What it's like being a female fighter in Thailand during the COVID-19 pandemic
Guest post by Angela Chang, WBC-ranked fighter and creator of Muay Ying, on how this last year has affected the female fight scene in Thailand
The last year has been pretty special for the realm of Muay Thai. Aside from the complications of the virus really putting a hold on...well, pretty much everything.
Thailand was one of the first to start hosting fights again in 2020 thanks to its much-praised response to COVID-19. In June 2020, gyms opened back up. And in July, fighters that were struggling to make ends meet without competing finally got to step back into the ring.
And the return of Muay Thai has been especially great for women in the sport. Although there’s been progress in the last few years for equality, it was really after the first lockdown that Thailand saw a stronger push (and even demand!) for more women on the scene.
Women fighters in Thailand, pre-pandemic, had the option of fighting in the local stadiums, entertainment venues, and, occasionally, on televised shows. But without tourists, many of these stadiums and venues couldn’t open (and are still closed to this day). Super Champ and Muay Hardcore, at the end of 2019, started to put women on their weekly shows.
This meant when Muay Thai opened back up in Thailand, the only option for most women in Thailand was to fight on one of these two shows. While this may seem like scarce options available, this was actually very positive - the televised shows, extremely popular with locals and internationals alike, saw a lot of new faces. With these faces came different styles and skill sets. And this forced Thai women to train harder in face of this new variety of competition.
As a foreign female fighter who has been training full-time in Thailand for more than five years, this was a breath of fresh air.
I went through so many years of fighting for pathetically-small purses and accepting whatever I could get paid if offered to fight on the bigger shows. Why? Because that was all that was available at a point.
With women regularly on televised shows, I no longer had to wait for the yearly King’s Cup or Queen’s Cup to make a respectable (yet a fraction of a male fighter’s) purse size. I no longer have to fight for a few hundred baht just to stay active. Having these new opportunities available to me also meant that whenever I fought, it mattered. People watched. It was helping to build my name. People are finally seeing all the hard work I’ve been putting in.
And it’s been extremely inspiring to watch fighters that had not been active for a very long time start fighting again thanks to these new opportunities. Former world champions, such as Fahseethong and Dokmaipa, have graced Super Champ and Muay Hardcore.
All-female promotions haven’t had much success in the past due to lack of sponsors, but they’re being tested again in the market. Lady Fighter got to broadcast a few weeks before the most current wave of the pandemic in the country - the new promotion showcased five-round fights with the main event being for PAT (Thailand) titles.
And now, stadiums which previously forbade women from going anywhere near the ring have finally changed their tune. After many COVID-related delays, Lumpinee Boxing Stadium, a stadium infamous for signs forbidding women from touching the ring, has begun hosting female fights. On Saturday the 13th of November, Kullanat Ornok fought Australian fighter Celest Hansen – this was the first time cis women were allowed to touch the ring INSIDE the actual stadium. Prior to this, there was a makeshift setup outdoors due to COVID restrictions.
It’s absolutely mindblowing what has happened here in the past year. So much progress has been made, some in very unexpected ways. Although it is, by far, not nearly enough, it is a huge change from what it was.
And if the momentum can keep things going in this direction, one day, women will no longer have to worry about not having enough fight opportunities or not being able to financially support themselves from competing.
Angela Chang is a WBC-ranked fighter with many years of experience fighting in Thailand, currently based in America. Her website Muay Ying is a well-respected resource for news about female fighters in Muay Thai - you can sign up to Muay Ying’s Patreon here.