New President Appointed for Muay Thai’s Bid into the IOC
By Mike LNg
A new president has been appointed for the effort to make Muay Thai an Olympic sport. The objective again is to make Muay Thai an IOC recognized sport by 2011.
Notably the movement is again spearheaded by the World Muay Thai Council’s (WMC) president, which is ironic since in their professional endeavors they have neither rankings nor a means of clearly determined who hold which belt why and for how long. Among some of the WMC’s past practices has been unexplainable revocation of titles and multiple simultaneous holders of titles. Notably not mentioned is Stephan Fox, WMC Vice President who notably remarked during the Champions of Champions 2 event, “They are small, flatnosed people”
General Chetta Thanajaro
From Muaymag.com:
On 19 April, General Pichit Kullawanit, a consultant of Amateur Muaythai Association of Thailand and World Muaythai Council, together with “Big Wieng”, General Chetta Thanajaro, ex-president of Thailand Olympic and World Muaythai Council, Mr.Atthachai Bunkamkowit, permanent secretary of Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Mr.Peerawit Suwanprathet, deputy director of Department of Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr.Sombat Kurupan, director-general of Department of Physical Education, General Bancha Narinphong, committee of Thailand Olympic, Mr.Taweesak Detdecho, deputy assistant of Bangkok, Mrs.Pranee Sattayaprakorb, representative of the Office of National Culture Commission, attended the conference to determine means and plan for supporting Muaythai to Olympic Games.
General Pichit said, this conference was organized according to the intention of Somdet Phra Boromma-orasathirat Sayammakut Ratchakuman. He said that he wishes to support Muaythai. He ordered the representative of Ministry of Foreign Affair particularly to coordinate as a representative of Thailand in order to find alliance countries in supporting Muaythai to be approved by International Olympic Commission and being contained as Olympic sport afterwards.
Regarding to this, major general Sanan Kachornprasart, Deputy Prime Minister, who also appeared before royalty, advised to make a project and submit to the parliament as national agenda in supporting Muaythai to Olympic Games.
Mr.Peerawit said, supporting Muaythai to Olympic Games has been arranged as the project of Ministry of Foreign Affair.
Due to this, the conference concluded that General Chetta would be the president of project “Muaythai to Olympic”. General Pichit will be the president of consultant committee. Project committee will be assigned by government institutes and relevant private companies, including the deputy of the Department of Physical Education and Olympic Commission of Thailand. Its goal is to attain IOC approval within 2011 before attending Olympic Games in the future.
“Big Wiang” revealed that Muaythai competition in Olympic is not just a dream because more than 125 member countries all over the world are supporting.
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The Science of 8 Limbs 
Soon you’re going to have to have another article, “whatever happened to Stephan Fox?”
Loads of TITLES being thrown around: new president for this and that and to be honest it is all of this which makes the Thai governing of Muaythai SOOOO messey seen with non-Thai eyes. General this and that, President this and that and a lot of projects created, loads of paper work going on (seemingly) etc. etc. etc.
The people no matter what nationality who REALLY love Muaythai is more about cleaning up inside the current governing bodies (especially the WMC) before we can even afford to talk about olympic recognition)!!!!
To be honest, and this is just my opinion. But it will be extremely hard to clean up governing bodies like the WMC from the outside. How many Thai generals does anyone know who sits down and looks at issues such as these affecting the sport. If someone wants the WMC to change, they’ll probably have to get a job there and change it themselves. Sad but true…
Well the encouraging side to this is Fox isn’t involved.
In regards to Thais being able to self-regulate you have to note that none of the stadiums have an issue and the WBC’s Muay Thai arm is technically Thai and they have no issues with inherent racism expressed publicly, have ratings and have engaged international regulation pretty well. Have to add WPMF is doing well too. Virtually the only ones with a title making factory with no real rhyme or reason in Thailand is the WMC.
I agree that the WMC needs some real re-organization. However, I believe Stephan was referring to Dzhabar as flat nosed and small during the Marco and Sean Wright fight. I’m not taking sides or trying to defend Fox’s shortcomings/practices, but I don’t think it’s right to say he offended the Thai people with that comment. If anything, Dzhabar would be upset.
No, I have it on tape. Fox’s quote was ‘Thais are small, flat nosed people. That is a verbatim, word-for-word quote.
Hahahaha poor Dzhabar how did he get tangled up in this?
I have a video too, fatsoking…during the Marco Pique and Sean Wright ram muay, word for word:
Fox: “They are lean, they are cut to pieces…they are tall (referring to fighters for the Contender)…you know you’ve got people like Dzhabar who are very stocky and-”
Hammer: “-flat nosed!”
Fox: “*laughs* yes, flat nosed… because they are very small”
Again, not trying to cause trouble. You’ve got a great blog. I just think this little bit of info here is skewed and unfair unless Fox made that horrible comment towards the Thais in another part of the card.
I’m only nitpicking because I distinctly remember the flat nose comment, and checked it on the video. Anyone who has it can check.
I’ll rip it and put it up for you.
You’re not trying to cause trouble (or if you are you’re doing it poorly). I have tried 2x now to upload the video but most likely due to Clifton Brown or WMC the video cannot be uploaded on youtube due to copyright violation.
Fox says “Thais are flatnosed, small people”.
But just for the sake of argument let’s assume the conversation happened exactly as you said. Even in that context it in no way could be believable to describe Dzhabar who isn’t “very small”, and isn’t plural and hence not a “they”. So even in your version of the quote how anyone thinks that refers to Dzhabar is either self-deluding or just stupid.
And I’ve seen more than one counter argument from the Australian contingent say “Well, its true Thais are small, flatnosed people” If you fall into the latter category there’s no amount of logic and evidence I can bring forward that is going to sway you.
To be honest I could care less what you think of me or the site but if you’re going to be an apologist for Fox’s racism and WMC’s complete lack of validity as a sanction you’re going to have to do better than that. Fox then goes on to admit Kem despite winning is not going to be on the Contender Asia due to having poor English. I guess the Asia part of the Contender Asia isn’t being taken too seriously if you’re too Asian.
What ever he said he has still embarrased the Thais with the way he is carrying himself as the head of the IFMA and often acting as the head of the WMC (as he speaks English).
He can not change all of this and everybody is starting to see what some of us have known for years.
Here you go. The conversation beginning at 7:10:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTAxNDY1MjA4.html
When he refers to Dzhabar being small he is speaking in comparison to fighters who are taller and leaner like Pique. He says “they” because he uses Dzabar as an example of the stockier fighters in the weight division.
You’ll find I quoted it almost word for word and if you take 2 mins to watch/listen to it you’ll agree I didn’t delude myself in understanding it (unless you can find him saying it elsewhere, in which case I’m sorry to have wasted your time)
-and no, I am not apologizing for Fox and the WMC’s practices. There’s A LOT wrong and I commend you for bringing it up front in your blog. I just think you are adding fire to the fuel the wrong way.
I guess my bottom line is that a lot of Fox’s practices are not acceptable and should be critiqued (which I’m glad you are doing), but it’s not ok to falsely chime in that he’s racist. How can we critique and desire for a cleaner sanctioning body when we embellish our own facts to do so? Can we not focus on the malpractice without adding in the dirty gossip? That’s the only reason I’m even bothering to make a fuss over this.
*as far as the Kem/Contender thing goes: I agree with you that it is ridiculous. It smells of Fox bending to the will of producers for the sake of money. I won’t however condemn him as “racist” for it…just greedy.
No you are right it’s a wrong quote which I have since fixed. Thanks for keeping me honest. However given the average height and size of the foreigners who were at the Champions of Champions2 event I don’t find it believable it refered to the ‘they’ as anyone but the Thai competitors. Your points well made tho but who among the contingent of competitors on Champion of Champions are shorter and stockier if not Thais? Still good catch and I amthankful for your fact find.
No problem. Like I said, I really like and support your blog for what it’s doing.
I respectfully disagree with what you infer to be a shot at the Thais in the comment, but hey, that’s your opinion.
Either way we can only hope that Fox’s lack of involvement in this current movement is a good thing.