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A Thai Language 10 Top Greatest Muay Thai Fighters of All Time

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Mentor

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

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https://pepperrr.net/th/articles/3049

It's great to see a top 10 list in Thai and not English. There is the slight issue that #2 beat #1 pretty definitively, now that we have the video it makes the victory less abstract. You can see the just impact of Dieselnoi's unrelenting force and technique on the fighter everyone holds as the King of smooth.

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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Mentor

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

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Its cool to argue - or even better, discuss - these kinds of lists, because it causes us to put things into larger context. But we have to really keep in mind that we are just more or less just making things up as westerners. Even Samart, who is widely embraced by westerners as the GOAT has very few fights on video to watch.. There are fights with yodmuay never even seen, and then rematches with the same, also unseen. These are histories that are more or less profoundly lost, even for the most embraced of fighters, let alone those that have nothing preserved on YouTube or by oral memory. Even the sudden rediscovery of the tape of Samart vs Dieselnoi in 1982 recasts the discussion in a very different light, and that is just one fight of 100s if not 1000s, otherwise unseen.

That being said, a pretty cool list in that it captures great fighters across generations (though it might have been awesome to see Suk "The Giant Ghost" in there, though none of us have seen him fight). The dude terrified opponents for 4 decades by most reports. And Dieselnoi's vote for the GOAT Wichannoi does not make the list, though Apidej at #3 maybe is the strong nod to the era. Other quibbles would be that Somrak is ahead of his JockGym mate Saenchai, likely for his success in Olympic Boxing, which seems pretty strange. Somrak, what a fighter, but it's really unclear how great in that his opportunities were curtailed. I will say that it is really cool to see Wangchannoi so high up. He feels like a fighter who is a fighter's fighter.

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Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu Fellow Traveler

Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

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Both #6 (Wangchannoi) and #2 (Dieselnoi) defeated #1 (Samart). And Dieselnoi defeated Pudpadnoi as well, although both Pudpadnoi and Apidej are tricky because they're a generation (or 2) away from the bulk of the list, just a different era. I understand why Somrak is there, but he doesn't really belong on the list among those he shares the ranks with, just in terms of what his true accomplishments were as the first Gold Medalist in Boxing for Thailand. Says me, anyway.

Kevin loves these kinds of lists, I don't, so it's not something I can elaborately defend in terms of who I think should be on this list or why I think the order isn't right. I think the folly is in thinking that any of these lists are definitive, rather than that a person who chooses to make a "Top Ten" has their own reasons for that list and that order and, like Kevin said, open a discussion to how the pieces could have been laid out otherwise. I'd have put Wichannoi, Karuhat, and Burklerk on there.

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Snack Payback Contributor

Snack Payback

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9 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

 Somrak, what a fighter, but it's really unclear how great in that his opportunities were curtailed. 

Agreed

9 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

I will say that it is really cool to see Wangchannoi so high up. He feels like a fighter who is a fighter's fighter.

Agreed!  I've never seen him mentioned on any other 'best of all times' lists that are out there, which is bizarre when you look at his achievements: 5 Lumpinee belts, Fighter of the Year 1993. 

5 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

(without having to decide who to take off!)

Just make it a top 15

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