็Huge win for Sirichai (formerly Tanadet) in his first fight back in 3 years - a great story

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

see the highlights here

I've known Poda (his play name), now fighting under the name Sirichai Klong Suan Plu Resort, since he was just a little teenager. He was from a small gym in Chiang Mai and he's ethnically Hill Tribe, a minority in Northern Thailand, which makes his success a pretty big deal. He would come to the gym I trained at, Lanna Muay Thai, to clinch with our Thai fighters prior to his fights in Bangkok. He was so disciplined that his trainer, Oley, would just tell him to do x number of knees on the bag and then he'd leave, knowing Poda would do it. I remember my trainer at the time Den, watching him and saying, "I want a gym of my own but I need boys like this. Hard working." At that time, Poda was sold to a gym in Siracha, down below Bangkok, and he changed his fight name to Tanadet Tor. Pran49, which is how he's called in the Muay Thai Library, teaching his unique Long Clinch technique. He fought a lot for that gym and they tried to change him quite a bit, to varied and diminishing success. Eventually he left the gym without his contract expiring and he's been teaching up in Chiang Mai for the past few years. Only a bit more than a month ago he moved down to Singburi to train under Kru Diesel (formerly at FA Group), a true Muay Khao builder, which I was very excited about because Poda is a thousand percent Muay Khao and a lot of the difficulties he faced in his career path seemed, to me, to be due to his gym trying to alter him from that gift.

After only a little more than a month in Singburi, training Muay Khao for the first time in years (this is hard work) he's back in the ring for the first time in 3 years. I was more nervous for this fight than I am for most of my own, Kevin and I both shouting for him to lock. It was a spectacular reintroduction in to the ring, noted by everyone with eyes.

Sia Boat, head of Petchyindee Academy and promotion (meaning this promotion, as well as the gym from which the opponent hails), came in after the fight to congratulate Poda and in this clip (watch it below) exclaims how impressive it is to fight like that after 3 years off, as well as telling the interviewer he has no desire to experience his lock for himself. Kru Diesel is also beaming, when asked how he feels he says he's proud, but that he doesn't take full credit because Poda is so diligent and hard working, so he's easy to teach.

Watch Sia Boat congratulating Kru Diesel and Sirichai

Next up for Sirichai (Poda) is said to be Praew Praew, also a Petchyindee fighter who is a serious challenge for anyone standing in front of him. They're just throwing him right back into it! I'm just stoked to be seeing him back in the ring after all this time. I'm a huge fan of him both as a person and as a fighter and I think under Kru Diesel he really has an opportunity to launch along a path that's suited to his strengths, rather than trying to roll the extraordinary out of him for the sake of a smoother kind of ordinary.

If you want the latest in Muay Thai happenings sign up for our Muay Thai Bones Newsletter

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Some additional background on Sirichai. Lots of people know him from our Muay Thai Library session with him teaching Long Clinch, a really unique use of a clinch technique that is often only transitory. Below is the free trailer clip:

 

You can watch the full hour with him in the Muay Thai Library here, it's one of the best and most interesting clinch sessions in the entire Library:

As a sidenote, I strongly suspect that his unorthodox Long Clinch use, which involves a low head, was eventually shunned by his first BKK stadia gym Tor. Pran49. If you lose doing unorthodox things in the stadia it can make the gamblers angry. Lots of experimental techniques and approaches get pruned by this fear of angering the gamblers. From what I recall they tried to make him more of a puncher towards the end. Because Kru Diesel has his own system, is famous for locking fighters, and Sirichai has a very good lock since he was young, I suspect we won't be seeing much Long Clinch from him now.

That being said, we are thankful for being able to document his Long Clinch technique, and even writing an article about it and editing together this film study of his use of it through the first years:

you can read that article on his Long Clinch here

 

As Sylvie says, we've known Sirichai for such a long time. He was incredibly self-driven, disciplined and quiet. If you want to know just what he was like as a fighter, we even filmed these two rounds of him destroying someone in the clinch at a festival fight 8 years ago. As you watch his fights today you can stare back at the skills and techniques he used back then, and see a continuity. And, now that he has one of the great Muay Khao krus of Thailand, we can also see what Kru Diesel's hand can do with such a diligent fighter, that already has a strong foundation. Sometimes fighters just have to find the right trainer to grow their possibilities.

Here he is clinch wrecking 8 years ago:

 

We filmed with Kru Diesel and with Sirichai for an upcoming Library session only a few weeks ago. While there Sylvie interviewed Sirichai about his upcoming first fight. It gives a glimpse into what he is like as a person.

 

[Muay Thai knees]

Exciting to see what happens.