Monday, December 6, 2010

Samart Payakaroon vs Panumtuanlek Hapalang 1989

There's a bit of a legend surrounding this one. Samart, after losing to Jeff Fenech in English boxing in 1987 became very unpopular in Thailand. After coming back from Australia, he lived as a forest monk for over a year before being matched with Panumtuanlek Hapalang.

Samart hadn't trained for over a year and was coming off the loss of his WBC 122 lb super-bantamweight title. Panumtuanlek, from the same gym as legendary Chamuekpet Hapalang, held the no. 1 ranking at the stadiums.

Samart is in red, Panumtuanlek blue.



Thanks to wbcpabawba for the upload. The uploader sandjora has footage from a different camera angle here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIpqhu9SFb0.

This fight is as thorough a destruction as can be rightly conceived. Keep in mind that this is toward the end of Samart's career, when he'd already been in a number of wars, not least the scrap with Fenech. I wrote earlier that Samart was famed for his teep and punches and if you weren't sure how that translated to the ring, this fight is an excellent illustration. Panumtuanlek walks forward like he wants to clinch, but really just looks unsure of how to deal damage while Samart looks perfectly composed, switching stances and throwing in jabs and teeps. It takes an enormous teep to dump someone on their back like he does and Panumtuanlek does not do a good job of changing gears to cope with the distance weapons of Samart. Samart's timing with the left uppercut was beautiful, especially after the damage Panumtuanlek had accumulated. Even without the knockout, Panumtuanlek didn't look like he was about to find any way inside, showing emphatically the power of Samart's teeps and hands combined with his masterful footwork.

According to Thai speakers commenting on the videos, it seems the lead Thai commentator is quite funny, in a twisted way. If anyone knows Thai, please let us in on the joke and post a translation.

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