After a period of extended unemployment and you know, ‘hitting the gym’ due to not having much else to do, I’ve decided to pursue this hobby of violence that seems to attract far too many chuds. I’m hoping it’ll give me a thin veneer of confidence and security, and an ability to fend off fucking assholes with my bare fists 
In all seriousness, how do I become a better fighter, I truly suck at this. Any of you fight for fun? Practice a martial art, boxing, wrestling? What’s your opinion on the sport?
Most martial arts is not fighting, it's dance class.
I’m trying to stay as far away from the ritual as I can without immediately jumping into street fighting. So I’m trying to practice muaythai/boxing so incan build a sold foundation
I mean dance class is going to still teach you the basics of fighting, the mechanics of throwing a punch, the mechanics of kicking and using your body effectively. Cardio. Discipline.
This will effectively teach you to fight in most "normal guy in a bar scenarios".
MMA will teach you a more realistic but still gamified form of fighting tactics.
However MMA can also teach you overconfidence. Most dance class will teach you to asses risks in fighting better than MMA will.
IRL the risk assessment and cardio is actually much more important than the fighting skill part, because you're not realistically taking people 3 on 1 unless you're yoked, train every day, etc. You're also not going to realistically take on someone significantly bigger than you, because that's not something you actually train for in MMA.
Also you really wanna choose your MMA gyms carefully, like you said this attracts too many chuds and many gyms especially if they're run by them, do not take safety seriously enough because chuds excuse and permit chud behavior from other chuds.