My personal opinion is this:-

I tend to agree with Nigel on the part of training to beat a fighter, not train to fight like him...In the way that any fighter be them a boxer or MMA fighter etc would train to beat an opponent by recognising their skills and weaknesses and then training and fighting in a manner in which to beat that person.

However that is specific to that type of opponent. Training in general terms means that you need to be on top of your game and realistically you need to be well rounded in all aspects of your style to be able to compete at a top level consistently.

Where there may have been issues over the years is in the way that the likes of Dekkers fought as well as other fighters from the same era. People say that the dutch style is typically 1,2,lowkick etc...Although taking away the piss take element of that summary the dutch did have a style, like many have mentioned where boxing was and still is a big part. I have trained (in a seminar) with Dekkers and seen the dvd's of his training / fighting and do agree that the dutch have their own style of Thai Boxing which has been extremely succesful over the years. So this would tie in with what Nigel says when he says you don't need to train like a thai to beat one......

However.......(and herein may lie the issue).......

If you watch the Dekker DVD interview there was a few times where it is mentioned that Ramon and Cor and the dutch team thought that Ramon had won a fight but the decision was given to the Thai...Everyone knows that this happens a lot and from my own experience of trips to Thailand where I have trained and spectated in the sport I have seen many fights where the decision is awarded to a fighter that 'I' thought had lost...
This brings into question the whole debate about knowing the scoring system and understanding what is required in any one fight to win.

I believe that MT in this country has come on in leaps and bounds in the last ten years due to a better understanding of the rules and also because the world is a smaller place and it is becoming easier for people to train in Thailand or for people to bring the Thais over to train us here.
For westerners to be able to beat Thais (on points) we need to understand what scores and also what needs to be done in a fight to be able to secure a points win...This is where we need to train like a Thai to beat a Thai.

I would be interested to know how many fights Dekker had against Thais, how many of those he won and then how were they won......I would imagine that a large majority of the ones he won were by KO.

In summary (cos love to ramble)

To beat a Thai on points you need to know how the fight is scored and I think this is where the 'Train like a Thai to beat a Thai' comes in....If we could win them all by KO then train however you want...

JMHO.

FB'Slim