Professionals feeling combat heat
Combat sport is tough and ferocious a lot of the time, but outside the ring _ or inside the Octagon cage _ the competition has never been so hot as it is in 2012.

Published: 26/02/2012 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: news

This weekend’s Ultimate Fighting took its big heavyweight stars to the Tokyo Dome where the K1 Grand Prix once attracted over 60, 000 fans during its glory days in the 1990’s. Today the K1 brand has all but sunk into deep water sludge facing a US$30 million debt.

Taking advantage of the KI demise, Ultimate Fighting (UFC) stitched up a TV deal with the same Tokyo-based network that once made millions from broadcasting K1 at the Dome to a huge worldwide audience.

While UFC has the sword drawn for the final execution of the K1 brand, professional Muay Thai has been surging in Tokyo where kickboxing fans have been embracing the extra stand-up weapons of full rules authentic Muay Thai combat.

And Muay Thai is widely recognised as the ultimate stand-up martial art in professional combat sport.

Taekwondo has enormous popularity as an amateur combat sport with its Olympic status, but at the professional level it’s the suppression weaponry of jujitsu and akido that has gained a greater notoriety and with the increasing popularity of MMA (mixed martial arts), the fighting style that continues on when the combatants go to ground after the stand-up stand-off.

In terms of stand-up strike power, Muay Thai as the combat king has no peers.

And never before has there been so much talk that, finally, Muay Thai has reached the edifice and about to be acclaimed professionally as the greatest stand-up combat sport on Earth.

The rise of Muay Thai will get an enormous lift on the global scale when BEC-Tero announces later this week that it will stage eight WBC Muay Thai world titles at Muang Thong Thani’s Impact Arena in Bangkok.

The event will be held on June 9 and feature the current outstanding Thai stars Jomthong Chuwattana and Saenchai Sor Kingstar as well as Thai Fight welterweight champion Kem Sitsongpeenong.

The big name foreign champions that will fight on the mega-card include Russia’s Muay Thai top guns Levin and Ramazan along with Australian superstar Steve McKinnon.

All eight world titles will be televised live throughout Thailand and simultaneously broadcast worldwide.

Philippine storm

Never before has so much boxing talent come out of the Philippines, and the Filipino fistic fury will continue whether or not Manny Pacquiao fights Floyd Mayweather later this year for a reported combined purse of over US$100 million.

While the appeal of boxing has never been so popular in the Philippines, three Filipino fighters are making a big splash in the US Muay Thai world.Romie Adanza is regarded as one of the best Muay Thai bantamweights, Michael Mananquil has become a top ranked middleweight and heavyweight champion Shane Del Rosario goes into the UFC with an unbeaten Muay Thai record.

Rosario told reporters in Tokyo last week of his “love” for Muay Thai and that he had a “heavy heart” in taking a UFC contract “for the money.”

“I love Muay Thai,” explained Rosarioi. “It’s a great combat sport that has tradition and honour. It’s the rules that fighter’s learn to love. There’s an X factor about fighting full rules Muay Thai.”

Rosario is an elite sportsman, a college graduate with honours who excels in multi-sports.

“The UFC has the money and the momentum at the moment, and that’s very attractive for professional fighters,” he said.

Rosario said he will focus on fighting at the top level in UFC for the next two years. “After that I will be come back to win another WBC world title. I want to be the first to hold UFC and Muay Thai world titles at the same time,” he said.
About the author

Writer: Patrick Cusick
Source: Bangkok Post