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The word “Muay” translates to “boxing” so the term Muay Thai is translated as Thai Boxing. The term “Boran” translates to “ancient” and so Muay Boran is just used as an umbrella term to describe all the different variations of Thailand’s unarmed fighting before the transition to Muay Thai and the introduction of modified rules loosely based on the Marquess of Queensberry ruleset. In Muay Boran (in lieu of gloves) hemp rope is worn on the fists and matches were fought on areas of packed dirt instead of rings. The most noticeable difference though is the style of movement and stance. The techniques in Muay Boran that look the most different from what we see today in Muay Thai are Mae Mai and Look Mai (also called “Master Tricks” and “Minor Tricks” respectively). One thing to note is almost all of these techniques are still legal today, so the transition to what we’ve seen today is not a matter of an ancient style being “watered down”, but of it being simplified to techniques and strategies that work at the highest percentage. Fighters like Saenchai and Somluck still use these older tricks like the cartwheel kick and the “crocodile kick” so elements can still be found in Modern Muay Thai. Moreover bigger promotions like “Thai Fight” have started promoting Kard Chuek fights (fights using hemp rope instead of gloves) to preserve elements of Muay Boran. (Kard Chuek fights always existed though and have always been very popular in smaller fight shows close to the border of Burma and Thailand despite glove fights dominating the fight scene in Bangkok after the introduction of modern Muay Thai rules.)