Also as a bonus, I put together a quick video showing the warm up and fight itself. I honestly did not feel a sense of satisfaction after the fight. By weight my opponent was my size, but by looking at me next to him it looked like we were separated by multiple classes and experience levels. My original opponent got sick, I wasn't informed until the day of my fight and a Russian boxer stepped in last minute to fill in for him. I wasn't going to post about this fight, or the video of the fight, however, I thought about it and talked to some close friends and... the reality is that this shit happens all of the time, it is a part of the game and you won't always get the fights and match ups you want, I honestly couldn't believe someone stepped in on that short of notice and anyone with the balls to do that is a warrior in my book. Enjoy.
- Unless you are fighting at a big name stadium in Thailand, there are no official weigh ins. I told the promoter how much I weighed the last time I stepped on the scale which was a few days prior, and that's all he wanted to know.
- Your hands are taped, not wrapped. Take that literally. You will have a brick of tape attached to your hand. In the US you cannot have tape over the knuckles, here that is all you have, did I say lots of it? Lots of it.
- There are no rule meetings, Dr. checks or any of the other shit you spend 5 hours doing before your fight. You get to the event the same time spectators do. The only talk I had was with the ref and he literally said "You know Thai Boxing? Good...Now fight!".
- The warm up consists of an oil massage with boxing oil, shadow boxing, and breathing in humid air. I was lucky to have an american team mate (Sean Fagan) who let me do some light work with him and amazing girlfriend that helped me stretch my old man hips.
- The fights in Thailand are the shit. The atmosphere is very relaxed, if you don't have a mouthguard or are forgetting something they won't disqualify you like they do on some shows back home. They will smile, the announcer will entertain the crowd, and everyone takes their time (I've used my girlfriends mouth guard before when fighting in NYC because they wouldn't allow me to grab mine out of my bag once I started my walkout to the ring.)
- The fighters have a mutual respect for the sports, they are usually tacticians. Even the "brawlers" know to pace themselves and to make the fight look professional. Fighting or watching fights in the states often has an unappealing look when seeing a fighter throwing haymakers right off the bell and spending the rest of the fight looking like an untrained drunk.
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-Written by Samantha Abrams & Paul Banasiak
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