– It was at this moment, I knew that I’d screwed up. – Now I know what you’re thinking, “Jesse, why are you fighting a Muay Thai champion? You’re just a Karate Nerd.” Well, it all began in 1963. That’s when a Japanese karate expert named Kenji Kurosaki was brutally knocked out by a Thai boxer at Lumpinee stadium in Bangkok.
And only four months later, the exact same thing happened again. But this time in Tokyo. Karate was getting humiliated in public and Kurosaki did not like where this was going. You see, he was the co-founder of a karate style known as Kyokushin karate, which was supposed to be the strongest karate in the world. Kiai!
This was not good for business. So Kenji Kurosaki decided to create a superior version of Thai boxing based on Japanese karate. The result was called kickboxing and it became a smash hit.
Kickboxing was featured in comic books and cartoons and video games. And by 1970, three different TV channels were broadcasting kickboxing fights all over Japan.
There was only one problem. Many of these fights were fake and unfair. They were fixed. I mean, the Japanese literally invited Thai boxers to get smashed by people twice their size, just to prove a point. And it all culminated when a Japanese fight promoter literally opened up a gym right in Bangkok and tried to fix fights at the birthplace of Thai boxing.
Needless to say, he had the close that gym and flee the country in fear of his life. And ever since then, the rivalry has just kept growing. All across the world, karate people and Thai boxers are still fighting each other. Which brings me to this guy. You see that is Poonnasit Kambung.
He’s been a professional fighter since the age of nine and has over 400 fights on his record.
And guess what? He used to be ranked number one at Lumpinee Stadium. The very same place where karate got humiliated back in 1963. And that’s why I have to fight him.
Because it’s time to end this feud once and for all and restore the honor of karate. Check it out. – Hey bro. – What’s up? Oh, you’re in the sauna?
Nice. – Yeah, I’m doing a recovery session in moms infra sauna. – Okay. Well, anyway. I need some advice because I’m about to fight a legendary Muay Thai champion.
And since you’ve been to Thailand and you’re a professional fighter, what advice can you give me, a “Karate Nerd?” – Well, you should probably stay away from his elbows.
Stay away from his knees as well. And remember, stay away from his low kicks. And you should probably stay away from the clinch.
You know what? Just stay away from him. I think that’s the safest. – This is where I expected a Muay Thai champion to be waiting for me. But apparently, there is nobody here.
Maybe he wants me to get frustrated and emotional. So he shows up late on purpose. I don’t know. Or maybe I’m at the wrong gym. I might as well start warming up until he arrives.
If he even arrives.
How do you guys like those karate shorts? I thought it would be too pretentious to show up in a full karate uniform. So I just went with the shorts. And suddenly, there he was.
The man, the myth, the legend, Poonnasit Kambung. – I change. Okay. Thank you. I gotta be honest, I’m a little bit nervous.
I actually woke up at 4:38 this morning, ’cause I couldn’t even sleep when I was just thinking about this. So let’s see how it goes. – Now this is when I expected us to just start fighting, right? Except that was not Poonnasit’s plan. You see, he goes to the center of the ring and starts praying and I’m just waiting there for us to start fighting.
Then he walks around the whole ring doing this weird ritual. I think it’s some cultural thing from Thailand. Like they’re praying to the Gods or whatever. And then things escalate. He goes down on the ground, and starts doing this mobility routine in all four directions.
Now I’m getting cold here and I had barely even warmed up to begin with and he’s just stretching and having a good old time. Then he stands up and does even more dancing, just loosening up his joints and getting in the mood for fighting.
While I’m just getting more and more frustrated. I’ve had enough, it’s time to fight. Okay.
That is just weird. It seems to be like a jab, but with the legs instead. I’ve never seen anything like it. As you can see, both of us are still holding back. I try my first move, a simple front leg sidekick.
And he immediately responds by kicking me in the ribs with a roundhouse kick.
This guy has really good reactions. But what most people don’t know is that the human brain is really bad at reacting, but really good at predicting. And that’s why I need to find patterns. I keep applying pressure by adjusting my distance to make him show his hand.
But all he does is hang back and probe me with his leg and his jab.
There we had it. Did you see that? When I threw that high roundhouse kick, he immediately swayed back and then came back to the same spot with his head again. That might be a pattern that I can take advantage of.
There we had it again. I throw the high kick and he leans back. Which is completely different compared to what a karate fighter would do. And once you’ve noticed a pattern, it’s all about breaking it.
I’m not sure you can actually hear this, but he’s making weird sounds with his mouth all the time.
Like wee, woo, woo. It’s like he’s playing mind games with me. But I just try to block out all that noise and focus on finding my opening. And there we have it. The time has finally come for me to exploit his head movement.
And that’s the moment I knew that I’d screwed up. You see, I just unleash the beast. From here on, things went south real fast. He catches my kicks. He throws me down.
He kicks me to the ground. And then when I try to go for the clinch, guess what he does? He starts laughing. I mean, he’s just giggling right in my ear. And then of course, he throws me down.
Turns out as I was reading him, he was reading me. And apparently, I’m like an open book. And I just had to know how he did it.
– I need to rest. That was fun.
– Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very fun. – This is interesting. This kick. – First thing I ask him is about these low, weird front kicks to my thigh.
– Can make timing when you move forward. Can set up my kick. – Aha…
– Turns out, he uses them to set up other shots and to gauge the distance. – Yeah Low kick. Low kick. Low kick. Low kick here.
– Yeah. – You when you protect that. And then you focus. You defend here, and then come here. And then you focus here.
Then you go here. – Ahaaa! – Then I just had to ask him about all those times he grabbed my leg. – If I grab your leg. – When you grab the leg like this, the first thing you have to do, you have to defend first.
You cannot stand still like this. – No. – No. It’s easy for your opponent to attack you. And of course, if you catch me and I try to punch you.
– Okay. This was really cool stuff. So if somebody is grabbing your kicks a lot, you should fake your kick and then come up with a different movement instead, to exploit his opening. Maybe if I get a rematch, I’ll do exactly that. – You never let your arms outside.
– Then I just had to ask about the clinch, you know, the moment where he was just laughing and pulling me down – And more bad if you let your arm outside. – According to Poonnasit, the most important thing in the clinch is to establish inside control. So that you can then throw your opponent, knee or elbow. And the lesson just went on and on. – If I’m here.
.. – And then I asked Poonnasit about his best advice for people who wanna improve their sparring.
– No stress. You know, relax and take a little bit forward, backward,, forward, backward.
You gotta give the technique each other like learning, you know? When you stress, you’re gonna mess up your technique and hurt your partner. Because you just let it out without controlling, you know? – Then we did something really cool that I think you will enjoy – Solo? – Yeah, yeah.
– So if you just do a roundhouse and then I do a roundhouse. – I asked Poonnasit if we could compare the techniques of karate and Muay Thai solo. So I would do a technique and then he would do the same technique or something equivalent. We started with the front kick. – Your turn.
– Okay. – Yeah. I can do maybe two or three. Great idea.
– Next, we did the roundhouse kick.
As you can see, I am snapping my kicks, but Poonnasit goes straight through. We continue with the spinning back fist. But since they don’t have the spinning back fist in Muay Thai, he had to do a spinning elbow. Next, I did the famous karate jump kick. And the Muay Thai version is a jumping knee.
Last but not least, the sidekick. Or in Poonnasit’s case, the low kick. It’s funny now that I look back at it, I’m doing the movements the exact same way that I did in the fight. Chambering my kicks and punches and snapping them back. But he goes straight through.
Yet when we were fighting, he didn’t. Wait. Are you telling me he held back? Damn. – Very much power.
– We were having so much fun, but unfortunately we had to stop at this point because the gym was filling up with people, ’cause classes were beginning.
So I decided to ask Poonnasit if he had any final words of wisdom for you. – Kickboxing, Muay Thai or karate, you know? Is coming from that you enjoy, you love to train, to do it all. Just keep practicing, you know?
Enjoy it. – Thank you so much for sharing. – And just like that, my fight against the Muay Thai champion was over. As I waved goodbye to Poonnasit, I realized that my mission failed. Karate people and Thai boxers will probably keep fighting till the end of time.
But even though I lost the fight, I did win a new friendship. So maybe I didn’t fail completely. Because no matter what martial art you practice, what brings us together is far more important than what sets us apart.
And if you enjoyed this video, don’t hesitate to check out the rest of my work. Thank you so much for watching.
Train hard, good luck and have fun..
