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These may or may not be in the same vein. My removal of color definitely is a bit different than the typical black and white we think of with noir. Still, I think the sport - as well as the country of Thailand! - lends itself well to noir photography.

Maybe it would be safe to say that what binds Classic Noir and Tech Noir is the morally ambiguous Universe (no clear heading or outcome (criminal underworld or the presence of evil in the former, the uncertain future and impact on technology in the later), AND the aesthetically/spatially isolated hero, or anti-hero, in such a universe, with an amplified focus on that tension. What does it mean for that matrix to be placed upon the Muay Thai of Thailand? The fighter in Thailand is a form of hyper-masculinity (for Thais: read Sylvie's Thai Masculinity: Postioning Nak Muay Between Monkhood and Nak Leng – Peter Vail.The fighter falls between the monk and the gangster. You can see this summation graphic: One can see how this positioning sits well within the Classic Film Noir framework. The ideological worlds overlap in several ways with the protagonists of Noir. The hyper-masculinity fits the Thai concept of the fighter. For westerners, who enjoy a kind of exoticization of Thai culture, or maybe even more importantly, a Blade Runner quality of experience in tourist center cities, one can see where Tech Noir elements comfortably might work to express, or negotiate that truth. We have a hyper-masculinity portrayed in a classic way, along with the accompanying alienation and allure of futuristic possibilities. At bottom it feels like we have an alienating, or at least delineating, morally ambiguous universe, supporting a hyper-masculinized protagonist narrative...a moral character cut out of space.