Muay Thai and kickboxing

A Thai-style fighter stands taller and squarer than a boxer, with weight back and the lead leg light enough to lift. The stance looks relaxed because it has to be: a kick starts from the hip, and a tense fighter cannot throw one at speed. The work is patient, thrown in ones and twos rather than long combinations, and almost all of it is aimed below the chin.

Watch the lead leg. If it leaves the floor to block, that is a trained kicker. If it does not, leg kicks are going to be free all night.

The teep

A straight push kick to the body or hip. It is a range weapon, not a damage weapon, and it stops a pressure fighter from ever getting started.

Checking a kick

Lifting the shin to meet an incoming leg kick. A fighter who checks well turns the other fighter's best weapon into self-harm.

The plum clinch

Both hands behind the head, controlling the posture, knees to the body. In a cage it is often broken up quickly, but a few seconds of it does a lot of damage.

Kicks to the arm and shoulder

Not a miss. Deadening the arm is deliberate and it shows up later when a fighter stops throwing that hand.

• By compounding damage. Twenty leg kicks over two rounds do not look like anything until the other fighter cannot push off their lead foot.
• By owning the range where kicks and knees land and hands do not.
• By being comfortable in the clinch, which is where most pressure fighters want to take the fight.

• A caught kick is a free takedown, and a kicker who throws carelessly at a wrestler spends the round on their back.
• Patience is a liability on three-round scorecards. A fighter who was setting up the third round can lose the first two doing it.
• Hands can be an afterthought. A boxer who gets inside the kicking range and stays there takes the style's whole arsenal away.

This is the style where round-by-round notes pay off most. Tag Leg Kicks as a strength when you see the damage land, and note which round the other fighter's movement changed — that is the number you will want when this fighter is matched against someone who fades.