Muaythai Judging: Summary

By Tony Myers

Introduction International Competition
Fight Classifications Differences between associations
What techniques score? Fouls
How are fights actually scored? Decisions
Some common mistakes made when judging Muay Thai bouts, and how to avoid them Summary

So to sum up, scoring in MuayThai is different to kickboxing and international (western) boxing. It is effect of techniques and not the volume of techniques that are important in determining the winner of a fight. A number of techniques are considered by judges to be more effective than others; unbalancing an opponent and following up with a strong technique, knocking down or throwing an opponent onto the floor, hitting with clean hard kicks or knees to the body. In professional fights, the fights are judged as a whole and it is important that a boxer finishes strongly; the later rounds (3, 4 and 5) are the most important. In amateur fights each round is scored equally but judges are still looking for the dominant and most effective fighter. If you have to judge a fight yourself you need to be very familiar with the rules of MuayThai, have an understanding what good MuayThai techniques look like, look objectively at what happens in the fight and not be influenced by the crowd.

A final point, fighters train very hard for fights putting in many hours of training, they deserve to be judged by individuals who also train… to judge MuayThai. There are judging courses available both nationally and internationally. Internationally the World Muaythai Council (WMC) and the International Federation of MuayThai Amateur (IFMA) offer courses in Thailand on judging. Nationally some associations also offer courses; the British Association of MuayThai officials (BAMTO), the United Kingdom MuayThai Federation (UKMF), Scottish MuayThai Federation, The World Muay Thai Organisation (WMTO) and the British Thai Boxing Council (BTBC).

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