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. Because we all come from this from our own little fishbowl - even though Sylvie's fishbowl is larger than many others, it's still a fishbowl - the most interesting thing to me is the 105 lb division. 105 is the lowest weight the WBC can go at this point, but several of the fighters there are actually 100 lb fighters properly. #1 Loma reigned as the best 100 lb fighter for many years. #2 Gulapdam, I believe, holds the 105 lb WPMF title, but she legit is more a 100 lb fighter. #3 Sylvie walks around lighter than 105 lb, and could fight below 100 lbs. #4 Faa Chiangrai definitely is a 100 lb fighter. #5 Duangdaonoi historically had been able to reach 100, I'm not sure about now. I don't know #6. It's safe to say, almost the entire ranked division is more a 100 lb division, which is pretty cool. That means that there is some serious 100 lb talent out there in the world. As to the rankings themselves, there are a few question marks. The first of course is Loma, who definitely deserves the respect for her years of high level supremacy. She was unequaled. But...she doesn't seem to be fighting Muay Thai any longer. Her last big fight, that I recall, was a disappointing loss in an early round at IFMA, but most importantly, she says she walks around now at around 57 kg (125 lbs), and has expressed an earnest desire to put on even more weight. She's had to almost entirely change her body just so she can compete at UFC straw weight, which has some VERY big fighters. She really, as a fighter, isn't close to being able to compete in her former stomping grounds. And, given that her career path is in MMA, she really lacks financial incentive to do so. This isn't something to hold against her. But...how long would she properly be thought of as a 105 lb fighter? It might be better to think of her as one of the best 112 lb Muay Thai fighters in the world? Maybe at some point. Be that as it may, her beautiful superiority at 100 lbs for so long really does grant her leeway in this. She deserves to start out as Queen on top. How long she remains there in an up to date ranking is another question. As to #2 Gulapdam, the only quibble I would have is that the one time Gulapdam and Sylvie fought, a few years ago, Sylvie really owned that fight in a pretty distinct way (TKO, if I recall, with Gulapdam's corner throwing in the towel). So clear was the win that we really got the sense that a rematch wasn't something of interest at all to her camp. After that fight whenever a match up with her representative in the North was booked it wasn't Gulapdam who Sylvie faced, but rather the much larger and super skilled Thanonchanok (#3 at 112, above). it's actually a really good tough match up. Sylvie at 100 lbs was being booked vs a 112 lb champion, instead of the more natural 100 lb Gulapdam, by the gym that handled both fighters. You can see Sylvie pretty much overwhelming Gulapdam, a couple of years ago, here (Sylvie Petchrungruang vs Kulapdam Por Muangphet). No doubt both fighters have improved since then. I'll also say that Gulapdam is one of Sylvie's favorite fighters, and a really under recognized talent. It is very cool for her to be up at #2, I'm pretty happy with that. As to #3, Sylvie. Well, it's Sylvie. I'm always of two minds on Sylvie in rankings. I'd prefer, all things being equal, for Sylvie just not be in the rankings. I like her to be an underground fighter because her progress is one of those incredible slow burns. And being ignored or underhyped actually is what is best for the long term process. Hyped fighters end up not fighting very frequently at all in Thailand. On the other hand, just thinking about Sylvie's position in the 105 lb rankings, making her case, something has to be said about all of her success fighting WAY up in weight, in fact multiple weight classes up, something no one does to the degree that she does. Point in fact, the WBC #1 ranked 112 lb fighter Pornphan, who is tearing up Thailand right now, lost to Sylvie about 2 months ago. You can see that fight below: So you have the #3 ranked WBC 105 lb fighter beating the #1 ranked 112 lb fighter It was a close fight, and little publicized, but damn. Going up two weight classes to fight the best there, and winning, that's a notch in your belt, especially as a 100 lb fighter. This being said, Pornphan an awesome fighter, and huge props to the WBC for recognizing a rising talent like her. These are exactly the kinds of Thai fighters that are hard to pick up on your radar, from afar. In Thailand fighters like this just shoot up. Extremely complete fighters, full of experience and skill at every range. Sylvie's a difficult fighter to rank at 105 because she's had so much success fighting up. She pretty much controlled the currently ranked #2 fighter at 108 lbs, Rungnapa, when they fought a series of fights a few years ago, beating her 3 of 4 times despite giving up the weight. Sylvie's has beat the much respected #3 ranked 112 lb fighter Thanonchanok twice, once just 6 weeks before Thanonchanok flew to Japan to win a World Title, despite the weight (though Sylvie has lost the series between them). And she fought Wondergirl Fairtex, the #1 115 lb fighter in the rankings, in a very close fight that many in attendance thought Sylvie had won. You can see that fight here: Sylvie Petchrungruang vs Wondergirl Fairtex. Notably, Faa Chiang Rai ended up beating Wondergirl in that tournament, also giving up big weight. What is insane about Sylvie is how much she's fought the top fighters in weight classes so far above her, all the way up to ranked 118 lb fighters. #4 Faa Chiangrai. Yes, just a wonderful fighter. Sylvie and she have faced off several times. Sylvie took the edge beating her 3x in a month, and winning the Northern 105 lb belt in her hometown of Chiang Rai a few years ago. But...she has really improved, and has frankly been on the short end of some high profile international fights. She deserved to win vs Saya Ito for the 100 lb WPMF belt (I believe), and was kind of hometowned in that fight. She properly is a world champion, maybe several times over. #5 Duangdaonoi. Properly recognized. She too could probably fight at 100 lbs. Had a rough time defending her WPMF 105 lb belt in Japan where she was just overmatched in size, a few years ago. Has had some success in boxing. I believe won a title. Sylvie and she had a very memorable fight a few years ago. Sylvie kind of ragdolled her, winning, but Duangdaonoi opened up a huge cut on Sylvie in a very bloody end. #6 Saray Medina. We live in Thailand so haven't been as exposed to western fighters at this weight. I'm not familiar, so this is really on my ignorance. maybe the Belarusian fighter Alena Liashkevitch who has beaten Loma in IFMAs at 45 kg deserves to be on the list...if she is still fighting?

Other interesting, or possibly questioned rankings are Lommanee at #1 at 108 lbs. I've ranked Lommannee very high, as high as being possibly the best in the world,, at some point. But she had a huge showdown fight vs Amy Pirnie, and lost. And then fought a kickboxing fight in Japan against someone distinctly smaller, and only came away with a draw. She hasn't had a big win against elite talent in a long while, so it is is maybe hard to put her at #1. This being said, she, like Loma, has been the Queen of her weight class for a long time, so maybe deserves to start out there. Also, poor Amy Pirnie. She beat Lommanee in a big fight and kind of didn't get a lot of recognition for it. She has such explosive, beautiful Muay, but is only ranked #4 at 112 lbs. If I had to put my money down, I might take Amy against anyone in that division. I LOVE seeing Dokmaibaa ranked #2 at 118 lbs. It's just amazing to see a talent like her recognized. And it's very cool to see Alma at #3 right behind her. That would just be a great fight to see right now. Two female fighters as good as you might want, right next to each other in the rankings.

Hi, I recently spent 2 weeks training at Sinbi and I would like to share my experience. Now keep in mind, I barely did any Muay Thai prior to training at Sinbi, so I have no reference to compare my training too, except for my boxing background. Furthermore, I will try to keep my review short and to the point. Overall, I enjoyed training at Sinbi, however it felt like I was in fat camp. I’m not sure if this was the norm because I never did so much conditioning, especially in boxing. When I was boxing, I’ll would do my roadwork and calisthenics on my own time, with the exception of jump roping. In the boxing gym, I would focus on the heavy bag, mitt work and sparring. However, with all the conditioning that we did at Sinbi, I was surprised that we never did any jump rope or body weight squats. I always assumed that was part of the training. The trainers at Sinbi were awesome. They were patient enough to help me with my techniques and they were very friendly. But oddly enough, each trainer had their own way of executing a technique. Now for the part that I didn’t like, but had nothing to do with Sinbi were the small group of wannabe tough guys. They were annoying and obnoxious. I won’t go into details, but they were toxic. However, when it came to sparring, they were decent. But they did carry themselves as if they were top notch. As mentioned before, I did enjoy myself training there but I wouldn’t really want to go back. Hopefully next time I would find a gym that doesn’t have annoying foreigners. Hopefully my review would give some help if you ever decide to train at Sinbi.

Let me just say, there has been perhaps no bigger setback for female Muay Thai than the lack of serious, regularly updated, multi-national, truly "world" level rankings. The WPMF site was trying hard many years ago, but it was drawing from a very small knowledge base, and it was practically impossible to keep up to date, especially given the shifting sands of Thailand's fighting. Lots of fighting. Finally they just gave up with the difficult endeavor. So the new WBC rankings are, right from the start, a huge leap for pretty much everyone. The weighing question really is, can it be kept up to date? Damn, I don't know. It's just a very difficult thing. But, this first release collection is amazingly good. Full of variety, coupled with strong and often suitable acknowledgement of Thai female talent. I'd also say, one of the most important things about rankings isn't that you got it JUST right. It really should be about creating conversations and comparisons. Even debate and criticism. It's about getting people to not just care about the few fighters they know, but also other fighters. To familiarize oneself with the accomplishments of the many. Some of the discussion that follows is in that spirit. We don't have to get it right. Let's just keep it in the mix. But, let's also talk about getting it right too. You can find the updated list on the WBC website here: Female Muay Thai WBC Rankings. But, I'll paste the rankings down below for convenience. If you have thoughts on who should be where, that's a cool thing, let's share.

It's pretty unusual to be only taking private sessions, unless that's what you signed up for. That's definitely not a normal gym program. But most importantly is that you FEEL this is a scam, which I'd advise you to check out other gyms because of that. Even if you don't end up changing, you'll have some other experience to compare. It might be hard to get a fight right now, tons of shows are being cancelled or limited for health precautions. So even if you are in a legitimate training situation, getting a fight might prove difficult. Being happy with your training is important in either case though. Maybe try 1 or 2 sessions somehwere else.

Yeah, but it was a kickboxing rules fight. Stamp won the Muay Thai matchup, so it makes sense that she would have the edge - though ONE judging is wonk in general it seems, so I never know how to take those fights.

Janet Todd just "beat" Stamp Fairtex too although I reckon there is a lot of controversy about that (scoring looks weird). One Championships. Thanks for this, Kevin! Super interesting and congratulations to Sylvie although it sounds like she belongs on the list in a few classes!

Howdy, In the West folks tend to do some padwork, maybe a total of 3 explosive and then relaxed sets. Not too much. In Thailand we don't do that at all, we just get the oil massage (with the Thai linament, it warms you up) and some light shadowboxing and maybe some stretching. I've seen studies that say that a kind of explosive, out-of-breath for a minute warmup about 10 minutes before a race (running) shows improved times for runners. So I kind of go hard in my shadow the fight before mine, then relax. I've never trained combos or anything before a fight. But I do visualize for myself, which is something you could maybe guide your fighters through or at least tell them to do for 5 minutes.

I second this! Dokmaibaa has been tearing it up for a long time and it's cool to see her up there. She's a favourite of mine. I have to admit, it was hard for me to be excited about the announcement of these rankings. My reaction was 'well, this should have been done years ago'. It was less of a 'wow, this is so amazing' and more of a 'well, obviously'. This shouldn't be groundbreaking. But, I do appreciate that took a huge amount of work to put together, and I'm glad it's finally been done. I hope it goes on to be updated regularly.

Sylvie's list of recommended gyms: It's probably best to go to a thriving gym with lots of westerners training, a place like Hongthong Muay Thai in Chiang Mai (which still has fighting opportunities), or if you like something smaller, Manop's Gym in Chiang Mai. If you want to fight Chiang Mai is a solid place because there are so many stadia, and unless you are very large they should be able to match you up, if you express a desire to fight.

It's still up, it's just not showing in certain countries. It's just the announcer including Sylvie's name in a list of opponents Stamp has had wins against.

Thanks Kevin,That's great material. I have started to upload these pics on the respective google map page of them gyms. Some don't even have a google maps page. I'll send the list later. It'd be great if then we could contact them to help them upload the location on gmaps Cheers

I am a fan.

I will say that it is pretty cool to see Janet up there, very well deserved.

Oh ew kickboxing rules.

Skateboarding in the US over the last 5 years. Looks like a small uptick in the last year:

Skateboarding (blue) vs Muay Thai (red) 5 years worldwide As to something like Muay Thai dying, because so much of at least Thailand's Muay Thai is dependent on an entire ecosystem of fighting culture and tens of thousands of fights a year, it may not "die", but it may either become indistinguishable from something it is not, like Kickboxing, or worse, could one day become something preserved in kata-like captures, quite divorced from real fights.