Wonjongkam fight today *spoiler*

If I was Brian Viloria's promoter I'd be desperate to get a Viloria/Jaro fight made. A very winnable fight for Viloria and a Filipino-American vs. Filipino clash for the World Flyweight Title would garner some interest.

 

pong moves up. possibly travels. possibly japan or mexico where super fly is very strong.

jaro now has the belt and looks beatable. perfect for young prospects (miyazaki) or old vetrans trying to keep the old magic alive (viloria) or mid rangers who might be undone (concepcion)

all good really. and jaro is ****ing raw and strong as hell. good luck to him.

 

That's a great post Flea Man. :thumbsup

A possible lead for your case by case a man called Liuewat (romanised Thai hard to get right) seems to have had his finger prints on most Thai western styled boxers for a few decades. You often see him in the background at pre fight pressers in BKK hotels and the fights, he has one eye.

 

:nod

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U40JtychUhU[/ame]

Is this the same guy? Wtf

 

Same fella.

He tore a page out of Segura's book against Pong. :yep

 

That was my understanding as well. Thanks for the input :good

As for Khaosai, truly monsterous and ridiculously strong, which made up for his relatively slow hands and feet. Oh, and he hit ridiculously hard as well :yep If it's still on the tube, check out his defence against Kongtonaree Payakaroon (YouTube) where the much smaller older brother of Samart puts on a very good boxing show and sits Khaosai on his arse. Close fight IMO.

Thank you Sir, means a lot coming from a genuine expert on the scene such as yourself :good

Thanks for the insight....again! :thumbsup

 

Question for those familiar with how the Thai boxing scene works (basically Flea and a few others!) - how much money will Wonjongkam have made out of his career? I don't mean how much he's got in the bank as that'd be impossible for any of us to know, but will he have made a decent amount from his career or will his promoters have made a decent amount and the man himself not so much?

 

He will probably have been well looked after, enough to live a comfortable life in Thailand I imagine, bar him getting into gambling/boozing

In all seriousness he's had many title fights, and if women don't take his money (as happened to the legendary Saensak Muansurin) I think he should be fine. There's not masses of money in the lower weights, but as WBC champ who made a fair share of voluntaries I imagine the brunt of the purses will have been going to his team for a while.

The King is in ill health nowadays, but has always loved boxing and would reward his best fighters for their loyalty, as they all fight for him. In fact Pone Kingpetch asked him for forgiveness after the first Harada fight and was given a stern talking down for cutting corners (Harada was unheralded then) In the rematch Kingpetch fought a lot better, whilst it was Harada who cut corners. I didn't think Pone deserved the decision, but he got it and was again a national hero!

Wonjongkam is in no state to be making the amount of comebacks Kingpetch did. Pone also had a short career so did the brunt of his work in his prime. Thus he was able to turn horrific defeats against Harada and Ebihara and make them close enough to win the decision second time around (deserved neither IMO)

Chartchai Chionoi never had a run of dominance so was used to having to haul himself back to the top. Sahaprom, who had a comparable length of time as a titlist, was done after finally being obliterated by Hasegawa the second time. His title reign was more impressive than Wonjongkam though IMO, and he was the better fighter.

Mark my words, Pongsaklek is finished. As I said earlier in the thread, we've all noticed a gradual erosion in terms of timing and reflexes. Relative novice Rungvisai gave him hassle a few fights back, though he appears talented. Never really rated Sosa although Wonjongkam won well he totally unravelled yesterday.

 

Yeah, I agree that Wonjongkam's been gradually declining but I was still surprised at how he unravelled against Jaro. The defence against Rungvisai looks better in hindsight given that he's since looked good at 115lbs, but perhaps wins against Rungvisai and Sosa just masked the decline a little bit. I'm glad now that a fight with someone like Hernan Marquez, Moruti Mthalane or Brian Viloria weren't made. Wonjongkam might have been more 'up' for it in a marquee fight like those, but if Jaro hurt him that badly I shudder to think what Marquez would have done.

I hope Wonjongkam retires, or at the very least doesn't fight more than another one or two fights at most. He's already a two-time flyweight champion, and there's no shame in that.

Cheers again Flea - appreciate that you always take the time to answer these sort of queries!

 

If I can help, I will :good

 

according to an old ring magazine report pong made around 500k for one on the Naito fights so he should be ok moneywise

 

Good work :good

 

I'm not disagreeing with you that the Ring Magazine may have printed that figure, but it sounds a bit pie in the sky to me.

In the meat market that's the fight game in Thailand Pong will be OK, but he's probably one of the few that will be.

This may have changed over the last 10 years since my active involvement, but most Thai fighters have a 50 50 split with their camp or sponsors this is a hangover form the mainstream fight game of Muay Thai where all Thailand's boxers first stepped in the ring before they were spotted and converted into western styled boxers.

Almost all have 0 negotiating power and are kept well away from the business end of things and hence no little of the true facts and figures. Due to poverty and the never ending stream of fighters form Muay Thai no one questions the promoters.

I'll give you a couple of examples of what the fighters are up against. In around 1999 -2001 I was lucky enough to be a friend and train alongside Saohin Srithai Condo aka Saohin Sorthanikul aka Saohin N'Yoko. At that time he was making some noise in Thailand and was a promising contender. In 99 he fought Paulie Ayala for the WBA world bantam weight title. He took Paulie 12 rounds in a hard fought fight in Texas, U.S.A. He was told by his Thai promotional team that his purse was $20,000 for all Saohin knew it could've been much more, but he can't read English so he was totally in the hands of some very greedy promoters and trainers. Anyway, once the 50 50 split came this was $10,000 and once he gave his tribute to Sorthanikul gym where he trained for that fight he was lucky to walk away with $5,000 and that was his shot at the world title.

Another instance I recall was in about 2001 he was defending the PABA Bantam weight title in BKK I think against a Pilipino. If you have ever watched a western styled boxing match on Thai TV you'll notice before the fight many many many people standing in the ring, well most of these people are sponsors who donate equipment or products to the fighter in front of the TV screens. On this occasion being a title fight about 20 sponsors each put a gold necklace around Saohin's neck for all to see how generous they are. Well once the fight was about to start all the necklaces were taken off and while Saohin was fighting the opening round and the TV cameras were on him fighting about 75% of those necklace giving sponsors came to Saohin's second and took those necklaces back!

Some fighters in Thailand find genuine stardom, but this funnily enough is not down to their fighting greatness. It’s what they do post fighting that makes them stars. Khaosai, Samart, Somluck Mannat, are but a very very slim few if you consider the national sport is Muay Thai and how many fighters they produce both Muay Thai, boxing and Amateur boxing. The only way to accumulate very comfortable wealth is to finish your career and become an actor on TV aka Khosai and Samat other than that you are soon forgotten.