Guess Who Stopped By?

I’ll give you a hint – they call him the “Lumpinee Assassin” and he’s a 2 time K-1 Max World champion.
Imagine my surprise when I walked out of my room about 3 days ago and saw the giant event poster promoting a fight between Buakaw Por Pramuk and Namsaknoi. If you weren’t aware, Namsaknoi is a 4 time Lumpinee champion himself and is widely considered to be one of the greatest Muay Thai fighters in the history of the sport.

Almost seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? I suppose the MMA equivalent would be if you were to walk outside tomorrow and see that a super fight between George St Pierre and Anderson Silva was set to place this weekend and it was all going to happen 3 minutes away from where you live.

Well, the saying “if it seems to good to be true, it usually is” held true tonight because what was marketed as a “fight” turned out to be nothing more than a 2 round demonstration. I actually paid the admission fee for this event too because it was a packed house (I’m usually able to get myself waved in without actually buying a ticket).

As for the actual demonstration itself, it left a lot to be desired. Buakaw and Namsaknoi just lightly sparred (without punches) for two short rounds. Actually, the wai kru they performed at the start lasted longer than the actual demo. Here are some of the highlights..

It’s not all that surprising when you think about it though. Buakaw is used to fighting in front of tens of thousands of people for a lot of money. He’s under contract with K-1 and he’s actually set to fight Andre Dida towards the end of the month. I sort of figured that the chances of this fight being real were slim to none but I also figured that it would make for an interesting post nonetheless.

Of all the fight nights I’ve been too, this one was by far the best – and not necessarily due to the fights either. What made it so good was the atmosphere. The place was packed and the crowd was going crazy! I watched a video before I came here – and I even had it posted on the site for a while – and it described the scene perfectly.

The gamblers – and especially the corner men – were going nuts and surprisingly, the most popular fights were the fights that I personally found boring. In these fights, the fighters would be tied up in the clinch most of the time and would be scoring with knees to the body – although the knees didn’t look like they were landing that clean.

Every single time a knee was landed – even if it was those weak, modified knee strikes that are strictly thrown for points since they land with the inner leg rather than the knee itself – the corner-men and entire Thai crowd would raise their arms in the air and yell in “ayyyyyy” in excitement.

To me, the hyped up reactions of the Thai’s were more exciting than the actual fight itself. Check it out..

As for Buakaw, I noticed that his management team were going through great lengths to monetize his popularity any way they could. They had a stand set up outside the stadium where they were selling extremely overpriced T-shirts and fight shorts.

At the end of the night, Buakaw was sitting out there at the merchandise stand for photo ops. However, if you wanted your picture taken with him, they were charging 300 baht for the privilege. They even went as far as to auction off the very shorts that he was wearing during the demonstration.

Usually when that sort of thing goes up for auction, it’s announced that the proceeds will be given to charity but in this case, no charitable donation was mentioned. I’m pretty sure they were selling the used shorts off his waist strictly to line their own pockets. As for how someone can have a man-crush on an athlete big enough to pay for their used, sweaty gym shorts – well, that’s a mystery to me.

I do have to say though that Buakaw seemed like a nice guy. Before the fights started, me and my buddy were standing outside the stadium when he first walked by and we saw him for the first time. Their weren’t that many people around at the time and the few people that were around didn’t seem to recognize him.

My friend took the opportunity to approach him and ask him for a picture. Buakaw happily obliged and of course, he didn’t ask for any money in exchange for taking the time to do so. He genuinely seemed like a nice guy which leads me to believe that the whole idea of charging for pictures and selling used shorts are just schemes cooked up by his management team to capitalize on his success.

Now, in an unrelated incident – I witnessed a huge fight the other night. I filmed the whole thing but unfortunately, I was approach by a bunch of Thai security guards and they asked me to delete the footage. Actually, the asked for my camera but I certainly wasn’t willing to hand it over so deleting the footage was somewhat of a compromise.

At the time, I knew that there were ways to retrieve deleted clips from a memory card so I didn’t bother arguing. So within the next couple days, I’ll find a good program to use to get the footage back and I’ll post the video and back-story here for you to see.

THINKING OF GOING TO THAILAND TO TRAIN?

I’ve developed a 70 page guide that profiles everything you need to know about training in Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya. In the manual, I discuss the visa issues, the Muay Thai camps, the different areas, the transportation, the food, the culture and customs, the girls, the scams, the safety issues and most importantly, how to save a ton of cash along the way!

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

Back to the Basics

While it would be nice to spend everyday training at Fairtex, the 800 baht per session price tag doesn’t exactly suit my long term budget. Since I had to move on, the other day I went looking for a Muay Thai/MMA gym that I had heard about here in Pattaya. As usual, I got lost and found myself wandering down a little side street.

I suppose I lucked out because I looked to my left and noticed a small sign that said “Thai Boxing”. I turned down the volume on my Ipod and immediately heard the grunting and sounds of shins smacking against the pads. At first, I was somewhat apprehensive about going in as the place didn’t look like a public gym, but rather, it looked like someone just had a ring set up in their backyard.

After a minute or two of watching from a distance from what appeared to be a garage, I figured I might as well walk through and introduce myself. After all, the chances of me finding the gym I had originally been looking for weren’t very good. As soon as I made myself visible, one of the trainers immediately stopped, mid-round, with the kid he was training and inquired as to what it was that I was looking for (I’m sure he assumed I wanted directions or something).

“How much for training?” I asked. He paused and thought for a second, “300 baht” he replied. I have a feeling he just pulled that price out of his a@s but it sure beat the 800 baht I paid at Fairtex so I obliged, got changed and started skipping. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word “farang” (non-offensive Thai word for foreigner) being tossed around so much. When you’re the only white guy around and the Thai’s are talking are dropping the “F-bomb” (falang) in your presence, it’s a pretty safe bet they’re talking about you.

Not that they were saying anything bad, I’m sure they were just talking about how awesome I am (right?). Anyway, once I was warmed up, I was told to kick the heavy bag 30 times per leg. When you kick the heavy bag, you usually have someone holding it for you and often times, you’ll be kicking it along with someone else (you kick with your right leg, the other guy kicks with his left), then you switch after.

Well, I was trading heavy bag kicks with a 9 year old. It was a unique experience to say the least and in no way am I ashamed to admit that in terms of technique, he was better than me.

With great difficulty, I finished up the 30 kicks per leg and while I was pouring water all over myself and struggling to catch my breath, the kid, who showed no signs of even having an elevated heart rate, came up to me and said “very good” with a big, innocent smile on his face.

Once I re-gained my composure and caught my breath, I stepped into the ring and went through my usual 5 rounds of pad-work. We then moved on to the clinching and again, I’m not ashamed to admit – I got owned. As a matter of fact, it’s been a few days since I trained there and my neck still hurts. I guess that’s a testament to how effective Muay Thai actually is. Right now I weigh around 210lbs (formerly into bodybuilding) and I got tossed around the ring by a Thai guy who weighed no more than 170lbs.

It’s funny to think about all those “roided up” guys in the gyms thinking they’re tough based solely on the amount of weight they use when performing preacher curls. It’s not often you see the “juicepigs” of the gym performing neck extension exercises. It doesn’t matter how much someone can press, curl, row – whatever! If they get into a Thai clinch and get their neck pulled down (because it’s a weak-link for most people), they’ll be defenceless because where the neck/head goes, the body follows.

I learned that the hard way as my strength advantage was completely neutralized when I was “clinched up”. I’m just glad that it happened in training and not an actual fight or else I would have taken some serious knees to the face. Overall, it was a beneficial experience though as I now have an even greater appreciation for the art.

When training was over, I sat for about an hour or so and just talked to my trainer. He spoke very good English and as yet another testament to the hospitality of the Thai’s, he took me on a little tour through the house. He showed me some of the videos he had of the kids (wait, that sounded bad, let me re-phrase).. he showed me some photos and videos he had of the kids that train at the camp FIGHTING..

I then saw a trophy case and walked over to it. He followed and told me some of the stories behind each one. He then pointed to a championship belt that was lying next to the trophies and told me that he was “number 2″ at lumpinee stadium back in the day. I guess that’s Thailand for you. Randomly stumble on a side-street camp and end up training with a formerly ranked fighter at lumpinee stadium. Overall, it was a really cool experience and although I only have a couple weeks left here in Pattaya, I think I’ll be going back.

Here’s a short video tour I took of the camp..

Now, in my last entry, I said I had some information on the status of a potential fight between Buakaw Por Pramuk and Yodsanklai Fairtex. Well, I didn’t say it was GOOD news. Although I’m sure the fight will eventually happen (just makes money sense), things are not looking good for the moment.

When training at Fairtex Pattaya, I was informed that Buakaw’s camp was on board at first providing they fought under K1 rules and not full Muay Thai rules. Now, it seems as though they have backed out because, as my source at Fairtex put it, Buakaw has too much to lose at the moment (with him coming off a KO loss at the hands of Yoshihiro Sato). Of course, that’s only one side to the story. Hopefully I’ll make my way to the Por Pramuk gym at some point and get their perspective on the potential match-up.

THINKING OF GOING TO THAILAND TO TRAIN?

I’ve developed a 70 page guide that profiles everything you need to know about training in Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya. In the manual, I discuss the visa issues, the Muay Thai camps, the different areas, the transportation, the food, the culture and customs, the girls, the scams, the safety issues and most importantly, how to save a ton of cash along the way!

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE