Leaderboard

Sylvie's been training with Chatchai 2x a month, and even had her first official Box Rec boxing fight. I've long been fascinated with how inside boxing styles like those Duran had could compliment and complexify Thai clinch, in that they take place in that no-man's-land of 2 ft, where a lot of comboing fighter simply bite down or even close their eyes. These two feet, where inside boxing lives, is often a very undeveloped space in Thailand's Muay Thai, especially these days as fighters have devolved (in part because Western boxing no longer influence the sport as it once did). Duran, Inside Boxing and Clinch above a compilation video made some time ago, on some beautiful Duran teaching arm control and framing up close, and some Muay Thai parallels. Gimyu, Orachunnoi and Samson As mentioned previous Arjan Gimyu who is 80+ hangs out at Rambaa and comments on training. He was a top Thai boxer in his day, fought into his 40s, and was an elite kru of Kaensak and Lakhin and so many others. Among those was Orachunnoi. As Sylvie was boxing sparring and really concentrating on Duran like body attacks he (apparently) came alive, saying how much this was like Orachunnoi back in the day. The fight edit at top flowed out of is comments as sometimes the best way to study someone is to edit their fight. Arjan Gimyu back in the day above, today below: There are lots of fights where Samson uses pressure hands, mixed with Muay Khao clinch, the most memorable perhaps is his defeat of Pepsi after two draws, in the final round, letting go of clinch almost all together, and ripping uppercuts: And his fight vs the great Muay Maat fighter Thongchai, if I recall, featured a lot of boxing to clinch transitions. In the Muay Thai Library Samson teaches his pressure boxing and clinch style. Here is the Thongchai fight, two absolute legends: We even have photos of Arjan Gimyu holding near 80 years of age, for Samson. They must have been Golden Age enemies at point point because Arjan Gimyu was Lakhin's kru when Lakhin and Samson had their famous trilogy of fights, Samson winning 2-1.

Teeps Like Samart, Lowkicks Like Wichannoi, Punches Like Samson Above is my little edit of 2x Lumpine Champion Orachunnoi in his fight versus Phetphayao, the first Thai to medal in any Olympic sport (Bronze in Boxing), and thus a National hero. Orachunnoi is famed for fighting up, and looks small vs Phetphayao who some years later would become the WBC Superflyweight World champion in boxing. Phetphayao would be great recognition to Arjan Surat of the Dejrat gym who trained him, his success likely insuring that the gym would be filled with Muay Maat fighters with a boxing influence. Orachunnoi himself was an Asian Amateur Gold medalist in Boxing, and acquitted himself well with lots of inside boxing, and fast hands in this fight. Orachunnoi, Golden Fist and The Poorman's Favorite, was trained by Arjan Gimyu who Sylvie has trained with, in fact my attention was drawn to him in this fight because of Arjan Gimyu. I was pretty moved watching this fight. He's giving up size against a big Thai star, and the way he handles Phetphayao is amazing. His combination of teeps and lowkicks in the early rounds is just so skillful, two weapons that don't often go together, finally giving way to his famed inside boxing. It's a beautiful thing to see Thailand's Muay Thai in such a femeu way melded to boxing in this inside fashion, skills at all distances. The heavy influence of Western Boxing on Thailand's Muay Thai is something that's been occluded by much of the superficial coverage of the sport in English, which imagines Muay Thai as an exotic art cut off from the world. Here you have two really wonderful boxers fighting in full weaponry in Muay Thai. Watching the fight it also saddens me that such a gifted fighter is practically forgotten by English language history. He really has a teep as adept at Samart's, and beautiful hands that do not require distance. Putting the edit together was a powerful aesthetic experience, just enjoying all his timing, his power and suddenness, despite his size. As we've found, small fighters like him were very ill-respected in the 1960s, and it wasn't until the 1970s that they started getting better placement on cards. And like so many great fighters he was forced to fight up, for lack of opponents. Chamuakpet Puts Hims 2nd All Time in his GOAT List You can see Chamuakpet choose his 5 greatest below. This was the first time Orachunnoi registered for us, we had only barely heard the name of this 1970s hero. Watch the fullest video of his fight vs Phetphayao below

Thai Boxing legend Khaosai Galaxy. Again, so much that gets beneath the surface of one of the greats.