looking forward to reading on how we can promote one of the best
fighting Arts and best fighters

In Thaiboxing if only I was around now

Best to all the Contenders

The international boxing Contender doesn’t have dumb challenges that have nothing to do with the sport since the first season aired over 4 years ago. They learned from it so they would seem. Subsequent airing were about the sport and daily fighters lives.

If it got old for you watching fighters actually doing what fighters do and prepare for fighting then you’re interest doesn’t lie with the sport and you’re just a typical reality TV viewer. No fault or wrong there. Just don’t expect anyone else to buy into something so completely wrong from the start. It’s their choice and my choice not to. I’m not expressing why you should care about the sport I am expressing why I and people like me who take the sport seriously should expect more.

More to the point as you’ve noted many times yourself: it’s just a show, it doesn’t matter, and they made false claims about determining the best MT fighter in the world from the start. This doesn’t cause you issue and you welcome stupidity being spread about Muay Thai. For the rest of us who don’t want MT made into a mockery on TV we do care. Japan, France, and Holland among others do Muay Thai more correctly than virtually anyone else in the west. For you to claim otherwise is a complete showing of a lack of education and involvement in Muay Thai on even a peripheral level. I’d love to see you make a stance otherwise for some of the busiest countries in Muay Thai outside of Thailand.

Judging by online forums Zidov also had no place on the show. But I used my own opinion instead which aren’t influenced by forums.
Once again, I fault no fighter taking an opportunity in a sport where internationally opportunity are infrequent and not the best paying.

WMC I don’t hate. I want them to do the right thing. There’s a big difference. As widespread as the WMC has become why would one not want a big independent sanction to be around to do things correctly? If sanctions are only around to hand out trinkets like it’s Christmas then why have the WMC involved at all? Their own claim is to maintain integrity in Muay Thai. Obviously the WMC is at cross purposes with their rhetoric. If anyone had any illusions to the contrary its because of WMC’s well marketed and oft repeated rhetoric of maintaining integrity. The WMC is a position to do much good for Muay Thai internationally. They just consistently choose not to.

To maintain that this show is good for Muay thai is purest ignorance. Can this show do good for Muay Thai? Absolutely. But you and others who want exposure at the cost of integrity and at the expense of fighter, camps and trainers getting put out unfairly is just flat out blind and ignorant. It’s like getting fed at the cost of removing an arm – its not worth it for most.

Thanks for coming by though and try to make your point next time without being an irrational crybaby moron.

Apparently every choice was made according to ‘marketability’ and this may be true, as most people realise that this is JUST A TV SHOW. But, credit to them, we witnessed full Thai rules fights with Wai Krus and, as most people who’ve not seen mt before believe, irritating thai flute music. The biggest threat to muay thai internationally is watering down the sport as they have done in holland, japan, france and the USA. I was worried the producers wouldn’t allow clinching or elbows to make it more appealing to a wider audience, but they didn’t, perhaps this is where the WMC came in I don’t know but I’m fucking proud this wasnt the case.

Judging by the online forums, you would guage that most mt fans appreciated Zidov’s presence on the show, despite being streaks behind the competition (no offense zidov, mwah i love u). Winning the contender asia only has relevence if u beat some big names along the way, i never saw a WMC title on the line, did you?

Ok, we get it, u hate the WMC. Fine. International MT has leaps and bounds to go before it can become anything like international boxing. But apart from Stephan Fox being on the show, i was unaware of the WMC’s involvement. This show had no titles to win, just a cash prise and an increased profile, notches on your belt and a nice fucking holiday. I doubt anyone else had any illusions to the contrary.

To say that this show was somehow bad for muay thai is a joke. For years i tried to get my mates to see just a little of the love i had for this sport. Once i showed them the contender asia, they were hooked. They downloaded episodes even before me, weighing up different fighters strengths in different areas, asking me about the rules and how it was scored. Look through the forums, this show was LOVED by even the purist MT fans. You are just another wannabe journalist trying to catch some attention by slating something popular, it’s disgusting, it is damaging, and it’s old.

I don’t know enough about the 2nd season to be able to comment regarding the cronyism, corruption and conspiracy u support by the most tenuous of connections. I’ll let this stand as a defence of the 1st season and leave it at that, because whilst it certainly wasn’t perfect, the Contender Asia was a great show and I am grateful for it.

I think ‘Mis-tender’ should be its original name, since not all of the competitors in season one were ‘strong ones.’

It ranged from novice pro fighter’s to world beating athletes.
Why were they ALL not world beaters. Mis-tender.