While picking up my luggage at Zhengzhou airport last week, I met Simon “Bad Bwoy’’ Marcus, one of the best Muay Thai kickboxers in the world. He was in town to participate in a four-man tournament and invited me to come watch him fight.
I don’t know anything about Muay Thai, but one of my teaching colleagues at Henan University of Technology – a young Scotsman named Darren — is a big fan and occasional participant in the sport. So when I told him about my meeting with “Bad Bwoy,’’ it was like telling a boxing buff that I had run into Muhammad Ali.
On Sunday, we went to dark, dingy arena to watch Marcus fight in a light-heavyweight tournament, part of a televised card featuring more than a dozen bouts. We showed up without tickets, but were immediately accosted by scalpers offering to sell us ones for anywhere from 580 to 3,680 yuan ($96 to $607).
We had no intention of spending that kind of money, and quickly realized we didn’t have to. When we balked at the high prices, the sellers began dropping them like it was a going-out-of-business sale. We finally settled on 200 yuan ($33) per ticket for balcony seats. Those who shelled out the big bucks for a ringside view got to sit in plush leather lounge chairs instead of the hard plastic seats we got in the low-rent section.
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There were only about 1,500 fans in the circular building, less than half the capacity. But the event was televised throughout Asia, including Thailand, where Muay Thai is the national sport. There were two ring announcers, one speaking Chinese and the other English, though they both talked so fast and loud that it was difficult to understand them in either language.
Their boisterous introductions, the glitzy big-screen videos of the fighters and the scantily clad ring-card girls reminded me of a combination of WWE wrestling and a championship boxing match in Vegas. Muay Thai itself is a hybrid form of combat featuring boxing and kicking, including the use of elbows and knees during clinches. So many body parts are involved that it’s known as the “Art of Eight Limbs.’’
We sat through 10 preliminary three-round bouts, most of them pitting a Thai fighter against a Chinese opponent cheered lustily by the local crowd, before “Bad Bwoy’’ entered the ring. (I’m told his nickname is some kind of Jamaican slang – Marcus is a Canadian with Jamaican roots — though I originally thought it was a typo.)
Marcus, who has the sculpted physique of a bodybuilder, won a close, controversial decision over a quick, lanky New Zealander who managed to elude the heaviest blows from his top-ranked opponent. The bout was scheduled for three rounds, but it ended in a draw so they fought an extra round that the judges gave to Marcus despite a lackluster performance. The victory sent Marcus into the final against a Thai fighter who also won a decision in his semifinal.
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Darren and I had planned to stay for the championship match but, after sitting through a half-hour intermission and two more non-title bouts – including a women’s MMA (mixed martial arts) battle that was won with a chokehold – we decided to leave. By that time, we had watched five hours of punching and kicking, which seemed more than enough. We were also starving because, for some strange reason, no food or beverages were sold at the arena.
The next day, I read on the Internet that Marcus scored a first-round TKO in his second bout of the night to win the tournament and remain undefeated. Bad Bwoy, indeed.
