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One might wonder what made McPhail turn to muay Thai, especially since is mother art of san soo is arguably the
greatest pure fighting art in existence. Woo’s style was no-holds-barred two decades before it became a household
name. San soo has no forms, no standard flow from A to B. It is a fighting masterpiece of a martial art, plain and
simple. Like its practitioners, san soo provided the rough-and-tumble practitioner with a place to put his attitude
to the test.
The Muay Thai Experience In muay Thai, however, McPhail found the same attack-at-all-costs philosophy, with a few added bonuses. First, muay Thai provided a tremendous regiment of conditioning. Then there were those magnificent knee and legs kicks that could chop any opponent down to size. "The conditioning aspect of muay Thai was what stood out the most for me, McPhail explained. "I was also impressed with the devastating leg kicks. I had found a fighting style that was as good – or better – than san soo.” When he saw "The Jet” fight a Thai boxer at the famed Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles – the venerable venue once run by Judo Gene LeBell’s mother – McPhail was a convert for life. |
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Trouble was, the rest of the country was not as accepting – especially when it came to point tournament fighting. "There was really no avenue for us to compete at that time,” McPhail noted. "Wed try to use our techniques in point tournaments but the rules weren’t conducive to our style. A lot of our fighters were getting disqualified for excessive contact. It left us very frustrated. Here we were in love with this great style and we didn’t have anywhere to go with it." |
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