Thailand Muay Thai
 | The “stadium” located at Nai Harn Beach is actually a demountable ring
set up on a small island on Nai Harn Lake – there is a single narrow
road that acts as the entrance and exit off the small island which
allows the promoters to set up a ticket booth and charge patrons for
entry. It is a totally outdoor event, with hundreds of plastic chairs
set up around the ring and a couple of 6-row, bleacher-style stadium
seats set up on one side and I have been told that the fights go ahead
regardless of the rain.
Muay Thai Thailand Unlike Patong Boxing Stadium or Bangla Muay Thai Boxing Stadium, events here definitely cater more to the local Thai population than the tourists frequenting Patong. There are cheap food stalls, and cheap drinks with reasonably priced beers. Many Thai families bring their children to the fight nights at Nai Harn Beach Boxing Stadium, and so the atmosphere here is much more relaxed and family-friendly than the crowd swilling beer at Bangla or Patong Stadiums. There is one price to get in and you can sit where ever you like (provided you get there early enough). Fighters prepare and warm up on a patch of grass under a tent set up to one side of the stadium. Patong Muay Thai Boxing Stadium in Patong, Phuket, Thailand is located at the end of a small, dark side street off Sainamyen road. Travelling down or up Sainamyen road, the side street to the boxing stadium is marked by a large sign over the street entrance. Fights are held every Monday and Thursday night, and are usually quality bouts with well matched opponents. Similar to Bangla stadium, there are the options of VIP, ringside seating with drink/snack service, or stadium seating, which consists of hard, uncomfortable bleachers – and when the stadium fills up, you are usually either sitting on the feet of the person on the row above you, or someone on the row below is sitting on your feet! If you are buying the tickets on the door on the night of the fight, it’s proabbly worth it to shell out the extra 200B for the more expensive, padded, ringside seating. I don’t usually bother taking my DSLR to Patong stadium. It’s very dark, hard to get close to the action and difficult to find any decent angles to shoot from & they have big advertising signs on the corner posts, which get in the way of action shots. The Patong stadium fight cards are held in the same manner as the Bangla stadium line ups – thai kids, thai teenagers, foreigners, then the “big fight of the night” lastly. You can view my write up on Bangla stadium here. The gambling is the same, the rounds are the same. The main difference is lighting, location, atmosphere and comfort. In which case, Bangla Boxing Stadium wins hands down. However, fighters will probably find the dressing rooms at Patong Stadium as being closer to what they are used to at home – it is located on the ground level with the boxing ring, at the rear of the stadium, and separated from the crowd by walls and the stadium seating. It has more room to warm up and prepare than Bangla, and the Blue and Red corners are given separate rooms to get ready in, whereas at Bangla Stadium, the fighters, both red and blue corners, are all heaped into a small area at the top of the stadium in full view of the crowd on the top rows of the stadium. Muay Thai Thailand |
