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What Made the Golden Age of Muay Thai So Different?

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Mentor

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

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It was just a perfect storm of a very deep talent pool, in the provinces, a huge economic boom in Bangkok with lots of money to invest, and the provincial (boxing educated) workers flowing into the city. The influx of workers was likely a significant factor. It created a hungry, educated and impassioned fan base.

writing about Dieselnoi and Samart

The so-called Golden Age of Muay Thai in the late 1980s and 1990s was driven by the economic boom of those years. Not only was there heaps of money to invest in gyms and fighters, flowing to enlarged fighter pay and sidebets, but it was the provincial man, the workers, who swarmed to Bangkok to find employment in the suddenly burgeoning, cosmopolitan economy. It was they that filled the stands with their wages in their hands, betting them. It was they who bought the newspapers and magazines.

You have to add in things like the particular brilliance of the promoter OneSongChai who was expert at staging drama, pitting particular styles against other styles, and nurturing the talent of fighters without owning a gym himself. Another hidden factor could be that the influence of Western Boxing on Thailand may have also been its peak (there were boxing fights on each and every card, both at Rajadamern and Lumpinee, 9 cards a week - that's almost 500 boxing fights a year at the National Stadia). The mix with Western boxing may have even further expanded the fight skills of the talent pool. Amateur boxing was a very big deal in Thailand, especially after the King built provincial stadia across Thailand in 1979. These hubs of stadia likely anchored provincial fighting. Also, just structurally, the Muay Thai of then was not dominated by only a handful of gyms that simply bought talent up, as it is today. There was greater variety of BKK gyms, drawing from many more gyms in the ecosystem of the provinces. Even to get to Bangkok, it is said, required a great number of fights and proven skill.

There was also great regional pride, and identity in the growth of fighters. Karuhat told us that every fight he had in Bangkok, when he was good, would pull 4 bus loads of fans from Khon Kaen in Isaan (his home town). This deep regionalism just doesn't exist in the same way now. The 1980s/1990s was a period of growing National connectivity, in the context of still powerful regional identities, expressed through the fight scene.

 

 

The above is from a Reddit comment I made a few years ago. It seemed best to anchor it in my sub forum somewhere so as to not get lost as its a pretty decent, short summation. 

A few things that changed TLTR

  1. The economic boom in Thailand ended in 1995.

  2. In the 2000s there was also a rule change allowing sweeps and trips that were illegal in the Golden Age. This ended up radically altering the clinch fighting & grappling that arguably fueled much of the the complexity of Golden Age fighting styles.

  3. Boxing gradually started losing its influence on Muay Thai, until today there is next to none.

  4. Along with socio-economic, demographic shifts (changing the talent pool and the fan base) pedagogy & training methods seem to have also gradually changed as well, eventually accelerating the decline.

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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Mentor

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

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If I was answering this question today I think I'd expand the picture of Western Boxing's lasting influence, coming up through the decades, intensifying from the 1960s on, the Army and Police Boxing leagues and I'd also write about how television was just starting to Nationalize Thai consciousness, and the built out local television networks in the Provinces, local stadium hubs, the published rankings from the provinces and the wide-scale small kaimuay ecosystem (which has been almost completely eroded) which developed so many fighters for the stadia.  

Here you can see how deep the provincial rankings went in published Golden Age Muay Thai magazines, layers of talent outside of the Capital (originally posted to Reddit😞

 

Here are some Golden Age related Muay Thai economics, as well:

 

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    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Why I'm Obsessed With Golden Age Muay Thai and Its Fighters

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      Many are curious or questioning why I’ve become so focused on fighters of the Golden Age, if it might be some form of nostalgia, or a romance of exoticism for what is not now. Truthfully, it is just that of the draw of a mystery, the abiding sense of: How did they do that?, something that built up in me over many years, a mystery increasing over the now hundreds of hours I’ve spent in the presence of Golden Age fighters - both major and minor. Originally it came from just standing in the ring with them, often filming close at hand, and getting that practically synaptic, embodied sense that this is just so different, the feeling you can only get first hand - especially in comparison. You can see it on video, and it is apparent, but when you feel it its just on another order, an order of true mystery. When something moves through the space in a new or alter way it reverberates in you. How is it that these men, really men from a generation or two, move like this. It’s acute in someone like Karuhat, or Wangchannoi, or Hippy, but it is also present in much lessor names you will never know. It’s in all of them, as if its in the water of their Time. I’ve interviewed and broken down all the possible sources of this. It seems pretty clear that it did not come to them out of some form of instruction. It was not dictated or explicitly shown, explained (so when coaches today do these today they are not touching on that vein). It does not seem sufficient to think that it came from just a very wide talent pool, the sheer number of young fighters that were dispersed throughout the country in the 1980s, as if sheer natural selection pulled those movements and skills out. It did not come from sheerly training hard - some notable greats did not train particularly hard, at least by reputation. It’s not coached, its not trained, its not numerical. A true mystery. Fighters would come from the provinces with a fairly substantial number of fights, but at a skill level which they would say isn’t very strong, and within only a few years be creating symphonies in the ring. Karuhat was 16 when he fought his first fight (with zero training) and by 19 was one of the best fighters who ever lived. Sirimongkol accidentally killed an opponent in the provinces (I would guess a medical issue for the opponent, a common strike) and was pulled down to Bangkok because of this sudden "killer" reputation, but he’d tell you that he was completely unskilled and of little experience. Within a few years he was among the very best of his generation. We asked him: Who trained you, who taught you?, expecting some insight into a lineage of knowledge and he told us “Nobody. I learned from watching others.” This runs so hard against the primary Western assumptions of how Knowledge is kept, recorded and passed, but it is a story we heard over and over. Somehow these men, both famous and not, developed keen, beautiful (very precise) movement and acute combat potency without direct transmission or even significant instructional training. The answer could be located nowhere…in no particular place or function. Sherlock Holmes said of a mystery: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.. All these things that we anticipate make great fighters, these really seem to be the impossible here. They were not the keys, it seems. Instead it appears that it was in the very weave of the culture, and the subcultures of Muay Thai, within the structures of the kaimuay experiences, in the richly embedded knowledges of everyone in the game, in the states of relaxation of the aesthetics of muay itself, in the practices of play, in the weft of festival fighting, the warp of equipmentless training, in endurance, in the quixotic powers of gambling, the Mother’s Milk of Muay Thai itself, which is a very odd but beautiful thing to conclude. It does pose something of a nostalgia, because many of these cultural and circumstantial elements have changed - some radically altered by a certain modernity, some shifted subtly - so there is a dimension of feeling that we want not to lose all of it, that we might still pull some substantial threads forward into our own future, some of that cultural DNA that made some of the greatest fighters ever what they were. It's not a hope to return to those past states, but a respect for what they (mysteriously) created. As we approximate techniques, copy movements, mechanize styles, coach harder and harder, these are all the things that make up a net through which everything slips out. Instead, this mystery, the how did they become so great, so proficient, so perceptive, so smooth, so electric, so knowing, stands before us, something of a challenge to our own age and time.
    • The Bongo
      Muay Thai career or college

      By The Bongo · Posted

      I guess you're in the UK?  If so, do college.  At your age it's free.  As for after college, do what youth allows.  Have a go at fighting.   You pay for uni whatever age you are.  Nothing wrong in doing something in uni in your mid -20's+.  I did a second degree in my 30's.  I would not have been held back by a career as a fighter earlier on.  As you get older, you begin to regret the things that you didn't do, far more than the things that you did.     Good luck in your fight career!
    • Wewarm
      Muay Thai career or college

      By Wewarm · Posted

      I am soon to be 17 and I’ve been training Muay Thai for nearly 3 years now. I also happen to be doing quite well in school and plan to go to uni. However, that all changed when I went to Thailand last summer to train for a few weeks and fight. One of the trainers, with whom I have developed a close connection, told me not to go back home and stay in Thailand in order build a career. “You stay, become superstar” to quote him, as he pointed at the portraits of their best fighters hung on the gym’s wall. After realizing he wasn’t joking, I told him I couldn’t stay and had to finish my last year of high school (which is what I am currently doing) but promised him I’d come back the following year once I was done with school. Ever since, both these words and my love for Muay Thai resonate in me, and I can’t get the idea of becoming a professional fighter out of my head. On one hand, I’m afraid I’m being lied to, since me committing to being a fighter obviously means he gets more pay to be my coach. But on the other hand, it is quite a reputable and trustworthy gym, and this trainer in particular is an incredible coach and pad holders since he is currently training multiple rws fighters including one who currently holds an rws belt. And for a little more context, I don’t think this invitation to become a pro came out of nowhere, because during those few weeks I trained extremely hard and stayed consistent, which I guess is what impressed him and motivated him to say those words. Additionally, I was already thinking about the possibility of going pro before the trip because of my love for Muay Thai and because a female boxing champion who has close ties to my local gym told me I had potential and a fighter’s mindset. Therefore, I have to pick between two great opportunities, one being college and a stable future, and the other being a Muay Thai career supported by a great gym and coach. So far, I plan to do a gap year to give myself more time to make a decision and to begin my training in order to give myself an idea of how hard life as a pro is. This is a big decision which I definitely need help with, so some advice would be greatly appreciated.

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