Team Quest Fight Videos

For the last week or so I’ve been in a bit of a panic because Google made some major changes to their ranking algorithm. As I’ve mentioned throughout these entries, one of the ways I can support myself in Thailand is by earning commissions off sales I refer to companies.

Basically, over the years, I’ve built up a network of websites (in all sorts of niches) that I’ve optimized for the search engines. Since the sites have been ranking in the first page on Google for the terms I was targeting, I’ve been able to just sit back and let the traffic and sales roll in on autopilot (I’ll earn commissions for referring product sales or leads to companies).

Unfortunately for me, things took a turn for the worse on the 24th when about 90% of my sites were hit with an over-optimization penalty and pushed from page 1 to page 10+ in the rankings. Obviously my sales have dropped a bit so I’ve been scrambling to figure things out and get the problems fixed. This experience yet again showed me the importance of diversifying my income streams.

Luckily, I currently live in a city where I pay 120 dollars a month in rent/bills and I can eat an epic meal for a couple dollars. I just feel sorry for all the webmasters out there that have real bills to pay and a family to feed.

Anyway, I figured I’d take a quick break from it all and post up some training and fight videos now that I’m back in Chiang Mai at Team Quest Thailand. The guys (and girls) repping the gym have been on a bit of a tear lately and some of the fights have ended with some pretty impressive knockouts.

For starters, the current MMA coach, Alex Branom, has proven to be a walking highlight reel. He’s had 3 fights here so far and he’s currently training for an upcoming fight at Rajadamnern stadium in Bangkok. In his first 2 fights, he landed brutal head kick knockouts against his Thai opponents.

To follow that up, he fought a skilled foreigner from Australia at Kalare stadium and ended up landing a hard leg kick that ended the fight as his opponent wasn’t able to continue.

Another one of the fighters here who’s been doing great is Adrian Rubis of Nice, France. Adrian now lives in Chiang Mai and has aspirations to make a name for himself in the sport of Muay Thai. With his current record of 15-0 (15 knockouts .. all via knee strike), he’s definitely on the right track.

In every one of his fights, Adrian has stuck to the same winning strategy of simply clinching his opponent and lighting them up with a barrage of knee strikes. I’ve clinched with a lot of fighters over the years here in Thailand and within minutes of clinching with Adrian, I blew out my left shoulder (something that I’m still recovering from).

He’s 6’4 and knows how to use his height and reach to his advantage. In his latest fight, he traveled down to Bangkok to fight at Lumpinee stadium and once again, the result was the same; second round knee strike knockout against an opponent from Sitmonchai. Here’s the video (not the best quality)..

On the 13th, he will be heading down to Bangkok yet again; this time for a fight at Rajadamnern. I guess it’s worth noting here that if you’re serious about making a name for yourself in this sport, you can now base yourself out of Chiang Mai as Team Quest has the connections needed to get fighters into the most prestigious Bangkok-based stadiums.

Another one of the fighters here who has been on a hot streak is Gen, who fights under the name of “HongThongLek”. Gen is a fighter who’s sort of flown under the radar. Meaning, he’s extremely well known throughout the country by the Thai’s, but he’s a fighter that few foreigners have heard of.

He’s a former lumpinee champion and lately, he appears to be resurrecting his career. He took a couple fights here in Chiang Mai for fun (and the results were predictable).

Most impressive on his recent performances though was a fight that was broadcast nationwide on channel 3. If you take the time to watch just 1 of these fight videos, make it THIS one..

He followed that up with a victory against another tough opponent at Rajadamnern stadium a few weeks later. Next week, Gen will be fighting in Bangkok once again and with another victory, he’ll be getting very close to a title shot..

Anyway, I guess I’ll finish this up with some training footage. Matt Embree (WMC & WBC champion) did some training here to get ready for a fight he has in a couple days and one of the guys put together some footage of him blasting the pads.
Check it out..

Fight Night At Patong Stadium

So I rolled by the stadium last night to watch the fights. Most of them were incredible so I figured I’d throw up a quick entry. Six guys from the Patong Boxing Gym were fighting – which made things a little more exciting (and gave me some additional incentive to lay some bets down). On a side note, the Muay Thai stadiums are the only acceptable place to gamble in Thailand. It’s highly illegal everywhere else.

Anyway, of the 6 fighters, 4 were Thai’s (trainers here) and 2 were foreign students. I was a little nervous before the fights got underway because I rarely see the Thai trainers working out. They’re usually busy training us students so they seem to neglect their own training routines. I’d ask my trainer every day leading up to the fight if he had done any training and occasionally, he would say that he went for a run – oftentimes he would just shake his head and say “no, not train”.

The night of fights started off with the kids. They must have been about 8 years old and without any knockout power at all, but it was still entertaining to watch. One of the kids (seen below in the black shorts) spent the majority of the time running around the ring to avoid being cornered by his much larger opponent, yet he was still landing some crazy kicks and knees as he was scrambling around. He ultimately ended up losing on points but he fought with a lot of heart and it was hilarious to watch. A good start to the night for sure. Here’s a quick video..

VIDEO OF KIDS FIGHTING (Coming soon, taking a while to upload)

The next fight featured one of the Thai’s from the gym. I’ve never actually seen this guy train – himself or anyone else for that matter. It seems as though he just does maintenance work around the gym. He’s either sweeping, watering the plants or cleaning the rooms. He’s a super nice guy but to his detriment as a fighter, he’s extremely small.

He’s 26, with a couple hundred fights, but even the announcer at the stadium announced that he was 16 years old. To my surprise though, he’s an awesome fighter. He was lacing his opponent with some big shots (mostly punches) but due to his lack of size/overall power, he wasn’t able to get the knockout and when it went to decision, the judges awarded the victory to his opponent because in Muay Thai, punches don’t count for any points at all.

A couple fights later, another one of the trainers entered the ring. His name is Yodarwut and he’s the most active fighter at the gym. He’s been fighting on nearly every event that I’ve been too. He recently got married so perhaps he’s looking to save some extra cash. Anyway, every time I watch this guy fight I’m amazed by his heart.

Most of the fights I’ve seen of his end up going to decision. I remember watching him fight a guy that they flew down from the Por Pramuk gym last year and at the time, he was really out of shape. He had just come back from a long stint back at his home and as soon as that fight started, you could tell that he was a little less precise with his striking than his opponent. That particular fight ended up going the full 5 rounds and he received heavy applause both during and at the end of the fight for the effort that he gave.

The fight last night however, was a different story. Now that he’s back in shape, he looks sharp – literally. He ended up catching his opponent with a devastating elbow and within 10 seconds of it connecting, the right side of his opponents victims face was drenched with blood. Check the video below (the elbow strike I’m talking about is at 1:03 into it).

That strike ultimately ended the fight as his opponent was bleeding heavily and Yodarwut became tentative to engage beyond a circuit point, and for good reason! The fighters at the stadium are NOT required to get any blood work done prior to stepping in the ring so for all he knows, his/your opponent COULD be HIV positive. It seems as though the thought of potentially contracting something serious rarely enters the minds of the fighters but it’s definitely something to consider before making your decision. Anyway, the doctors eventually called a stop to the fight at Yodarwut was awarded the victory!

For the next fight, we have my trainer (Mungkonkaw aka. “Nuy”) against some stiff competition – one of the trainers from the Tiger Muay Thai gym. Tiger Muay Thai is one of the most successful, most popular gyms in the country and due to their success, they’re able to hire some great fighters to train their guests.

“Nuy” was originally scheduled to fight “Ritt” but when Ritt walked into the stadium, I noticed he had a cut over his eye so rather than fighting Ritt, “Nuy” fought Tanwa – who like “Nuy”, has over 240 fights. Up until this point, I had never seen my trainer throw a punch, a kick – nothing! I had no idea what to expect but as soon as the fight started, he looked extremely comfortable, as if he hadn’t missed a beat with his training.

I guess when you’ve been training and fighting since you’re 8 years old, it becomes second nature and when it comes down to it, your instinct takes over and your reaction to everything is just automatic. Anyway, “Nuy” ended up winning the decision as a result of some great knees in the clinch. Here’s a brief video I took of one of the rounds..

Alright, the next fight featured a fighter from the Gym named Tawatchai. Tawatchai – who’s the current Bangla stadium champion here in Patong – put forth what was by far the most impressive performance of the night.

His opponent – who was much larger and much more experienced – was flown in from Bangkok specifically for the fight in order to give Tawatchai a tougher challenge. Well, Tawatchai stepped up to the challenge and ended the fight in brutal fashion. Check out this first video..

Now, although I appear to be close to the action while filming that, I really wasn’t at all. The close proximity of the video is a result of the zoom feature on my camera being fully optimized. I was a good 50 feet away and yet, it still sounds like Tawatchai is connecting with a baseball bat rather than his shin bone.

And yep, here’s the finish…

That’s definitely a rough way to earn a couple hundred bucks. Hope it’s nothing too serious.

That’s it for the Thai fighters. At this point, the gym is 3-1 on the night and the vibe is good. Up next is a fight between an American guy named William – who’s been training at the Patong Gym for about 6 weeks – and an Australian fighting out of the Rawai Muay Thai gym who I imagine has been training for about 6 weeks himself.

It wasn’t the most technical fight, but let’s be honest, in the heat of the moment, you go to what you’re comfortable with. Ten to twenty years experience of fighting with both feet on the ground usually triumphs over the 6 weeks you’ve spent kicking the pads – which of course, explains why there’s not many kicks being thrown here..

Later that night, William said that before the fight started, a few members of the primarily Australian crowd were shouting obscenities at him – which only gave him further motivation to finish the fight in convincing fashion.

After ending the fight with a knee to what appears to be his opponents chest, William said he chanted “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” to sort of rub the victory in the faces of those who were insulting him before things got underway.

To finish things up, a veteran foreign fighter named Don took on an experienced Thai guy. Don is from England and like myself, he came here once, got hooked on the place and now he sort of splits his time between Thailand and his home.

In order to earn some additional cash while he’s here so he can stay longer, he fights quite a bit at the stadium. He was here last year and towards the end of his trip, he had 3 fights booked within a 10 day period, or something crazy like that.

Anyway, his experience ended up paying off for him here as he ended up overwhelming his opponent with barrages of overhand rights and hooks. He was pushing forward the entire fight and although punches aren’t awarded any points by the judges, the fact that he had his opponent back-pedalling for 5 straight rounds got him the victory.

So, the end result at the stadium was 5 wins, 1 loss and the end result of the evening? Well..

AFTER THE SHOW IT’S THE AFTER PARTY!

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

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