Bargaining in the Hurt-Zone: Lumpinee Stadium

I spent the evening before my Thai massage class  watching several men race  headlong into the hurt-zone.

In fact, I’ll wager all of them would have gladly volunteered to be my massage model on post-fight day!

Muy Thai kickboxing is an art that has more than just a cult following. The old, creaking, downtown-Bangkok stadium was recently condemned, drawing the tourists and diehards to a  state-of-the-art facility so deep  into metropolis  outskirts that it’s actually in a different city entirely.  Good luck getting a taxi!

Novices in their early teens  and professionals of all ages battle twice a week. Thai spectators roar with excitement, shouting fevered bids and screaming encouragement to their prized fighter.

Despite the new digs, the game of get-as-much-money-from-tourists-as-possible hasn’t changed. Ring-side seats are said  to be  the best in the house. (Funny that very few Thai people sit there!) Touts on a legitimate commission system approach before one  reaches the more expensive ticket windows where bargaining would be  useless and inappropriate. Every approved scalper starts by offering ringside seats.  When you decline in favor of a more economical view, the ringside price plummets. I estimate a fierce bargainer could sit VIP  for a few dollars more than the nosebleeds.

My notes tell me we paid 1600 baht, and in hindsight figured we probably could have bargained down to 1100. The trick? Ignore the tout’s argument  that you’ll have to stand if you sit anywhere but VIP.  Ringside seats are actual chairs, but the “standing only” area is filled with concrete risers where all the local Thais sit between rounds. (During rounds they leap to their feet with excitement, so in that sense you would need to stand, too.)

The evening kicks off with a display of patriotism. Everyone stands and faces the portrait of the king and queen, surrounded by the Thai flags. The national anthem plays. Then the entire stadium wais* the royal shrine before a drape is lowered over it.

*Said “why,” wai-ing is a respectful greeting action – much like a handshake. It’s done by holding your prayer-style hands  in front of your face and bowing toward the other person.  

The wai-ing wasn’t restricted to the patriotic opening ceremony. As the stadium slowly filled, I watched friends connect both across the crowd and face-to-face with a wai. As competitors warmed up for rounds, their routines often included wai-ing at each corner of the ring. In the two juvenille  rounds, the kids wai-ed their instructors before the fight.

A smoothly-run fight seemed to require many cogs in the form of referees, judges, and other officials. To me the refs all looked like garage mechanics thanks to the navy blue, short sleeve, button-down shirts emblazoned with the Beer Chang logo – the stadium’s official sponsor. The water officials, who manage fighters’  stadium-controlled water and giant pans to catch said substance, also wore Beer Chang uniforms. The Beer Chang logo (two elephants facing a tree) dominated the floor of the ring and therefore all aerial camera shots. I drank several Beer Changs throughout the evening… you know… just to fit in!

Between rounds, a frenzy dominated each corner. Our VIP seats meant front-row action.    At the sound of the round’s bell, an aluminum pan the size of a tractor  tire slid into each corner.  Water officials handed H2O  to the “pit crews.”  Competitors stepped into the pan.  Trainers rapidly blasted a spray bottle in their faces. Additional  trainers massaged arms and legs — some vigorously, some calmly and almost affectionate.  Sometimes a third trainer jumped in to stretch the fighter’s hamstrings, wrenching feet toward ceilings and legs into awkward positions. Other pit crew members swarmed on the ground outside the ring, sometimes racing up to shove  tubes or jars  in the kickboxer’s face.  Coaches and “owners” shouted mid-fight strategies above the crowd’s roar and into the competitor’s ear.

Having seen very little of any kind of fighting, I can’t make many comparisons about the differences in style. However, I can tell you what they were wearing!

The Red Corner and the Blue Corner provided a base  for opponents, each wearing uniforms to match their home zone.  I discovered that baby-girl pink with yellow ribbons qualified as “red” on many occasions (proof that gendered colors  are  culturally concocted b.s.). Most fighters entered the ring wearing amulets around their necks.   Ribbons streamed off the back of a rambo-style crown of woven plant parts. For the duration of the fight, competitors wore ropes wrapped tightly around their biceps.

When I queried  the enthusiastic, friendly, Japanese-looking man sitting next to me about the bicep ropes, he said they’re given to the fighters by their teachers. When I questioned the wisdom of  restricting one’s muscles during an athletic endeavor, he claimed “they are used to it.”

Twenty minutes later, the credibility of my fellow spectator’s answers skyrocketed.  A new fight began.  He cheered wildly.  At the first end-of-round bell, he leapt to his feet.  He rushed up to the Red Corner, yelled animatedly at the fighter, received a smile in response, shoved a smelling-salts tube up the fighter’s nose, and returned to my side. “Hey,” I exclaimed, “Why do you get to talk to him?!” My new friend smiled and said, “He is my fighter. I am his owner.” Oh. His owner. Obviously.

I kept respectful  verbal distance for the rest of the fight, but launched a barrage of questions  afterward.  Discoveries to be revealed momentarily…

Now, the vibe in the slowly-filling stadium had really heated up after two opening matches. For reasons unknown to me, attendees preferred  one  side of the arena, cramming together like sardines. The trance-like “oriental” music playing during rounds belonged in a temple ceremony or a snake charmer’s show.  Four bouts  in, the Red Corner fighter dropped Blue Corner with three swift, hard knees to the stomach, and the crowd roared.   Red Corner beat his chest like Tarzan, then threw triumphant fists into the air.

The rest of the night each bout  captivated onlookers from the first swing.  The  crowd’s reactions  rode the waves of every  fight’s rhythm  — the noises just a fraction off, like a film with mis-matched sound.  As each round progressed, stakes went higher and higher. The increasingly intoxicated crowd furiously vibrated “spirit fingers” in the direction of the ring — willing a win by their favored fighter with every ounce of their being. As a  fight raced toward a conclusion, the crowd roared with every blow.  They went wild at the declaration of a winner — the champion’s  supporters thundering  with joy and those backing the loser screaming in defeat.

The TKO (total knock out) halfway through the night? Complete crowd chaos.

I got to ask my “owner” buddy about the crowd bidding. Between every round, the fans turn away from the ring and toward each other, shouting like brokers on a Wall Street trading floor. How does it work? How does one bid? What’s the system? My source  explained the intimate fraternity — members of the crowd search faces of their fellow attendees, a hand signal in the air and eyes flashing waiting to connect with another onlooker who will accept their challenge.  At the conclusion of a match, cash is passed from hand to hand, sometimes crowd-surfing its way to the new, rightful owner!

I’d been infected with the crowd’s enthusiasm by the time the cape-wearing main-event fighters stepped into the ring,  I barely noticed the arctic chill for which the venue is famous (partly, I’m sure, in thanks to the cans of Beer Chang I’d consumed). I got caught up in the intense between-round-coaching by the  owners as the lithe, young fighters were bent, stretched, rubbed and made to whiff various concoctions. Halfway through round two, I’d stopped giggling about the fighter’s pink shorts and yellow ribbons and instead found myself screaming for a “red” takedown.

I never quite made it to the “spirit-fingers” level of enthusiasm, but I left the stadium bathed in the afterglow of a pretty wild evening.  ♣