I took an ammy MT fight and it was hilarious

**Lampa** · Posted On: 4/29/2012 10:51am

So, this weekend I did an ammy Muay Thai bout which turned out to be just a fantastic comedy of errors I had to share. Since at least one incidental person in this story ends up looking bad I'm going to refrain from using specific names and try not to make that confusing. And yes, it's long, but worth it.

Quick background, I did my first MMA bout in September, hurt my neck in an unrelated incident quite badly in October, and was doing physical therapy for a long while inbetween. My coach announces two months ago that there is a new local promotion doing their first show and they want some amateur MT fighters. At this point I'm feeling better from the injury and really curious to see if my body can withstand a full training camp and weight cut. Plus, ammy MT rules in my state are a little sissified and require head gear.

So, I go along and figure that if I exhibit any symptoms of neck problems I'll pull out. A bunch of crazy crap happens with matchmaking and I'm convinced for a while that I don't actually have an opponent. But I continue to do all the shark tank sparring and the camp as normal because this was more of an experiment than a fight to me.

Last minute, a local kickboxing coach and member of the event's sanctioning body gets back to us and says he's got an opponent. He's only 18 and wants to get him some more experience. Beautiful, I'm going through this to get experience myself, even though with me it's more seeing if I can still handle it.

Now we get there. The kickboxing coach, who is also a member of the event's sanctioning body, I have to stress that, keeps telling the referee in the warm up room that his student and I agreed to do American kickboxing rules, when it was supposed to be MT from day one. After being repeatedly confronted by my coach and the promoter, this kickboxing coach admits without admitting that it was a tactic to get us to agree to a completely different rules set seconds before we walked out to the ring. But, since we caught him early, okay, we'll do MT.

Then we all get called out after the weigh ins to take a photo in the ring with our opponents just before fights start. The same kickboxing coach who has been acting a little sleazy is calling us up to the ring. When I step in this coach, with the mic in his hand and everyone who arrived on time listening, says "This guy doesn't look like a fighter."

I decide right there I'm going to beat the piss out of his young protege.

Fight starts and I do exactly that. I was knocking this kid around, badly. After the first time I really laid into him and rocked him it was clear he was really scared and did not want to be there.

Between rounds, my coach comes in and tells me to put my legs up. I'm unable to communicate to him in time that my stool is in a precarious position and he essentially proceeds to fold me in half while I try to balance on the ropes.

In the few seconds it took my coach to realize something was amiss, one of my other cornermen tries to give me water. The water bottle was one of those that has the cap dangling on by a thread of plastic and it closes itself as my corner tries to shake water out of it.

So, I'm being held upside down while someone hits me with a closed bottle of water. Video should be forthcoming on that. One of my training partners was pleased as punch to tell me he got it all on camera. My entire corner was actually excellent for everything except this incident, but it was all I could do to keep from cracking up.

Anyways, I go back to throwing the child a beating. It's so one sided that by the end people are just shouting for me to "sweep the leg, Johnny." But, the kid is tough and survives to the end without me having to sandbag him.

After the fight I talk to my opponent and find out his promoter had misrepresented his age. He was only 16. So, I got a trophy and a bunch of praise from the crowd for beating a child the age of my older nephews.

**lordbd** · Posted On: 4/29/2012 11:03am

This story is hilarious and reminds me of my old TKD competition days. You get big ego coaches together to oragnize an event and watch the sleaze fly. Is it really this common for underhanded things to happen in amateur kickboxing?

**Lampa** · Posted On: 4/29/2012 11:34am

Originally Posted by lordbd

This story is hilarious and reminds me of my old TKD competition days. You get big ego coaches together to oragnize an event and watch the sleaze fly. Is it really this common for underhanded things to happen in amateur kickboxing?

Well, the current ban on MMA in New York has had the unexpected issue of there being essentially no oversight by the state on any combat sport other than boxing. Events with larger sanctioning bodies tend to be clean...er. Cleanish. But yeah, the small shows get a little whacky pretty regularly.

**Colin** · Posted On: 5/01/2012 11:01pm

Ah **** man.. That guy's coach sounds like a real asshole. Glad you could laugh at your own mishap, and I'm keen to see that video too.

A shame for the kid he had to be put through this experience like that.