while the other party is coming forward throwing lots of hands and elbows.

Do you also train in Cambodia? Are there Thai-like camps with 2x6 training?

Pls, we all know Muay Lao is the master race.

Khim dima is a good khun khmer fighter at the moment

red is khim




some more khmer vs thai fights (red is khmer, blue thai)








Cambodian fighting on Max muay thai show

My first kickboxing school was a khmer boxing school

SpawnOfNyarlathotep said:

What exactly are the scoring differences between thaiboxing and cambodian boxing, if any?

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I trained the exact same things at both schools

SuperLuigi said:

Welcome brother! Your posting of info on the current Khmer scene in English will be a great addition to our community. I can tell you that the scoring of KK is noticeably different from MT. The Khmer fight more like Westerners and they use elbows very often, leading me to believe they are a high scoring move. When I watch the borderland fights with Thais it usually looks like when a Thai fights a Westerner and the Thai is backing up and midkicking while the other party is coming forward throwing lots of hands and elbows.

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Thanks, and yeah that's my impression as well. Makes me like KK a bit more as it not only fits me better but the way I see it it's superior.. a bit due to it's better compatibility with MMA(MT fighters more often have a hip-forwarded stance and KK fighters more leaning on their lower back instead of the ass.. better for strong punching and powerful kicking and much better for takedowns and wrestling). Drawback ofcourse is that legkick-defense and speed of kicks is not as good. But a lot of the best KK fighters today have adopted the "MT-style" imo, including the champs at "my" gym Long Sophy and Long Somnang.

Regel said:

Do you also train in Cambodia? Are there Thai-like camps with 2x6 training?

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Yeah train and live here. I train mostly at home actually. I live in Sihanoukville, the biggest coast-city and there's no fight-gyms here. There's a "Fitness Resort and Boxing Center" run by a french guy named Pierre who is very knowledgeable and skilled but he runs a tourist-business and doesn't have any khmer-fighters.. a lot of tourists drop in at MT classes but very rarely any fighters. There's a lot of potential there though for foregin thai-fighters to make a weekend/week as they all have to make visa-runs but it's not established yet. I hope I can help him do that in the future(he's rather buisy coaching for fitness, weights and holding 2-3 different classes a day ranging from MT to cross-fit, yoga etc).

There's 2-3 western-styled "pro" fight-gyms in the Kingdom though.. Prokout in Phnom Penh and Paddy's Gym in Siem Reap. They have fighters but they are also oriented to westerners as far as I know. Not sure if they train 2x6 but I doubt it.. I tried to get in contact with them to get a fight etc but they all wanted me to sign up and pay for classes.. pff

Other than that I think there's 10-20+ serious fight-gyms run by former fighters but they're all khmer - training out of their home/living in their gym the oldschool way. Same as the gym/trainer i'm with now(Salavorn). Very hard to get a foot in as westerner.. I think you have to live here to make it worth their time.

@shiftguy

First fight there with Khim Dima is nice! Typical khmer to strike so much with bad intentions.. seems the thai went down and didn't get up not because of that last 1 punch but because of being broken down mentally by the overwhelming power!


For the record: If I continue calling thai-fighters "weaker" then Khmer-fighters I do not in any way try to imply that thai-fighters are weak in any way! It's just natural that the poorer fighters and countries have a bit tougher mentality. Lethwei fighters showcase the same thing IMO.

Since I dropped the other 2 western-style clubs but forgot the 3rd: Angkor Fight Club. In Siem Reap. Paddy's might have moved to PP also, or perhaps he moved to Siem Reap and left his club to merge with Prokout or something like this..

Also, i'm not 100% but I think it's actually Ot Phutong(brother of Eh Phutong), a very famous fighter that is the judge at my fight..

The fight community here seems to be really something out of the ordinary, lots of clubs and tons of fighters that turn referees, cornermen, gym-owners etc and they all seem to know eachother and show a ton of respect to eachother within the "community". I've been training MT, boxing and MMA in 3 other countries and tons of different clubs/trainers and sure most trainers and fighters are honorable warriors but there's still tons of kid-mentality and douche's that act like kids.. "tough guy mentality", try to "win" sparring etc.. but here it's like everyone even slightly involved in the sport are simply true warriors - noble and honorable.. no fake attitudes, no bragging, no jealousy, tons of sportsmanship etc. Maybe because of the fact it's a small country and/or also because they stopped contact with MT-scene in Thailand, making it a more closed and tighter community?

Whatevs.. i'm having too much time on my hands due to injuries

/rant out

muaydan667 said:

Pls, we all know Muay Lao is the master race.

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With the Khmer empire being the older civilisation? Whatever homie

stingren said:

With the Khmer empire being the older civilisation? Whatever homie

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I'd love to agree but it seems "Muay Lao" has its origins from Shaolin, which is Chinese, which is older than Angkor..

Hi. Thats for an informative post! I have a question about Kun Khmer and MMA.
I have been training boxing, but MMA have now come to my interest, and i wonna learn this art with the goal to someday having a fight. I have looked at a intensive Kun khmer Camp, but can you use Kun khmer skills directly in MMA?

SallyM96 said:

Hi. Thats for an informative post! I have a question about Kun Khmer and MMA.
I have been training boxing, but MMA have now come to my interest, and i wonna learn this art with the goal to someday having a fight. I have looked at a intensive Kun khmer Camp, but can you use Kun khmer skills directly in MMA?

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Same rule set as Muay Thai so yeah you can use the skills but you will have to adapt to using them with takedowns, etc.

theblackknight said:

Same rule set as Muay Thai so yeah you can use the skills but you will have to adapt to using them with takedowns, etc.

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Okay thank you!

Kun Khmer is a copy of Muay Thai and nothing more. That they use more elbows than Muaythai. It depends on the Muaythai fighter that you are making the match. Look for a Muaythai Muay Sok style fighter. Like Ayiok Pumphanmuang, Kem Sitsongpeenong and Petsinin Suan-Aharnpeakmai.