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If you look at this clip from the documentary Lumpini (2018), a gambling boss bragging about his hidden (and not-so-hidden) control over a fight, you can see a homology between him and the clip further up this thread (4th post) from the film Necromancer 2020 (2019). The gambling preoccupation is with possible hidden influences, and the ability to read other minds/intentions, always with fairness creating a ballast. A gambling boss wants his ability to control fights to be seen (or more imagined) as a measure of his status, but always because a fight is not just between two single fighters, but their extension of social networks of power and investment, there is an element of cosmic justice on display. Magical powers, local political powers, are not entirely divorced in Thai history, as political power relies on aura & charm, and projected invulnerability & authority. Look back at the Necromancer 2020 clip. Something is happening in the fight. Something doesn't seem right. The man sniffs it out, it's someone manipulating the fight with magic behind a column in the lot. This is the exact same feeling gamblers have when watching a fight were the odds don't budge when a fighter they have bet on looks to be winning. What is it I don't know?

To see the detective, predictive work involved in the uncovering of "hidden forces" behind fights, and how Hia Now Petchyindee knew his own fighter Fahwanmai was throwing a fight, watch this discussion between himself and his son Sia Boat. (There are English Subtitles, turn on CC.). TLTR: in short, at weigh-in the odds were even, then at 5 then suddenly shifted to his opponent, and in the fight no matter how well the Petchyindee fighter did the odds wouldn't budge. People had inside information that the fight had been fixed with the Petchyindee fighter throwing it. Fahwanmai had a troubled past and Sia Boat had extended himself to him giving him a second chance, only to experience this betrayal. It's an important interview that shows the human and even brutal side of Muay Thai gambling corruption, with a lengthy confession ordeal between Sia Boat and his fighter. Just after the 14 minute mark Hia Now talks about the history of that particular gym's corruption, that the gym has drugged their own fighters. The complicated "what ifs" and who-dunnits of "hidden forces" move at almost a conspiratorial level: Hia Now talks about how a bottle of an energy drink at a stadium local 7-11 might be swapped out and put in the shelf, and watched over to see which (random) fighter might come in and buy it. Then gamblers would be alerted; or, about how if a gym sends their own fighters to train at another gym (one in Bangkok) that surrogate gym might fix, or "stage" a fight. This November 2021 video is a promotional attempt by Petchyindee to clear their name from the wrong doing, of course, but it works to also position Muay Thai within anti-corruption and gambling. Late appeals to Muay Thai's sacredness, and National identity are there to rebalance it, at a time of crisis.