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Comment by galaxyLogic | Hacker News Reader

Isn't thai-boxing like Karate or fencing where you stop before you actually hurt the opponent, having shown that you could do it? Whereas in boxing there is no such conception of stopping before you actually hit.

Does boxing cause brain damage? This article says: "Almost certainly": https://www.livescience.com/1519-boxing-brain-damage.html

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No, Thai boxing or Muay Thai is not a point fighting sport. There are knock outs. Kicks, knees, and elbows are allowed.

There's also forms of karate that allow full contact.

I boxed twice as an amateur, and got stopped in my second fight after my eye closed up (southpaw got a thumb in my eye is my excuse).

But I look at Thai Boxing matches with flying knees, elbows, etc and that recent video where a fighter footswept someone and then kneed them in the head on the way down and I think "Fuck that."

While muay thai does have point scoring, it is more like boxing where you score points for landing a damaging technique and do not stop on a point being scored. Funnily enough punches often do not score unless they cause considerable movement of the opponent as they are seen as less damaging than a kick, knee or elbow.

One area that is different to a lot of other sports is that fights aren't stopped for bleeding often as it is very common for thai style elbows to open gashes on the face. A lot of experienced fighters will have scarring around the eyes from getting cut with elbows.

That said in the west fights are split into 3 classes (4 if you include novice fights) C which has no elbows or knees to the head, B which has no elbows to the head and A which uses All legal thai techniques

For avoiding unnecessary brain damage, Turing's run-around-the-house chess sounds like a better idea to me, though I'm not sure whether many people have played it or what the rules really are. (Is there also a clock?)

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