It's my fourth day at Rawai Muay Thai and it's a big day: It's fight night. Every once in a while the Gym organizes one of these nights to give its students the opportunity to put into practice what some of them have been working for in weeks and months of arduous training.
Today it's Volkans and Liams turn. Volkan is from Turkey and has been training at Rawai for more than two months now. He already planned to fight a couple of weeks ago but then sadly hurt himself during training one day before his actual fight was set. Now it's his last chance to catch up on the missed opportunity as his return flight is booked for this friday.
After we've finished the morning session he approaches me and we start chatting about the big night. Suddenly, he lowers his voice and asks me: "Kim, can I share something with you? I mean, just in case anything happens..." I replay: "Of course, you can. Go for it." "Kim, I cracked my rib three days ago. If I go and tell it one of the trainers, they will cancel the fight. But it's my last chance. I trained so hard to get this opportunity. I deserve it." At first I think I've heard wrongly. "My god, Volkan, are you serious? Do you think this is worth it?" He answers: "Well, this is what you would call opportunity cost right. Sometimes you have to give up one thing to be able to reach another." He continues: "During the last three days I did nothing else than working on how I could protect this exact part of my body. I'm 90% sure that nothing's going to happen. Still, I wanted somebody to know about it who would be able to tell the doctor what's going on – I mean, just in case anything goes wrong. Could you do that for me?" I'm still not really convinced of what I just heard but I somehow know that I won't be able to change his mind anyway. And thus I just nod and say: "Alright, of course I can."
At 6 o' clock sharp we meet in front of the gym, jump unto the load area of the pick-up and all together we set off to the little boxing stadium in the center of the city. It is already crowded by the time we get there. The fight night is always one of the highlights for both locals and tourists.
Altogether there are ten fights, Liam is second, Volkan fifth.
The first fight of the night is a always a kid's fight. Tonight the daughter of one of the trainers enters the ring for the first time. It's somehow funny to watch the little girls trying to strike at each other with their much too big gloves. Still, I'm kind of bewildered by the way they are encouraged to hurt each other really badly, even by their parents. For my taste, this is just a bit too much violence-glorifying.
Then it's Liams turn. I can see that he's super nervous. The first round goes well for him, he and his opponent are on quite the same level. Then, during the first minutes of the second round, he looses the concentration for a second and has to count the cost almost immediately by getting hit by punch straight on the right cheek. He falls, it cracks and his shoulder is out of joint. At the camp they've showed him how to reset it so he gets up and tries to continue. But his opponent is smarter and thus the next kick aims directly at the wounded joint. Liam gets on his knees again, tries to stand up, but this time he there's not enough strength left. His first fight ends in the second round.
In contrast to that, the following fights are rather unspectacular and during the next couple of hours we are all feverishly awaiting Volkan's turn. Suddenly, by the end of the fourth fight, the plan is rescheduled and he and his opponent are now set for the tenth and thus last fight of the day. We groan loudly - this is going to be a long night.
It's nearly midnight until the ninth fight has finally come to an end. Now, it's finally time. To my great relief the first look at Volkan's opponent already reveals what's going to happen: He is massive, probably the most massive Thai guy I've seen so far. But, and that's the crucial point, he's totally out of shape.
Both men enter the ring, they wai at each other and the typical Muay Thai music starts to fill the room. Then, the bell rings and the match begins. After this two months of hard training, Volkan is in perfect shape, he's fast and his punches are hard and accurate. After only thirty seconds, he forces his massive opponent to his knees for the first time by landing a left hook right on his chin. But the bulky man pulls himself together and somehow manages to survive the first round. After the short break he stumbles back in the ring and when Volkan sets out for one of his dreaded knees, we all know what's happening next: he hits his already weakened opponent's liver and the massive Thai guy collapses like a house of cards.
All of us leap from our seats, shout with glee and after we've left the stadium we all gather at our favorite bar and party until daybreak.
And by the time I finally fall into my bed I think: At the end it was however worth to take the risk.
P.S.: The next post is a video from the only girl's fight of the night. Unfortunately I wasn't able to record one of the boy's fights, simply because I was too busy screaming and jumping up and down from my seat.
