The Incredible Case of the Historic Female Fighter Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

 

It is just incredible history in the making. And even these numbers need context. This is done in Thailand, where the talent pool of fighters is just incredibly deep, deeper than any country in the world, especially near Sylvie's weight. This is the homeland, the motherland, the fatherland. All of it. And, because of this, understand that historically almost every Western fighter who fights regularly in Thailand fights with a weight advantage, and often a significant one. This is just basic match making, from the smallest fights to the biggest. Some of this is just that farang are just larger bodied people and at the upper ranges there have to be weight differences, but most of it is just giving Thais a necessary handicap in terms of skill differences. This is not a judgement of other fighters. Fighters have little control over their matchups in Thailand, its just bringing real context to fights in the country. What Sylvie has done going the other way, repeatedly and systematically taking BIG weight disadvantages over 100s of fights is just unheard of in the history of the country's National sport. This was all necessary in order to fulfill Sylvie's (and my) belief is that you grow as you fight. If Sylvie had regular weight advantages (literally impossible because she's a sub 100 lb fighter) her record would have been absurd...and nobody would fight her after maybe 30-40 fights. (As it is now, we've been told by numerous promoters nobody within 2 or 3 weight classes will fight her in actual Muay Thai, she's just had too big of an impact on the sport). Its enough to say, when you look at the numbers, the sheer human effort, this is not even on the scale. Its way, way, way off the scale.

 

To fully understand her achievement there is another unseen dimension of this incredible fight record, related to the first; its that it was accomplished almost completely outside the aid and political power of big time gyms or promotions in the country. She's fought literally the best fighters of the Nation, across multiple weight classes as a sub-100 lb fighter, but did so without an active backer (which is very significant in Thailand). As a fighter you want weight behind you. It gives you respect, it clears pathways. Strong gyms & promotions have powerful effects on the careers of foreign fighters. A powerful gym will fashion favorable opponents for their fighters (of course you want your fighters to succeed); it will produce wins and belts that help the image of the gym. The same wind in the sails can happen through promotions. Sylvie walked so hard, so far outside of the power structure of Thailand's Muay Thai she almost never had the big hand lifting her up, putting the thumb on the scales in her favor so to make her a star. In fact it would be impossible to fight with the sorts of disadvantages she's taken on within the power structure of Muay Thai. It could only be done on a solitary path, which is quite arduous to walk. Everything has been earned fight by fight. No hype, all grind.

 

Other very intense things are just the stitches she's taken, nearly 250 to the face vs fighters who know she's coming in as a pressure Muay Khao fighter and just waiting for her with elbows. She's taken all those stitches, an epic number. The single time she was knocked down - it was more than 10 years ago now- in literally over 1,100 rounds, despite being substantially small, is an incomparable informal record of combat sports. And then the fights she's taken 4, 5, 6 weight classes up, against experienced stadium fighters, what the hell? She's 15-4 in those absurd battles. 15-4.

 

And then there are the meaningful, deeper historical aspects of her fighting. She has devoted herself to the disappearing art form of the Muay Khao style, a style that has been eroding for years, and that some newer forms of promotion have been focused on either eliminating or minimizing. And, she's learned this style from the actual men, the legends of the sport who were the most elite with it in the Golden Age of the sport, many of whom no longer teach it to the Thais of active fighting. This knowledge includes not only lost details and specific techniques, but much more importantly more subtle aspects of rhythm, timing and strategy developed in the Golden Age of fighting. Great legends like Dieselnoi, Samson, Chamuakpet, Panomtuank, Langsuan, Yodkhunpon, Cherry, Petchdam, and the late Namkabuan (RIP brother), she's sought these men out and studied with them, taking their largely forgotten knowledge into herself, into her own style, her own tactics. She herself is a living, reflective legacy of this fading style, and she has used it to supreme effect within female fighting.

 

Along with this, and you would not know this unless you watch her fights, but in a very large number of them, because she is so well known in the community her fights are reffed with an acute bias against the clinch and have been for years, despite being traditional Muay Thai fights where clinch and knee fighting is considered a viable, rewarded style. For a very long time she's faced very fast clinch breaks, momentum stops, just in an effort to handicap her and to make the fights closer. Well before Entertainment Muay Thai started making clinch-less fighting Sylve has swam uphill in fights just at the level of breaks. This isn't a complaint, I love how Thailand is, how it adapts, its only an acknowledgement that what Sylvie has done as an old school Muay Thai fighter has been done swimming up an invisible stream. And all that swimming has made her incredibly strong, both mentally and physically. The number one impact on a clinch fighter is clinch breaks. How fast they come. Reffing can seriously steer a fight against a Muay Khao fighter. A clinch fighter needs time to develop positions, to build momentum and get an opponent into a position she can finish them in. So, way down in weight, swimming against clinch-breaks, facing the best fighters in the country, for 100s of fights, she's done this. Its not only that she has climbed a mountain nobody has climbed, but she she's done it with 100 lbs on her back, no oxygen. It's just beyond comparison.

 

I write all of this in admiration, as a first hand witness to everything that has unfolded. It really is stunning in the history of all combat sports.

[PortiaPalmer]

Thanks for laying it out so well for all to see, Kevin.  Pretty incredible, indeed.