Quote:
Originally Posted by anorak
as he stated though the Isuzu tournament pays out about 80 baht of gold and a pick up truck to the winner and the runner up and 3rd and 4th place fighters also get gold to, there are I think a couple of other tournaments that also have gold as part of prize on final day. As for in his dreams about 100,000 Saenchai is on 100,000 a fight, Anuwat was on 150,000 a fight up until recently, would think it has dropped a little now, but wont be too far off 100,000 and there are a few others on around 100,000, would say the A level fighters would be on 50,000+. 3000 as an average is also a bit off the mark, you would get that as a foriegner fighting on the Saturday afternoon show at Lumpini with small crowd. As for the kids, 15 is the official age at both stadiums, but younger fighters casn fight, but they will fight 5* 2 minute rounds instead of 5* 3's
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Tournaments are a big difference, you'll rarely see a tournament in Lumpini or Bangkok stadium these days, it's not done as much as before. Mainly 90% of the fights week in and out are 1-1 fights, which bring around 3000 baht (90usd) to the fighter. Just had a guy fight last week in lumpini.
Saenchai / Anuwat and so on, sure a few good fighters score big because of the gambling crowd it brings, but Muay Thai fighters in general do very poorly. The purse is usually around 3000 baht + 500 for winner, the main event card would be around 4500 (120 usd +/-). And, fyi, Saenchai is fighting in Japan right now, not in thailand, so you can't compare the pay. Baukaw makes $10,000 USD/round in K-1 Japan(even extra rounds), so, like anything, you can't compare it to pay in thailand.
Don't try to represent top 10 muay thai fighters in the world as the representatives of the general MT industry in thailand, as it's false.
Unfortunately, MT fighters from thailand even have to go to HK or Macao to get a purse of, wait for it............$500 USD (16,000 baht) - for winning of course! The MT industry is in shambles with too many promoters and titles and not enough structure. The people who suffer are ALL the fighers - the top 10+.
You mention lumpini, and saturday night... of course! in BKK lumpini and Bkk stadium handle almost all the muay thai fights. You can't make your judgement of what top 10 MT fighters make to the whole industry. Muay thai fighters in thailand are paid badly and only a TINY portion makes it to the big time.