Dieselnoi say he would fight if you had an opponent, but is not confident - Fighter Magazine, April 22nd, 1988 (2531)

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

 

Quick summary (maybe others can contribute). With fighters like Sangtiennoi and Wanpadej fighting bigger there seems speculation that Dieselnoi could come back and fight after almost 3 years off. He says he would but that though he trains and is conditioned his skills have declined and even struggles clinching in training vs Hapalang's 108 lb Huaygaewnoi Sor. Karakod. This article comes out just after the owner of his gym Ngu (Ngao) Hapalang was assassinated at the ring in Lumpinee between rounds in the Chamuakpet vs Langsuan fight (a month before their rematch). The gym must have been in terrible turmoil. Also, this is the month before his good friend Samart returns to the ring during his FOTY comeback run, after a 4 month rest, to face Samransak. Yodthong had said that Samart had a hand fracture he was going to not get surgery for at the time. So,speculating (?) one imagines that Dieselnoi & Samart are out partying a bit, Samart (famously a reluctant trainer at the time) not fully on board with the comeback (?), and Dieselnoi being interviewed about coming back. Just some possible context setting, we'd have to ask him.

The story about him struggling in clinch vs Huaygaewnoi in training is also interesting, though sounds extreme. Clinch is a very fast-eroding skill, perhaps the fastest eroding of all Muay Thai skills, and Dieselnoi in the very clinch heavy gym wasn't especially renown for his clinch skills by comparison. He told us that Chamuakpet would trip him all the time, and Chamuakpet has said it wasn't a Dieselnoi strength (when compared to him and Panomtuanlek, where were legends of clinch). Dieselnoi was more of a neck-blumb and kill knee fighter, so he really relied on that double collar lock to finish opponents. If it wasn't sharpened he might struggle?

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

This is the March match up of Dieselnoi's teammate Chamuakpet and Langsuan, both Muay Khao legends, where Ngo Hapalang is killed in the corner. Dieselnoi has already hopped into the ring to receive Chamuakpet between rounds. The unspoken presumption is that the killing was at the behest of the powerful Muay Thai promoter Klaew Thanikul, a very power mafia King Pin, who had significant connections to the Hapalang gym and its fighters. Klaew for instance promoted the Holy Grail fight between Samart and Dieselnoi in 1982.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Well, this is really interesting. We sent this little stub article to Dieselnoi and he said the whole thing is just made up (and that writers back then would make up a lot of things). He'd never seen this, and its very, very far from the truth. He mentioned that 2 years after retirement he went to help out Wanpadej in clinch (one of the fighters mentioned in the article) and Wanpadej definitely could not stand up to him at the time. And none of the other fighters mentioned as well. As to the 108 lb Hapalang fighter that he appears to praise here, he had a fight coming up in this magazine, so maybe this was a way of hyping him? In any case, even turning to the articles of the day there might be an entire additional layer of suspicion or interpretation necessary. Magazines themselves creating their own narratives.