300 Pro Fights In Thailand - Where I am Headed With Your Support (Patreon)

This post is about updating my fight goals: 300 documented, professional fights in Thailand. I love this country, I love Muay Thai, and nowhere  else in the world is this kind of goal possible. This goal feels like it  honors my love for this art and this country. It's also a bit about what fight number goal setting is for me. Why pick numbers?

For those who have  been supporting me in one of my biggest quests, to reach the goal of  the most professional fights ever documented by a combat sports fighter, the Holy Grail of Len Wickwar's unreachable record of 471, I sincerely thank you.  For me, my fight number setting began as a goal of 50 fights, as I climbed into the truck after my first fight in Thailand; then, when 50 was in view, I aimed for 100, then the most fights in Thailand by a non-Thai (136 or so), then 200. (I've now reached 268 documented pro fights, as I have 9 amateur fights in the US.) Each time I set a goal, it was, at the time I set it, impossible to me. Then, as each one became not only possible but accomplished, then we found the boxer Len Wickwar who has fought more documented pro fights than anyone in history. But this all deserves an update. Thailand's Muay Thai has gone through very significant changes  in the last 3 years, some of which you may not know about. Not only did COVID cut hard against the number of fights in the country, it also  impacted Muay Thai tourism, which also drives the fight economy for  Westerners. COVID brought big changes as traditional Muay Thai fighting  came to be replaced by Entertainment Muay Thai throughout the country (3  round fighting instead of 5, a ruleset that ignores traditional  narrative scoring values). It has become harder and hard to find fights  in the traditional style, in fact for me nearly impossible as the  Entertainment MT format has impacted women much more than men (in  positive ways, as well). Not that many years ago I was fighting over 30 times a year, and taking on Len Wickwar seemed like just the kind of  "impossible" goal I could maybe reach, but as traditional Muay Thai fights became more and more limited, this goal grew dimmer and dimmer. It's not impossible, impossible, but it feels almost exactly that.

I made a decision when these changes started sweeping over Thailand to just stick with traditional fighting in the country, and hold off on Entertainment Muay Thai. Some of that was that traditional Muay Thai is why I came to Thailand in the first place, and it hurt to see it fading  in the country. Entertainment Muay Thai was a mode of fighting that I fought most like when I first came to Thailand, and I lost many fights in the country because of it. I didn't know how to fight traditionally, I didn't yet have the skills to tell a different kind of story in the fight. I spent years learning how to fight in the Thai way, to manage rounds and a fight's narrative, negating timely points, nullifying ruup, and being able to adjust within the rounds. This is a big part of the  art of Muay Thai for me, almost its essence, and it forms my personal attachment to it. I devoted  myself to this, and changed myself. I grew, slowly. And some of my resistance to Entertainment Muay Thai was just that suddenly there was no other option. It was as if, overnight, traditional Muay Thai has been removed and replaced by a new thing, something meant for non-Thais. I  came to learn something distinctly Thai, something that wasn't me, something I wasn't from, but something that gives me awe to witness. I didn't want to help accelerate the disappearance of the very thing I loved and have given myself to. This isn't a comment on all the wonderful fighters who have fought in Entertainment Muay Thai, fighters I pull for, it's only personal feeling between myself and traditional Muay Thai. The cost of course has been huge. No fights. In the last 3 years I've fought but 14 times, not even half of what I was fighting in 1 year before. I came to Thailand to fight, but reality has changed many times over.

300 Fights in Thailand - 33 Fights in 3 Years

So  I'm making a basecamp aim, possibly, on my goal to 471. I'm at 267 fights in Thailand (268 pro fights documented overall, as one fight is across the border in Laos). My goal is to fight 300 documented times in Thailand (all my fights are filmed and posted on YouTube). This feels like a very worthy mark to hit, it would mean something to those who will come later, for the future. A large reason why I set these numerical goals is that they hold symbolic meaning. They go beyond belts and world titles, as numbers have an immediate impact that cuts through levels of familiarity or understanding. They point to a life, a soul's commitment. They are part of a history, and other fighters can use them to leverage themselves up. When I first came to Thailand it seemed that nobody had a goal to fight as much as possible.  People and gyms with Westerners fought more selectively, more limitedly. If fighters came to Thailand for a stint their goal might be to fight once, at the end of their trip. I always told them: fight three times! My message has always been: Fight as much as possible! Fighting is learning. Fighting is valuable. Every fight is precious. I've always approached fighting as part of training. You fight to grow. This is how Thais become the best fighters in the world, from early youth. This is what I've also called "Tyson in the Catskills". So right now I need 33 more fights to grow to 300 fights in Thailand. This is totally reachable for me, especially if I open up to Entertainment Muay Thai. So this Patreon, which has always been the way that I support my goals as a fighter, and fans and friends support me, is what will get me to this landmark  number. 300 documented fights in Thailand. Let's plant that flag.

The plan is that this Patreon will help raise the fight pay of my opponents, and will through donation support local traditional Muay Thai fight promotion, growing the sport at the grassroots level. We who advocate for traditional Muay Thai have to create more fights. I'll be posting more on this soon.

Fight Philosophy

below I'm going to talk about my fight record. I really just have learned that as a female fighter I have to present my achievements to others, as uncomfortable as I am doing so. I do not mean to say that others who have fought differently, or with other goals in mind are any less a fighter, or have a less admirable qualities. This is just me, and my path.

Over the years that I've been fighting and doing so publicly, as an online presence, some have misunderstood my number goals as a "quality over quantity" debate. They misunderstand why I have fought so much. I began increasing my fight total goals mostly as a motivation for myself, choosing goalposts that seemed impossible enough, and yet neutral enough (I've never aimed for a certain number of wins, for example). In the past, for female fighters, belts and visible promotions can be quite political, and favor powerful gyms in the country. My path has always been outside of these strong powers, for the 9 years I've been in Pattaya, I've been booking my own fights with no gym or higher authority using muscle for me to leverage opportunities or garner favorable circumstances. So I just have had to work within the limits of what is within my power, which is saying "yes" to every opportunity I can, and following the paths that open up from those opportunities and branch into new ones. I've used this analogy before, but it's like how I keep myself at a good pace on long runs: find a tree in the distance and set it as a landmark. No matter how tired I am, how much my hip is clicking, I just have to make it to that tree and then I can give myself permission to walk. I just pick a tree in the distance, and run to it. When I get near to the tree, more often than not, I find I have more energy than I thought, so I pick another tree, farther up the road. So it has been with the huge fight numbers - and as it happens, I've fought more documented pro fights than any woman in history, regardless of sport - are just a way for me to keep moving, picking a larger number that will take some effort to keep sprinting toward. The numbers I've chosen (starting with 10, actually, before I'd ever experienced fighting) do not stem from some desire to have the most, or to be regarded as the best. These words come up, but they aren't the reason why. Runners who choose to run a marathon in every state, or climbers who want to hit all the "fourteeners," or X-Gamers who want to land a move that's never been done before. It's not quality vs quantity, it's quality AND quantity. There are so many very fine, talented, tough, beautiful Thai fighters in Thailand that people in the West or outside of Thailand have never heard of. I've shared the ring with them, we've become friends or at least continued to follow each other's careers. I don't think that limiting that experience, or the number of people I can share that with, is in any way of higher quality than sharing it with more.  Goal setting in terms of numbers is just life commitment. It's picking a tree. In this case, 300 fights is the best tree I can see in the distance.

About My Record As a Fighter

You can see my entire detailed record here My Complete Record. I understand when you do something nobody has ever done before, and that very few others are even imagined attempting, that there are going to be detractors. It's one reason why we've become meticulous with my record, documenting not only my opponents' names (when I arrived in Thailand it was very common for people to just say they "fought a Thai"), but fight weights, location, and sometimes other annotations. And the fight numbers on this record are hyperlinked to the fight videos themselves. Very often this is a commentary fight video, where I talk about my fight giving more insight and context. It's been said that I probably am the most documented fighter in history, so much of my training, from the very beginning, and my study, and my fights has been put to video. In terms of my 278 fights so far, it's all there. I didn't document myself out of a sense of importance, but rather that early documentation has become important because of where I've ended up. And I'm very happy to see other fighters have started counting and numbering their fights as well. It's like how John Wayne Parr told me to start a "stitch count," when the notion that it would ever even reach double digits seemed dubious. I'm proud to be the inspiration for anyone out there to be counting or numbering their fights, because it implies it can continue on and become something that, at the start, you can't even dream up.

It's also understandable that if people are not very familiar with female Muay Thai, they won't really know who it is that I have fought. Are they good? I believe top to bottom Thai female fighters are the best traditional Muay Thai fighters in the world. It's their sport, their art, their culture and many have been fighting since early youth. These days there are a handful of names known from Entertainment Muay Thai, but the bulk of female fighting in the country occurs in local stadia scenes and in the side bet circuits of the provinces. These include solid, experienced names most will never know. But with me, 134 of my fights (exactly half right now), have been fought against stadium champions, or International org-ranked fighters. And 25 times I've fought an opponent who has held a recognized World Title. Those 134 fights are half my record, and if you only look at those, it's an example of a record that demonstrates great quality and intense difficulty, facing great, recognized opponents and with considerable size disadvantage, often at the same time. This being said, I'll tell you that some of the strongest fighters and toughest fights were with opponents that are not in that list. And some of that is that in order to continue growing through fighting, to keep learning through fighting, I've taken unprecedentedly consistent weight disadvantages. Not only are the disparities often stunning (not only just the weight difference, but the percentage of my own weight, as a 100 lb fighter, is unlike anyone else), but the sheer number of times, or rate at which I face these size differences, is unlike anyone. This doesn't even mention that for much of my time I was fighting every 10 days or so. Dieselnoi, who is not shy about pointing out fighters who took weight advantages over others, brings up my size disadvantage to anyone and everyone he talks about me to. I've given up multiple weight classes against known champions & ranked fighters, and also against very skilled, experienced, but lesser known fighters in the country. I fight way up in weight, and have from my first years in Thailand. I'm able to do so, and win, because of my continuous training and because of my Muay Khao fighting style, but it also has resulted in numerous losses and limitations on how I can actually fight. As Hippy Singmanee said: Muay Thai is the art where small can beat big, and my entire record has been an Ode to that statement.

* I'd prefer that my win rate be around 80%. If I'm losing 15-20% of my fights I know my opponents are difficult enough to really stretch me as a fighter. For most of my career so far my win rate has been in the 70s. I really don't believe in the undefeatable fighter. In my opinion, if you are beating everyone, fight up. This is what the greats of the Golden Age did. When I think of fighting up I think of icons and mentors like Karuhat, or Chamuakphet, or Panomuanlek.

Kevin put together this graphic set to illustrate just how much I've fought up.

So not only is this Pateron about the support and study of the Muay Thai Library project, which is my documentation of my own passion and study of the beautiful art, but among other things it is also a general support of me as a fighter, so I can meet all the expenses of training, travel, and medical needs (no, I don't have insurance); it also is directly going to be part of my push to 300 documented fights in the country, and support for traditional fighting.

Some more details about my fighting:

Stitch count: 242 stitches from inside the ring, mostly to the face

Rounds fought: 1,145

Number of times struck to the canvas: Once (more than ten years ago).

I'm making some changes. I'm lifting weights in a systematic way now to strengthen myself for the next 33 fights and, hopefully, at least 3 more years. I might be fighting more at 47 or 48 kgs (walk around) then at the 45-46 kgs I had been for the last several years. I'm fortifying myself. And, as I said, I'm exploring Entertainment Muay Thai opportunities for the first time as well. Right now, this is a 3 year mission.

If you'd like to become an official sponsor of me as a fighter, you can do so through this Patreon, joining my official sponsors Onyx MMA and Lobloo.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far!