Holland Versus Thailand Cancelled?
By Mike Ng
Slamm fighters
With hard economic times around the world and now Thailand’s red shirt crisis it seems times are hard on Muay Thai internationally. Recently, what promised to be nothing short of a Muay Thai fan’s dream card evaporated in Italy when Alessandro Gotti disappeared and turned his phone off, leaving co-promoters, sponsors and fighters wholly in the dark. Kem would have friend Sindy Huyer look after his affairs in Italy while Kem departed for Thailand Wednesday. Sadly, it seems another promotion has joined what has become an increasing statistic of the departed Muay Thai promoter. That promotion would appear to be Holland’s Slamm.
Slamm had become known for pitting some of Holland’s elite against Thailand’s best known names of international Muay Thai such as Rayen Simson, Yodsaenklai, Cosmo Alexandre and Orono Vor Petchpun. It grew more and more in a nation dominated by K-1 rules style kickboxing and modified Muay Thai. Against the grain Slamm offered match-ups with Full Muay Thai rules with Holland’s best against Thailand’s international best nakmuay.
Slamm seemed like only bigger and better things were in it’s future. Slamm events were near universally well received and for my personal bias the match ups were things of dreams. The brain child of Milton Felter and Maikel Polanen, Slamm had enough momentum to truly push through with real Muay Thai to audiences who had never seen it. Then suddenly it just stopped.
From Muaymag:
Recently, Mr.Elfrin, a major sponsor, has quit. Mr.Michael has changed his business line. He opened pub and massage centers at his hometown in South America, Holland, and Europe. They do not wish to lose money for boxing match because many sponsors have left lately.
I can only hope this is a temporary stop and both return to bring more Slamm events and continue making the fights and match-ups that had Muay Thai fans internationally excited.
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Update. I have been contacted by one of the PR Associates with Slamm and it looks like this may have actually been only rumor after all!
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