Fight Day: Lumpinee Stadium, Adrien "Kaew" Team Quest Thailand

Team quest Thailand had some big fights this last weekend again. Adrien “Kaew” Team Quest Thailand was one of them and has been on a tear. This time he was facing yet another tough opponent, Siangjan Kiatrachanok in the “Gai thort haa dow” 8 man round robin tournament at Lumpinee stadium. Adrien was looking to improve his almost flawless record.

Usually I am busy beyond belief here at the gym but this time I had a chance to go down with Adrien and help him prepare for the fight. I filmed as much as I could so that anybody interested in what it's like behind the scenes at Lumpinee stadium could check it out.

We are really happy to have Adrien representing Team Quest Thailand, he really represents himself and the gym in a professional way. This guy is for sure the biggest uprising superstar on the Muay Thai scene in Thailand.

So in the first video, Kru Ping (Team Quest Thailand's first MMA Thai fighter) and myself had to make the 9 hour bus trek down to Bangkok, Thailand. Adrien previously flew down because he had to cut a lot of weight. Taking a 9 hour bus would be miserable while cutting weight. We arrived early in the morning of the day of the fight and met Adrien at his hotel. At about 6:30am we walked about 10 minutes to Lumpinee stadium and checked in. Adrien went through all of the procedures such as checking in, checking with the doctor, and checking his unofficial weight.

after checking his unofficial weight was about 70.4 kilos and he had to make 70 kilos. So he was about a pound over. So he threw on his sweat suit and had to run it off. At Lumpinee stadium the fighters that have to make weight can go behind the stadium and run on a track. After 20 minutes of running Adrien came back and made weight. After a a bit of rehydration and food we headed back to the room so he could get some sleep and relax.

After a bit of rest and a lot of rehydrating through out the day it was time to make our way back to Lumpinee stadium to get ready for the fight. We headed back around 7:00pm. Adrien was weighing back in at a healthly 76.5 kilos and looking huge compared to his opponent.

I started out wrapping Adrien's hands almost immediately when we got there. I was completely new to wrapping hands. I had watched it many times but was only taught the night before by Team Quest Thailand's head trainer, Kru Joe. I had never actually practiced it though. Thankfully for me, Adrien is really easy going and let me practice on him for the first time. Adrien had to help me remember certain spots throughout the process. There is two stations to wrap hands at Lumpinee and they are right next to each other. The Thai guy next to me wrapped 3 peoples hands in the time it took me to do Adrien's.

Adrien received the typical massage, warmed up, and received his mongkong. It was time for him to walk out. He made his way out. T-sport (Thailand's premier sports channel) gave him a prefight interview and then it was time to walk to the ring.

Check out the fight

In typical Adrien style, Adrien started out a bit slow and his opponent tossed him a few times. One thing about Adrien's opponents is that they usually have good game plans. The game plans work for the first few rounds until Adrien starts to wear on them. Usually by round 3 the fight is already over. The opponents start to slow down and then that's when he really lets his knee's go.

After the fight Adrien had to get 4 stitches in his nose. At Lumpinee stadium they just take you in the back and stick you up right there.

Adrien has advanced to the semi finals of the tournament and will be taking on the #1 ranked Rajadamnern stadium fighter next. This will be his toughest fight to date. Adrien will also be participating in the “Muay Thai Marathon” in Korat, Thailand November 1st. Check back soon for more details on Adrien fights and Team Quest Thailand.

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Team Quest Thailand Muay Thai Festival

For those of you who have never been to a Thai festival, you are really missing out. Periodically through out the year different towns will host a festival where people from all around the region will come and celebrate. The festivals are a collection of fair games, amazing food, partying, music, and Muay Thai. They are usually held in huge fields in the country side.

The fairs typically start out with people eating some nice food and walking around and just enjoying the atmosphere. Although these are family friendly, usually most of the adults start hitting the booze. After a while some local bands start to play and this is when the festivals get good. Everybody starts to dance and really enjoy themselves. The music goes on for quit a while. At some point usually around 10pm the Muay Thai fights begin. Now remember, most of these are in the country side so it's very rare to have foreigners on these Muay Thai cards. So when a foreigner rocks up they are treated like a superstar. A lot of these thai people might never have seen a foreigner before or possibly only a few.

Here is a video of the festivals. You can see the Muay Thai ring at the end.

I'll share with you our last experience at one of these fairs. So on a Saturday morning a local promoter called us up and asked if we had any foreigners who would like to fight at his fair in the Lampang province. Now, we live in the Chiang Mai province so this is a bit of a trek for us. He assured us that it was only 1 hour a way. The problem with the Lampang province is that it is rather big.

We had a fighter named Steve from Australia step up and take the fight. So we packed into our truck and started heading to Lampang. This is where it started to become shady. After about 1 hour we were only 33% of the way there on the map. Remember that we still have training sessions on Saturday afternoon so we didn't actually leave from the gym until about 7pm. So after getting lost, misdirected, a flat tire, we were starting to get a bit worried we wouldn't make it on time.

After about 3 hours we finally found it. We were in the sticks. This was the definition of Thai country side. We rocked up and the atmosphere was awesome. The Muay Thai fights had already started and we just got told that our fighter was the next fight. So we rush to get out of the truck and literally every single Thai person stopped to stare at us. We showed up with about 10 foreigners which is about 9 more than any of them had seen in there life. We rushed through the crowd to the Muay Thai ring and started prepping Steve for the fight.

The great part about it is that we had been reserved front row VIP seats by the promoter and the Team Quest Thailand students were offered free whiskey in a friendly offer from the him. It was a really cool experience but at this point I just started to get a bad feeling. The crowd seemed to be a little biased to say the least. Most were very much rooting for their fellow Thai Muay Thai fighter.

So the fight began and right off the bat I could see we were a little mismatched. The promoter told us that the Thai fighter only had 5 fights which was equivalent to Steve's experience. The fact that the Thai fighter had a good 5 kilo's on him didn't make me feel to good either. I could tell after the first minute this guy had 100 + fights. But Steve was a warrior and put on a very good first round.

The second round is where it got a bit sketch. In typical Thai style the opponent was very relaxed and started to open up a bit more in this round. I forgot to mention this guy had tree trucks for legs and kicked like a mule. So during this round things got a little weird. Some random racist old Thai man threw a half full beer at Steve's head during the fight and yelled some racist stuff in Thai. Now remember, this is Thailand's country side so it is the equivalent of any countries sticks. Usually these area's are less educated and not as tolerable of outsiders. The old man disappeared into the Huge uncontrolled crowd. This festival is completely uncontrolled. There is no security guards to sorta grab this guy and push him out the door.

At this point the fight was obviously stopped and random people tried to solve the situation. Lucky for us our Thai trainer ping went crazy and took matters into his own hands. He tried to go after the guy but was held back. Not many people actually knew who did it but Ping saw the guy do it. So Ping jumped into the ring and demanded either the guy fight him now in the ring on the spot or gets thrown out. So the crowd did some self policing so pushed this guy to the street where he was forced to walk home and think about what he had just done. Most of the Thai people were happy to host us. It's always just one person that ruins it for everyone.

So the second round began again and Steve fought on like a warrior. In the 3 round the Thai picked it up a bit more. His experience, better technique, and size advantage was to much to overcome. The Thai eventually stopped Steve with a brutal body kick. It was ok though, I was proud of Steve for stepping up and fighting this guy on 12 hour notice. He could have opted out after he seen the size of this guy but he didn’t' care, he just wanted to fight.

So the fight was finished and we were planning on sticking around a bit longer to enjoy the festival. At this time everybody started to get a bit more rowdy. This is typical at any place where people have been drinking alcohol for 6 hours straight. Thai people started to physically fight with each other and people were passed out everywhere. It was time to count our blessings and hit the road.

Although it sounded like a bit of a bad story, it was actually a lot of fun. Steve wasn't hurt more than just typical soreness from being kicked by a mule. Nothing was broken or needed medical supervision. So we pretty much got out of the ring and went straight back to our truck. We left about midnight and pretty much had the same journey back that we had on the way there. We got lost and misguided by locals. I think we rocked up at like 4am and everyone was ready to just pass out.

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Students Training in Chiang Mai at Team Quest Thailand

Students from all around the world come to Thailand for training in Chiang Mai. The Chiang Mai Muay Thai and MMA scene is growing at a rapid pace. Team Quest Thailand was lucky to have two very special students that came to check out our facility from Hong Kong.

Meet Matthew Wong and Nick Hong Kong. Matthew is in the black shirt and Nick in the white shirt below.

Here are some more pictures of them.

Here is Nick taking pictures of Matthew eating Korn.

And here is Matthew taking pictures of Nick eating Korn.

Both Matthew and Nick were truly a pleasure to have at the gym. Both came in, worked hard, and were just good all around people. What made them so much fun is that they were very comparable in skill level and had a friendly rivalry amongst each other.

Back in Hong Kong, these guys sparred a lot. Initially when they first arrived for training in Chiang Mai, Matthew sparred a lot better. Matthew beat up Nick pretty good. In the first session of sparring Matthew kicked Nick in the balls and then later KO'd him with a body shot. I am not going to lie, it's always funny when somebody gets dropped with a body shot.

So later that night we all headed over to Central Airport Plaza, the biggest shopping mall in Chiang Mai. Luckily for us, this mall is only a 5 minute walk from our facility. That is what is great about the Team Quest Thailand facility is that it's so close to the mall but also quiet and secluded. So anyways, at dinner Matthew and Nick started arguing a bit about who was better. Nick insisted that the only reason Matthew wins is because he kicks him in the balls every time. He even went on to say “he very accurlate for kick ball.” They actually got in an argument about how many times Matthew kicked him in the balls. Nick insists it was 8 and Matthew says it was only 6.

This is where I got my idea. These guys were with us for two weeks. Since Matthew was sparring better I thought it would be fun to take Nick aside everyday and teach him how to beat Matthew sparring. I watched Matthew spar the first day and I saw that he had more of a punchers style, he liked the inside leg kick, and he also covered up to much when somebody attacked him.

So I took Nick aside and for the first week I taught him 3 basic moves. How to use his jab and teep to keep a puncher at distance (0:25 and 4:57 below in the video is an example), how to push a puncher away and follow with a right body kick (3:56), and also when Matthew threw his inside leg kick how to step back and return with a big left kick (2:06 and 4:30). So every day we drilled these and I started to see him using them more and more in sparring. I have never seen anybody pick it up so fast. Nick is definitely a coaches dream. He listened and did everything I helped him with. Although I am not a actual coach here (We have 5 full time thai trainers for that), I do help people who have a newer skill set when I can.

After the first week we moved on to a little bit more advanced stuff. Now we worked on faking the teep and following with a jap or straight (4:50). Nick really started to put everything together. So at the end of their two weeks we decided to set up a friendly sparring match where the students were the judges. It was a lot of fun, we told them to only go 50% but they were not so good at controlling their power. At one point at 1:01 Matthew actually starts yelling at Nick in Chinese “YOU CALL THAT 50%.” Nick responded with “YEAH THAT IS MY 50%”.

Check out the video (Nick with the pony tail and Matthew in the orange and black shorts).

I was really proud of Nick. He did literally everything we worked on when I pulled him aside for extra training. You can tell Matthew was really frustrated because this was the first time he didn't beat up Nick while sparring. You can actually hear one of Team Quest Thailand's trainers in the background at one point say “before I think Matthew better, now I change...Nick better.” The best part was that Nick opened up and pulled out a flying super man punch at 7:39 which I didn't know was in his arsenal.

Nick and Matthew said they would be back for training in Chiang Mai soon at Team Quest Thailand. They were a pleasure to have out. We look forward to having them again.

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