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#1
11-10-2007, 08:33
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Too Young to Prize Fight?
A pair of eight-year-old (female) Muay Thai boxers are discussed here. Bound to open a lot of eyes in farangland... I can just hear the femiNazis shrieking hysterically over this one.
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#3
13-10-2007, 07:37
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Who are we to tell other people what they should and should not do? If these kids can put food on the table in fairly desparate homes then good luck to them.
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#4
13-10-2007, 08:25
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My comment to this is based on a western mindset I also have to admit that I do not know the actual risk of Muay Thai to children. I will assume that the risk is equal or greater than the boxing that I know.
I think it is wrong to engage children in a "professional" sport, where physical harm (including brain damage) is a distinct possibility; regardless of potential prize and regardless of the level of poverty . Certainly the child does not have the capacity to make an informed decision and it would stand to reason that the poor parents are distracted by the potential earnings. In discussing right or wrong in this matter the only point that I will accept as a counter argument to mine, is that westerners should not try to too involved in setting policies or influencing the culture in (for example) Thailand. In principle (IMO) the government should exert powers to protect children.
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#5
13-10-2007, 13:31
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Quote:
the other side ot this would be the child star brintney spears.......now look what happened to her and she did fcuk all physical work...........5555555555..........
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ROLL ON OCTOBER........
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#6
13-10-2007, 13:40
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A double edged sword i feel this one..... yes the families need to survive but to what damage to a kid of that age when still developing, to grow up with deformities, brain damage, malformed limbs etc.... its typical Thailand i'm afraid look at short term gains with long term jeopardies....
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#7
18-10-2007, 22:10
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I'm not sure how much damage an 8-year old can inflict with gloves and a referee, but once you've seen a boy aged 12 knock another out with an elbow it's different perhaps. It's their culture, after all, but I wouldn't exactly take my mother to see it...
I feel more comfortable watching muay thai the closer it gets to the main event, it's a bit awkward watching kids fight. And I do love a good Muay-Thai competition. wbr,
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#8
20-10-2007, 18:26
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On the other hand it is part of the Thai culture and Muay Thai has been around for centuries and kids have been involved in fights from a very young age on.
Of course it is also a way to make money for the parents but the children take pride in their fighting (and if they dont they would be hopeless and would not be involved in any fights anymore). I have trained in a camp where some really young kids went through some rigours training regime on a daily basis. Nobody pushed them, they were driven by self motivation no other than what a young western kids would do in a sport that we might consider more civilised. I guess it comes down to the same discussions as people asking to remove "dangerous" sports like rugby and football from schools because kids could get hurt. I personally think this is terrible and you can not protect them from all evil all their life. Sooner or later they will be exposed to the real world but I guess such are the signs of the 21st century....
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#9
20-10-2007, 22:13
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Western mindsets can sometimes never grasp the poverty levels of some people...people can come up with such simplistic comments such as "the kids should be in school and care free", ok great in a Utopian society which will never and has never existed, but in the real world people need to eat and have somewhere to sleep....if a family is desperate and the kids need to help out whats best, prize fighting, working 12 hour days on a farm, being pimped out in brothels? Theres lots of ways kids can make money, I think prize fighting while maybe not the best, is certainly not the worst.
If the family is making use of the kid to earn money so the mother/father etc don't have to work, thats completely wrong, but if the child is doing it to augment the familys income which is insufficient for day by day living then I see no problem with it, the article makes mention of International Child Labour Laws etc...great, super...how do is it help a kid who today has no food if he doesn't work? I think we would all do things we were not 100% happy with if it helped the ones we loved and ourselves, many bargirls are doing that exact thing.
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A fool and his money are a girl's best friend.
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#10
19-06-2008, 23:40
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Muay Thai fighter chiming in here:
The risk of brain damage in Thai boxing is lower than in Western boxing (keep in mind Westerners put their kids in hockey, American football, etc, which have higher career ending injury incidence rates than boxing). The reason is that Western boxing has larger gloves and restricts the fight to the waist and up. Thai boxing uses smaller gloves--easier to deliver a KO--but that means less repeated blows to the head over and over. The suspected problems come from when the person takes repeated blows to their head and their brain bounces off the back and head more and more after they've already had a concussion. A single KO is not so much a problem. Also, a larger part of Thai boxing includes leg kicks and it scores heavily for knees to the body and grappling throws, all of which mean less time spent on the head. The wider issue that I disagree with in this thread is the notion that kids should live in plastic bubbles. No--kids should get experience doing the things they enjoy. All of life entails risks, and driving a car or motorcycle in Thailand is thousands of times riskier than engaging in Muay Thai (never even heard of a documented Muay Thai death but I saw young men scraped off the road daily). All pursuits in life require risk--it is a necessary component of achieving one's goals.
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#11
20-06-2008, 00:25
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I am no expert, but isn't a child's bone structure still soft at that age?
I am sure that the scull is only fully formed and hardened in the teens? Come on you medical experts or crack googlers....
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#12
20-06-2008, 01:15
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With apologies to over worked moderators for getting involved in an old thread that has been dredged up......
Quote:
Sorry Bryan, but that just doesn't wash. Muay Thai is a brutal sport, and the thin gloves plus coconut shell box really don't make it safe. I kind of, sort of, take the point that it's better for the brain if a fighter is knocked out cleanly rather bashed around repeatedly over a period of time but your argument that it's safer just doesn't stack up. 1 What about the fights that go the distance? Plenty of them do. 2 Elbows and knees are just connections for limb extremeties in western boxing. How much damage is inflicted by an elbow or knee to a head in Muay Thai? 3 At all the shows I have been to in Thailand I have never seen any sort of medical staff or facilities. I've seen guys knocked spark out and carried out 'leg-and-wing' style, and the only medical equipment is a slap round the face and a cold sponge. In western boxing matches there are good medics on hand instantly, get knocked out in Thailand and you had better be a tuk-tuk ride away from the hospital and have a mate around to take you. There is a bit of sense in what you say, but only in the most abstract way.
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#13
20-06-2008, 01:34
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Yes it does. What is wrong with my argument? The following addresses nothing in my argument other than you say it's sound and then talk about things I figured you would understand by implication. However, I guess I'll have to spell it out for you... Quote:
You driving your motorcycle or car in Thailand every day is hundreds of times more life threatening than stepping in the ring. I guarantee you. Quote:
My post included this--you must not have paid much attention. Since smaller gloves mean flash KO's are more likely, then fights are safer by nature of the gloves, no matter how long the fight goes. The fighters use smaller gloves, whether or not the fight goes the distance. If it does go the full 5 rounds (much shorter than in boxing) that means the blows to the head were not hard enough to cause a concussion. It's in boxing, where large gloves are used, that a person can be concussed because the nature of the hits can hurt the brain more. Quote:
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Well I've fought in Thailand, lived at a boxing camp, and lived with other fighters. Your are surrounded by your trainers and your team, and if you need medical attention you can be sent to the hospital immediately. The judges where I fought also could provide medical attention (although they weren't registered paramedics or anything). No there aren't. Do you know what you're talking about? I've boxed here in Canada, and there is just a single paramedic on hand. I imagine he just takes you to the hospital if anything bad happens anyway, just like in Thailand. In both cases, a hospital is available in minutes. However, I have no experience being taken to the hospital after a fight. I do have experience going to the hospital after a motorcycle accident in Thailand though... Don't compare an HBO pay-per-view bout to a local Muay Thai match. Comparing a local amateur boxing event to a Muay Thai match is more appropriate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let's have some perspective. Last time I was in Thailand I trained for four months and fought. I endured more pain, trips to the doctor, and time off from eating unsanitary street food than I ever did in the boxing ring. I also got into two motorcycle mild accidents because of stupid drivers that put me out of training for a bit. Next time I come, for my safety, I will spend more time boxing and less time on my motorbike. Last edited by Bryan : 20-06-2008 at 01:42.
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#14
20-06-2008, 01:43
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Don't know which side of the debate i would fall on , but when i was at school there was many a brutal fight between the young lads, and there was never any permanent damage done ( apart from to ego's) ), whereas one blow from a fully grown man can be fatal....so wouldn't think that these young kids can hit hard enough to do much damage ....
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#15
20-06-2008, 03:04
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Bryan.
If I struck the wrong note then I apologise, I've gotten pretty tired of personal arguments around here and don't want to get into another one, So I will ignore the personal stuff. I don't agree with you though. Do I know what I'm talking about? Well, I trained in kickboxing for several years and fought competitively at a decent level. I was runner-up in the North West (UK) Open Championship in 1990 (lost to one of my instructors in the final) and also trained in Muay Thai under one of Master Sken's fighters. I didn't last long at the Muay Thai but I do believe that I have at least something of an understanding of the sport. I also believe that I have earned the right to an opinion so, surprise surprise, I have one. I should also say that I'm a boxing fan, not a critic. It takes some balls to step into any fight arena and I admire all that do it, irrespective of whether I agree with them or not. To your actual points: Amateur boxing is super safe, they wear massive head guards and comedy gloves. I can't see how anybody could possibly get hurt in amateur boxing. Thai boxing is a different world and just doesn't bear any comparison at all. Western boxing, particularly over the last couple of decades, has become a pretty safe sport as well. The medics at ringside get oxygen to KOd fighters almost instantly, and as I understand it it's the lack of oxygen that causes the damage to the brain at those times. There just is not that kind of facility ringside in Thailand. I don't believe that we will ever see a Gerald Mclellan or a Michael Watson again, and boxing is all the better for it. If two guys want to beat the crap out of each other you can generally sell me a ticket, but I don't want to see one of them beaten to death you know? Your idea is 'abstract' in that, whilst in an obscure set of circumstances you may have a point, the reality is different. If two guys are stood side by side and pummeled into unconciousness then the one who gets knocked out clean could well suffer less long term damage; I can see that. But, if he then goes and fights again next week and the same thing happens, and the week after and the week after that it happens too, then his long term prospects diminish. The point I am making is that the lack of medical supervision, brain scans and enforced layoffs after KOs etc, puts them at a much higher risk in the long run regardless of the short term benefit of a clean KO. I don't believe that the notion that Thai boxing is safer than Western boxing can be supported.
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Last edited by steve@thaib : 20-06-2008 at 03:07.
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#16
20-06-2008, 07:12
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I am with Bryan on this (in fact the exact issue was on Fight science the other night).. MMA gloves couples with the MT stance showed a higher inpact and hence more % knock outs.. Its the faster knockouts and less multiple impact concussions that make lighter gloves counter intuitively more safe. Notice thats more safe not safe.
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#17
20-06-2008, 07:15
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OK I agree with this statement and think kids should be allowed to do dangerous pursuits if its thier desire (I rode motorbikes, took me years to get it past my folks and then proceeded to break many bones for years, I loved it and wouldnt trade the bones back). But maybe your thinking of this like a hobby or interest. The point that I think we should all dissagree with is when the child is a 'for money' fighter and is supporting his parents through his work in the ring. At some point this changes from a interest of the childs to a job that the child must do / is pushed to do. I think its hard to argue that children should be protected from dangerous jobs and perhaps even any full time / serious jobs. Thats the issue with children prizefighting.. Not just fight training.
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#18
20-06-2008, 07:25
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Yeah but that doesnt tell the full story in truth does it ??? While your totally right the odds are far higher of a death from riding a bike than in the ring (would that still hold true per minutes performing the action.. I have spent months of cumulative time riding, months in the ring makes even Ali a vegetable) theres a difference. I get on a bike and travel and fully expect to come out the other without any pain, any time you get in the ring you expect pain. Causing injury and pain to the opponent is the purpose of a fight sport. Quote:
And on this I am with Steve.. I have seen monster knock outs and the thai reaction is to run over slap them a bit, shake them (surely not right for a concussive injury) and wave a yaa dong under his nose.. If that doesnt help all his untrained mates just haul him up and carry him off to slap him awake out back some more. Theres no one there checking pupil dilation, and other tests as per you see in western organized prize fighting.
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#19
20-06-2008, 07:29
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Good point.. Some of these guys have multi hundred fights on thier record.. Fighting to this level every fortnight etc strikes me as very different.. I too am a fan.. However I acknowledge that theres an element of blood lust about my enjoyment. I think thats fine if 2 adults want to engage in it.. I even think its fairly OK if 2 youths (not the under 10's perhaps) want to engage in it.. But having kids fight for money thier families need to survive, thats not on in my books.
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#20
20-06-2008, 07:42
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I can understand peoples thinking that because this has taken place in Thailand it is solely based on financial gain for the family, i will not agree or disagree with you on that point but i have seen Thai children play fighting in the style of muay thai in the soi's near my home and there is no prize money involved. Westerners would have to put their own house in order before they could comment on what goes on in another country, this link Birkenhead gym hits back over child boxing allegations - Liverpool Echo.co.uk is related to a documentary shown on national TV in April this year, children as young as 4 and 5 learning muay thai in Liverpool and fighting when they ask if they can and the trainer thinks they are ready, what they don't say how old they are when the trainer lets them fight, the gym did state that they are not allowed to kick and punch to the head until they are 17 but isn't that like telling a child not to eat sweets before their dinner, the point i am trying to make is these issues are not only common in poor third world countries. MrDK i used your post to make my point because you included most of the points i was trying to explain and not because i disagree with your point.
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Last edited by keith67 : 20-06-2008 at 07:44.
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#21
20-06-2008, 08:24
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