extended highlights of his last Rajadamnern fight above
“Big” (Pornsawanlek Kiat Busaba ) is my favorite fighter at Lanna, and probably my favorite person there as well. He just has this incredible energy that is somewhere in the area of if Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny was Thai fighter. One of my favorite pictures of him was this: one time, driving back from fights late at night we were on this empty road and everyone in the back of Daeng’s truck was just on the border of sleep, our heads nodding and leaning with the winding road. The bag with the hand-wrap stuff in in slipped off the top of the truck and out the open side of the bed, where we were all seated on benches. Big pounded the side of the truck to let Daeng know to stop, then hopped out and “ran” up the road maybe 400 feet and then back to the truck holding the bag. His “run” is tiny little shuffles of his flip-flopped feet and would make the exact “doodledoodledoodle” sound that Bugs Bunny has when he’s tiptoeing at high speeds.) I love to watch him fight as well because he’s very skilled and also brings to his fights the same joy and “let’s just try this and see how that works” attitude that he has in his training and his general demeanor. Lately Daeng has been driving him down to Bangkok to fight at Rajadamnern, and it has been paying off with a string of wins there. It’s exciting for the camp to have a top fighter and we’re all very proud of Big. I’m much older than he is, but I still look up to him as a fighter. This was his latest fight at Rajadamnern and it illustrates his style pretty well.
Here is a knees knockout round from a festival fight last year:
Here is Big fooling around not knowing that the camera is rolling. Rodrigo playing a round:
