> And the mention of your "untrained" friend being unable to enjoy a traditional Muay Thai fight the way _you_ can just reeks of some kind of odd elitism.

It's a pretty common thing. Sometimes highly technical music doesn't have that appealing an aesthetic to the average person, but to other musicians it's very impressive because of how hard it is to play, or how unusual it is on a theoretical level. There's lots of stuff in life that's like that. Isn't the appeal of most spectator sports partly buoyed by memories people have of playing those sports as kids or young adults?

I don't think it's hard to believe at all, nor elitist. Everyone has things they'll notice more details about because they have experience with them.

Punches didn’t score as high in older Muay Thai, whereas they score equally under One rules. So you didn’t see as much straight hand striking in golden age fights. They certainly used them, but they didn’t count towards your points as much.

With 4oz gloves you don’t have as much to work with in your guard, so punches can slip through a lot easier. On the other hand they protect the hand less, so some fighters are more apprehensive throwing with them on. The small gloves definitely feel like they leave a lot more repeated damage to the face, whereas a clean headkick is probably going to result in a KO. Obviously neither are great if we’re talking about concussions!

I can only speak from my own experience, but I never enjoyed watching fights until I started training. Once I started training and began understanding the rule set, I started seeing what was going on. I don’t think that’s controversial, when you have experience in something your eyes are a little more open. Watching and training is for everyone though! Nothing elite about it all, just a lot of showing up and putting in the work. It’s definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done physically.