22 years ago, the movie Fight Club starred by Brad Pitt & Edward Norton became a huge cult hit!
It’s a story about an insomniac office worker and a devil-may-care soap maker form an underground fight club that evolves into much more.
Fast forward to 2016 in Bangkok, lit only by street lights beneath the flyover, two men slug it out to the cheers of the surrounding crowds. This is Fight Club, Thai style.
Bangkok is the fight capital of South East Asia. Deeply rooted with the tradition of fighting arts, Muaythai reign supreme in many stadiums & festival around the country. MMA which was banned few years back is now very popular as ONE Championship manage to sign on many talented Thais.
But Fight Club Thailand is not for the professional & career martial artist. This is fights for everyone….
For those just one to test their skills, for those who wants to settle a score or for those just out for action packed fun. Air Asia should sponsor this with the tag line of Now Everyone Can Fight,…. Jokes asides, Fight Club Thailand co-founded by Chana Worasart was inspired by Brad Pitt’s movie. Sophon Nanukul the founder, he himself was in the first match. Initially the idea was just to film some street fights, but it blew up in the internet as many was attracted to the ideas & wanted to participate.
The movie version which has the popular phrase, “ The first rule of fight club,… you don’t talk about fight club”, this rule doesn’t apply here. You can & the organisers encourage you to talk about it. The Facebook page itself now have more than 620,000 followers.
When they first started, Police came & investigate as it was thought to be some illegal street brawls. But eventually was allowed to proceed as the organiser improve the safety aspects. It now has a medical team on standby & fighters are made to agree to a risk-acceptance pledge.
Anyone can participate whether you have experience or not, you can use any styles, but these rules does apply: no elbow, grappling, throwing opponents to the ground and punching to the back of the head. The matches are only in one round of 3 minutes, with no winners announced, so no element of betting will be involved.
“Here you don’t have to know how to fight. You just need to have heart and that’s it. But we don’t ask fighters to kill each other. If you’re too tired or too injured to go on, then we’ll stop the fight,”
Chana Worasart
