MBK Fight Night

One of the great things about Thailand and Bangkok is the fact that there are fights taking place everywhere on every day of the week. On this past Wednesday, I had to venture down to downtown to drop off a visa application for my trip to India. Because Its a $10 round trip cost for transporation, and about 1 hour each way, I decided to make the trip worthwhile and drop by the famous Mah Boon Krung (called "MBK" by all tourists) for a little shopping/bargaining and more importantly, there were fights showing in front of the mall from 6-9pm. I'll save my perspectives on shopping for the next post.

Talking to some of the other Bangkok Muay Thai Veterans at the camp, I got the distinct impression that the fights at MBK were going to be low calibur and mostly Farang fighters. It turns out I wasn't disappointed. In fact, the action was quite encouraging. After 2 months of being schooled by even the lowest levels at Keatkhamtorn, It was encouraging to see how I compared to farang and even the low level Thais.

Watching high level Muay Thai is great because you get to see great clean technique thrown with knockout power and champion level defenses and counters. However, most of the people you run into in and out of the ring do not fight with such clean defense and offense, and they don't always have an answer for everything you can throw at them. This is why I love watching mid-level and low-level Muay Thai. You can really see where openings are, how various techniques work(or don't work) against different styles, and some strategies for handling an opponent whose level is significantly higher or lower than your own.

Keeping this in mind, here are some clips of the action from the fights. Unfortunately all the farang fights ended before round 3 (which in Thailand is when I expect all the REAL action to start), so I don't have any footage of this. However, I have samplings of the footage of the Thai girls fighting, which unfortunately got interrupted by rain. I also have 2 full rounds of the headlining fight, which turned out to be a lop-sided battle, evident after the first minute of the first round. Enjoy, and happy training.

Girls Round 1:


Girls Round 2:


Headliners Round 1:


Headliners Round 2: