Went to the Rajdamnoen Stadium in Bangkok via tuktuk to see the Thai Boxing tournament on my last night in Bangkok. I had 'VIP' seats, which they basically sell to tourists, which meant I had front row seats for the event.
The rough guide said it started at 5pm on a thursday night, the agent I bought the ticket from said 6pm and when I got there I found it was opening at 6:30pm! There were loads of people waiting outside, mostly Thai's. I got a bottle of water from a cart nearby and sat and chatted to a nice girl from Switzerland, who is a brown belt in Karate, hence being interested in the boxing tonight. It turns out she is staying at my hotel and is going via bus to Koh Chang the next morning with the same pickup time! Another bizarre coincedence with a stranger!
I went into the shop whilst there and they were selling loads of gloves (8oz) shorts, capes and posters...
Once the venue opened we split up as she had bought cheapo tickets and was stood in the caged part of the stadium, crammed in with the locals. I headed to my seat which was front row, right behind the judges pen. There were kids running back and forth getting beers for the foreigners... in between every round and every fight they were all over us like a rash, Lol. There was a German girl on my left who didn't talk much, and a Geordie couple on my right who were sound. I took their picture for them stood in front of the ring, and he returned the favour but was a bit heavy handed with the camera and after three attempts and three shite pictures, I decided to put him (and me) out of his misery and accept the third photo as 'good' Lol!
The fights came thick and fast, as soon as one finished, the next fighters were coming to the ring. There were ten fights in all, with the 7th fight being a championship fight. Each fight was better than the last, as the more experienced (and bigger) guys came out later on. The championship fight was fantastic, they were both so fast and powerful. I'd correctly called each decision until then, as per usual elsewhere in the world, the championship fight had a controversial ruling, lol.
At one point during the evening, one of the judges in front of us turned to chat and told us about the scoring system, which was nice. Points are awarded for strikes in acsending order of importance, 1 punch, 2 kick, 3 knee and 4 elbow. They were also judged for Strength, endurance, power and aggression. This was why they would grapple briefly and try to throw each other off balance. Not many elbows were thrown, but when they were, they were savage! There was only one knock down, in the first fight, but plenty of cuts, including one really bad one that was deep and all the way along the guys eyebrow... nasty! Luckily for him it came in the last round, and he still won the fight.
The gambling in the standing area was pretty manic, especially in the latter rounds of each fight. Hands waving and lots of shouting to what looked like only about 20 bookies in the huge crowd of hundreds! I'd have loved to have a flutter, but goodness knows what I'd have been waving at them if I'd have tried... lol
All in all it was a brilliant night and I would recommend anyone coming to Bangkok goes to a fight night.
