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Sakchai Nakpayak a legend almost forgotten - จอมสมิงพราย - ศักดิ์ชัยนาคพยัคฆ์

Pat Cornett
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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

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1 hour ago, Pat Cornett said:

Update. I was able to get in contact with relatives in Chon Buri. One of them has a box with the last remaining belongings of Sakchai and they are passing it on to me. For sure there is his fight robe in there. Not sure if his belt is in there, but if it is, I plan on framing it. I'm guessing it's the one in this photo. I wonder if there is any wording on the back. Sakchai on the far left. I really gotta get my butt over there! 

That is incredible. I can't wait until you get it! Fight robe. Wow.

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On 5/7/2019 at 10:07 AM, Pat Cornett said:

Hello, and thank you Sylvie for suggesting this. 

First I would like to say this is going to get a bit wordy cause a story like this just can't be told in just a few words. 

My name is Pat Cornett. I'm a Thai American that goes back and forth from USA to Thailand to visit family. I train Muay Thai at Sityodtong LA. When visiting family in Thailand, my family elders would sometimes mention the Legend of my grandmother's brother Sakchai who was a muay thai champ that was handsome and murdered. I didn't know how famous he was then. Family was very humble about it. 

On my last visit 2 years ago my auntie brought Sakchai up again. So I asked if we had any photos. Only one. And it was a big funeral one which had his real name and fight name written on it. I took a picture of it. Thai can be tricky but Sakchai Nakpayak can translate as winning with honor - phantom tiger or ghost tiger.

Back home in the states I decided to Google his name exactly how I thought it would be translated. Only one result which lead me to an old muay thai forum which had a scan of my uncle. Little did I know this was a start of a big rabbit hole. 

One day I decided to message Sylvie and see if she's caught any word of my uncle since she's been around so many master's. I was chancing it. She took a picture of some of the pages my uncle was featured in that she owns. It has his record and a few details on his death. He beat almost all the top guys in the early 1950s including Sagat's grandfather Suk. It didn't stop there on my research.

One day I decided to go back to that old forum to find any further info. One of the commentors who posted scans mentioned the authors name. Alex Tsui. And by golly he has a facebook! I've been talking back and forth with this author and he knows just about everything on Sakchai. He's actually a muay thai historian from China of all places.

Alex has been sending me tons of photos and newspaper articles. And there are talks of a movie. I have dedicated a whole album to my uncle which is open to the public on facebook. I know this probably wouldn't mean much to a whole lot of people and by all rights there are still living master's and champs doing their thing fighting and teaching. But it's amazing to me. I was raised American by my dad. There was a time many years ago that I put my Thai culture aside and just wanted to fit in with the people around me. My parents divorced and finding another thai person was like finding a unicorn.

Sakchai is from Chon Buri. Has a surviving sister. My family contacted her for me if we can find out his gym name. She doesn't remember. But author Alex believes it's called Rayong Blood. Sakchai had a brother who also trained muay thai but passed away. His brother had 3 kids which my family kind of lost touch with. We only know them by nickname. A son named Dtoi or Toy. A daughter who is about 60 years old named Dtauw. The other son's name my mother forgot. Their last names should be Prianprakdee. 

Anyway, this is my cool story. I hope you enjoyed it. I haven't come to the end of the rabbit hole and there is much more information out there. It's just not easy to come by

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Thank you for this beautiful story, Pat.  Quite a magnificent relative (so handsome too).  Look forward to seeing what else you find out.

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