Which is the most powerful and deadly in a real fight-Shaolin Kungfu or Muay Thai?

Above poster is quite wrong... when China started sending fighters to Thailand in the 70s to try their skills against Muay Thai fighters, they sustained severe defeats and were dispatched home very quickly.


Since then, sanda/san shou has grown into a combat sport in CHina, and there have been competitions were Thai fighters were beaten by the chinese, but it is worth noting that these competitions were run under 'sanda rules', and that the chinese won largely due to their ability with throws (one of the peculiarities of sanda).


However, in Thailand, Thai fighters remain extremely dominant in all the lower weight classes, and no foreigners have made a significant impact in the Thai boxing rankings there.





Shaolin kung fu mostly focusses on acrobatics and performance nowadays (and has for quite a while). Sanda/ san shou is an awsome art, but it remains relatively rare outside China|||these styles used to fight each other and it would go bak and forth cause no style is best. shaolin won mostly but muay thai has been adapted better to todays stuuf as shaolin is near extinction








different time periods and situations different ansewers kid|||both of the above posters are true. Especially the second one. Modern shaolin kung fu is usually wushu these days, and its more of a performance art. If you can learn real shaolin stuff and the internals like Xing Yi, you could become a great fighter. Muay thai has a few styles that arent sport type either.





Basically again, it comes down to the practioner. If you train a guy in muay thai and he is lazy, versus a a guy who works very hard and trains correctly in shaolin kung fu, the Muay thai guy is proly gonna loose, and Vice versa. If the Muay thai man trains hard versus a lazy shaolin man, the shaolin man will loose. Its up to you , not the style





Granted, the real shaolin styles give you alot to play with. Rakes to the face, kicks to the knee joints, pressure points, shuai jiao, and ect. While sport muay thia is limited, Muay kaddor or boran, dosent have any grappling methods like shuai jiao, it does have many crippling moves. Its very dependant on the fighters ability