1. By Tate Zandstra
Perceived by most to be run by gangsters
and corrupted by gamblers, one of the world’s
most graceful combat sports is in danger of
extinction. Southeast Asia Globe investigates
Muay Thai’s slow and painful death
Amazing grace: Muay Thai legend
Saenchai aims a kick at his opponent,
Petboonchu, in the main event at the old
Lumpinee stadium’s final fight night
Photo:KimKauko

2. Sea GLOBE September 2016 81
On fight nights, the contest takes place
in the stands as much as in the ring. “If
the referee knows ahead of the match
who is supposed to win and he lets the
opponent win… there will be a problem
right away,” said Zien. “First the referee
would get booed and slagged off, then
the director of the stadium will call him
and say: ‘How dare you do that?’ and
that referee will lose his job or resign.”
The boxer’s place in all this is merely
to follow instructions. Watch a Muay
Thai fight closely, Zien says, and in the
final round of a fight the boxers will look
to the stands for instructions from the
gamblers; go for broke, or play it safe
and defend. Often, the losing fighter
will submit by offering his gloves palm
up to the winner to cover with his own;
then both will walk in circles until the
round ends.
But it hasn’t always been this way.
Built in 1956, Lumpinee stadium was
originally operated by the 1st q
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80 October 2016 Sea GLOBE
I am a dangerous man,”
said Zien Ou. “I can control
the game of gambling and
control the referee in the
palm of my hand, and if other gamblers
want to try me, my team will force the
odds. I will eat them all.”
Small and slightly stooped, 69-year-old
Zien doesn’t look particularly dangerous,
but he is one of the most influential gam-
blers at Bangkok’s Lumpinee stadium –
the most famous Muay Thai arena in the
world. “The referee cannot make his own
decision if the odds go past 2/1 or 3/1…”
he added. “It’s not going to happen.”
Pong Pinit Ponkhan, a sports reporter
with T-Sport Channel in Bangkok and
ringside announcer for Thai Fight,
a Muay Thai promotions company, said
gambling has led to “a crisis in Muay
Thai” by engendering corruption, an
altered, difficult-to-follow scoring system
and public alienation. Casual fans have
turned to other sports, leaving boxing
stadiums dependent on gamblers and, to
a lesser extent, tourists for ticket sales.
This has enabled the rise of question-
able judging practices and a crowd less
motivated by love for the national sport
than by greed, according to Pong Pinit.
The purity of the centuries-old martial
art is slipping away.
At the height of its popularity in
the 1980s and 1990s, Muay Thai
was easily the largest sport in Thai-
land. Top fighters commanded purs-
es of up to 200,000 baht – almost
$6,000 at today’s exchange rate –
and the stadiums drew big gates and
even bigger advertising revenues.
Today, the financial benchmark for
a ‘superstar’ is considerably lower at
about 100,000 baht per fight. But as the
cost of living has shot up along with the
capital’s skyline, patron gamblers have
stepped in to make up the difference.
“Boxers not only have their purse, but
they also get some ‘encouragement money’
from the gamblers,” said Pong Pinit.
Patronage begins in the countryside,
and the crucial difference between fight-
ing and other sports, Pong Pinit said, is
that children as young as six can earn
money fighting in rural bouts. Coun-
tryside promoters act as talent scouts,
End of an era: the old Lumpinee
stadium is demolished
Tension: a gambler watches
nervously during a fight at
the new Lumpinee stadium
Gold fingers: a gambler
counts his Thai baht at the
old Lumpinee stadium
bringing promising young fighters to the
attention of city-based promoters.
A boy who ascends to the Bangkok
stadium circuit will usually live at
a boxing camp in the capital and be held
under contract by the camp owner. The
camp provides the boxer with a bed,
food and training. According to the
Boxing Sport Act of 1999, earnings can
be divided 60/40 in favour of the boxer
or 50/50. Pong Pinit says the latter is
more common.
“The real successful camps with a lot
of boxers tend to be big players in the
gambling scene, betting on their own
boxers,” said Rob Cox, manager of
Kiatphontip boxing camp, just east of
Bangkok. Young boxers, he said, can
earn approximately 5,000 baht ($145)
for afternoon shows. With victories
they can move on to evening shows and
earn up to 50,000 baht. The boxers are
encouraged to bet on themselves to make
more money and to drive them to win.
Photos:KimKauko(2);PaulLukin

3. Sea GLOBE October 2016 83
Division of the Royal Guard under
General Tongterm Ponsuk. It was the
only sporting venue in Thailand where
gambling was legal. The ‘Golden Age’
came in the 1970s, when the ex-boxer,
Colonel Boonsong Kirdmanee, more
popularly known as Keaw Wan, was the
head referee. It is said that he could not
be influenced, threatened or bought. In
those days, gambling was popular, but
it was straightforward.
“Lumpinee became famous because of
the referees,” Zien said. The stadium
was far from beautiful, likened to an
overgrown shed stuck in a rice paddy,
its tin roof producing a deafening din
every time it rained, but the audience
loved the tough refs. Fans recall the
era wistfully, declaring that from it
emerged the best fighters with the most
beautiful technique.
However, in July 1979, Lumpinee lead-
ership was given to the Army Welfare
Department and, shortly afterwards,
gamblers began gaining influence.
A 2011 study by
Prince of Song-
kla University in
southern Thailand
argued that the
commoditisation
of boxing by gam-
blers began when
martial arts moved
from the battlefield
to stadiums. The earliest stadium fighters
had normal jobs and boxed for passion
and extra money. Stadiums, namely
Lumpinee and Ratchadamnoen, came
to rely on the ticket sales generated by
gamblers, who the study claimed make
up 99% of the audience. It is difficult to
pinpoint an exact date or event that gave
the gamblers influence – but the fact that
ticket sales relied so greatly upon them
is telling.
One of the effects has been to transform
an already complex scoring system.
Although all successful strikes should
be scored equally, judges also look for
a principle known as okha kan or ‘per-
ceived damage’. For example, an elbow
that lands should count for a point, but
if the boxer does not flinch the elbow is
seen as weak and no point is awarded.
Scoring also traditionally considers such
intangibles as aggression and purity
of technique.
For those not intimately familiar with
the sport, which the growing gambling
crowd largely was not, this is very dif-
ficult to bet on. So the gamblers set about
changing things.
“I could see when a boxer should get
a point, so when I saw the final score
from the three judges together I thought:
‘Wow, how did the score end up like
this?’” remembered Suwanna Srisong-
kam, who has covered Muay Thai for
40 years and publishes the respected
Champ Boxing magazine. “During the
fight I could see the gamblers waving
signals [aimed at the judges] to the left
or right, and when you looked at the
scorecard it followed the direction of
the gamblers’ hands.”
When she asked the stadium executives
why the judges were siding with the
gamblers, “they said: ‘The score has to
go according to the odds.’”
At first, “the box-
ers had no idea”
about the shifting
landscape, accord-
ing to Zien. “[But]
they learned from
the gym bosses,
who learned from
the trainers, who
learned from the
gamblers… they were all connected.”
It even went as far as trainers advis-
ing boxers not to kick – long one of the
sport’s most treasured techniques. “You
won’t get points… but if you clinch and
knee and knock them to the ground,
that’s a score,” Zien said, pointing out
that this is part of the gamblers’ new
system. “In [traditional] Muay Thai
rules, throwing the opponent to the
floor gets no score, but the gamblers
prefer it, and the referee has to respect
them – that’s final.”
Such changes mean that a new fighting
style has slowly become dominant.
Clinching and throwing, which are
reliant upon strength, size and attri-
tion, is smothering the classic style,
which valued finesse, athleticism
and technique.
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Shopping central: luxury retailers
Dior and Louis Vuitton have outlets
on Singapore’s Orchard Road
“I could see gamblers
waving signals [at the
judges], and when you
looked at the scorecard it
followed the direction of
the gamblers’ hands”
In February last year, living legend
Saenchai fought in the main event of
Lumpinee’s final fight night. His bout
against Petboonchu was a matchup of
the classic technician and consummate
athlete in Saenchai against a younger,
taller and more powerful clinch-and-knee
stylist. The fight has become emblematic
of the old and new eras of Muay Thai.
“There have been a lot of changes with
the referees and how the gamblers play
the game,” Saenchai said to TV cameras
backstage following a defeat on points.
“Before, it was not about just being
strong; fighters had to use Muay Thai
techniques to win.” He would not be
drawn on whether he felt robbed, saying
only: “Muay Thai is my life and this is
the sport that makes Thailand famous.”
However, it is also a sport that is being
abandoned by Thais in droves. As in
many countries, increasing access to
top-class international sports on televi-
sion is eating into live audiences, but
the corruption and perceived threat of
violence brought to Muay Thai by the
gamblers is also proving disastrous for
audience numbers.
Zien recalls a gambler named Ngow
Hapalong being shot and killed behind
him in the stands at Lumpinee. The
ensuing gunfight between the killer
and Hapalong’s bodyguard cleared the
stadium. More recently, a boxer named
Sangmanee Sor Tienpo collapsed follow-
ing a fight and was later found to have
near lethal amounts of benzodiazepine
sedatives in his system, according to
Champ Boxing.
Champ Boxing and other media
outlets speculated that the drugs were
slipped into Sangmanee’s water before
the fight and, according to Pong Pinit,
although such occurrences are rare, the
media’s coverage of them has alienated
casual fans.
“A lot of people from outside [the box-
ing community] are scared to come to
Lumpinee,” said Cox. “They think it’s
going to be full of tough guys, gangsters,
all that… Not many regular Thais go to
watch boxing nowadays.”
Just a few days after Saenchai’s head-
lining bout, the old Lumpinee stadium’s
demolition was already well underway.
The new, ultra-modern Lumpinee, with
its massive air conditioning units, smoke
machines and LED screens, opened 11
February 2015. Its location 9km from
the nearest underground station, a jour-
ney that can take up to an hour by taxi
depending on traffic, has certainly not
helped Thailand’s national sport recap-
ture its dwindling fanbase. Siamsport TV,
a key player in the broadcasting of and
reporting on Muay Thai, has reported a
60-70% drop in attendances by foreign-
ers and a 20-30% drop by Thais since
the new stadium opened. “Without the
gamblers, the sport would pretty much
be dead,” said Cox. “They’re killing it
off, but they’re also keeping it alive.”
One of the world’s most influential
combat sports seems to have fought itself
into a desperate corner. ¡
Calling the shots: Zien Ou,
one of Lumpinee’s most
powerful gamblers, ringside
You were a boxer before you moved into
refereeing. How was Muay Thai different at
that time?
When I was fighting 55 or 60 years ago,
we started in the first round and went until
the fifth. The people were interested in the
fighting. [Fighters] who were famous had a
longer career then. Someone could be famous
for ten years, because boxing fans followed
them faithfully. There was gambling at the
time, but not as much as now.
Did gamblers ask you or threaten you to
go along with their demands?
I got a new team of referees. I told them: “If
you work here, you will follow the rules.” That’s
how I got the nickname ‘the honest referee’,
but I wasn’t in the ring. I just controlled the
referees, made them follow the rules.
Is Muay Thai in danger of losing its
traditional techniques?
Now the referees follow the gamblers. This
is bad for Muay Thai. Now 100% of the people
who come to see the fights are gamblers. The
boxers take orders from the gamblers; it’s not
fighting for fun now. Now they don’t fight for
the first round or two, but start fighting a little
in the third. In the fourth, a little more. In the
fifth, they dance around. The traditional martial
art is gone. That worries me.
Many normal Thais will not come to the
stadium because they think it is full of
gangsters. Is there any truth to this belief?
Now the level of gambling is horrifying. In
the past, gambling was done for fun, now
gambling is done in teams. Gambling is a scary
part of the sport. It’s business… Gambling
controls Muay Thai completely.
The honest
referee
A quick word with Colonel Boonsong
Kirdmanee, more popularly known
as Keaw Wan, Lumpinee stadium’s
legendary former head referee
whose reputation for fair play
endures to this day
Photos:TateZandstra