World’s Greatest Thai Fighter Comes Clean On Shady Management | Fights For $200.00 & Shared Housing
Highly regarded as one of the world’s absolute best Muay Thai fighters, Buakaw Por. Pramuk, recently disappeared on the eve of a scheduled fighting appearance and for more than a week made headlines as a missing person.
He then surfaced in a television interview with Thai media explaining his mistreatment, poor management and fraudulent dealings in his career.
For those who have not heard of Buakaw, he is a K-1 MAX legend. He is the former Omnoi Stadium champion and a two time, 2004, 2006 K-1 World MAX champion. Yet he only collects $200.00 per fight.
In a climate where many speak out against the compensation of MMA fighters and pressure the UFC to compensate their talent more, this story is presented as a contrast in combat sports that proves MMA guys don’t have it so bad after all.
Here is the report from fightsportasia.com:
The K-1 MAX legend and Lumpinee International Fighter of the Year speaks out in this shock interview, in which he candidly reveals that he wanted to retire in 2009, but Por.Pramuk would not allow him to. He also mentions wanting to go out and enjoy himself more, and that he has had many problems within the gym regarding training and other issues, but that the gym “make problems for him”, and strong arm him into training more and backing down regardless of the issue at hand.
It was insinuated throughout the interview that Buakaw had been threatened. At the very least, that he has been forced into acquiescence by Por.Pramuk for years upon years, the gym in which he lives in a room with three other men.
Any questions asked about money, it should be noted that Buakaw quietly avoided answering, instead telling us that he’s suffered recurring injuries. It has long been known that Por.Pramuk have taken the lions share of all Buakaw’s fight purses; the strongest rumour being that when he won 1 million yen (about US $12,000) for the K-1 World MAX, that he only received 20,000 (about US $200) of it and that the rest went directly to Por.Pramuk who ‘bought four houses’, among other subsequent expenditures.
It should be noted that while Buakaw avoids responding to questions about money, he has never denied that his gym take the lions share of his earnings.
You can check out his video interview where he comes clean on all the wrongdoings on page 2.
Read More: UFC, MMA, Muay Thai
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Don King is impressed by your performance
this is what Alistair’s scared of. haha
i remember after the Brock fight, some dude asked him if he new GG seized his PPV bonus. you could see in his face… Mother ****ER.
You can buy four houses for 12 gs over there?
I dont think its 12000,, more like 120 000. I could be wrong but 12 000 is nothing for winning the most highly regarded standup tournament in the world!
You would think that with so many “Fighters” that treatment like this would be dealt with swiftly. Where are the other fighters to back them up.
Wow that story makes me think of Jet-Li’s movie “Unleashed”. They used Buakaw as a slave to fight for them.
Did know Dana White had relatives in Thailand.
“Did Dana White know* he* had relatives in Thailand?*”
See you need to put the verb know and the pronoun he in front of had to let us know what Dana White and his relatives in Thailand had in common.
Secondly, you need to use a question mark (?) instead of a period (.) because you are asking a question to Dana White. Or those who are close to him and have an answer as to the knowledge of his relatives in Thailand.
Think he meant: ‘[I] didn’t know Dana White had relatives in Thailand.’
He obviously wanted to type, “Did NOT know….” Smart arse FAIL!
Wanna gold medal for grammar brah? Last I checked, this was an MMA forum not an english lesson!
Hahahah Bill got owned.. Trying to sound smart but in the end, you’re the one that looks ****ing RETARDED.
thats sad man. his talent is being limited with evil bastards running his career. someone fly him here and give him his due!
Who is managing this site? They could be just a little more informative and correct with their “character” placement lol. So the guy’s name is “Buakaw Por. Pramuk” but then it says he wants to retire BUT Por. Pramuk wont let him… then it states “It has long been known that Por.Pramuk have taken the lions share of all Buakaw’s fight purses”
Por Pramuk is the name of the gym he trains out of. Thai fighters use their home gym’s name as part of their fight name.
His real name is Sombat Banchamek. He fights under the name Buakaw Por Pramuk – ‘Por Pramuk’ being the name of his gym, so the article is saying that Buakaw wanted to retire but his gym wouldn’t let him.
your a dumbass. por pramuk is the name of the gym you newbie.
How about he just knocks his manager out and then fight under someone else?
I think the Thai organized crime is involved. Not that easy.
Someone please show Rampage this, so he’ll quit his bitching.
I agree, Rampage is a little bitch
Because if you called Rampage a bitch in person, he’d face**** you with his fist then make you his bitch.
I don’t think he is a bitch, I just think he’s bitching a lot about being “mistreated” by the UFC and needs to stop.
Smart arse fail lol
if you doint kno who this guy is or have never seenhim fight youtube him,,,i hav lved watching him for a long tmie,,i tought he was fuking rich///i saw him training in his gym and just thought he lived that way cuz he thai…but i cant believ this…he would bean amazing add to th ufc ..ufc has never seen a sriker like him,,if he learned ground he be killer…but i don think he will come to america…he has fought for the king birthday of some country i cant believe he would let himself get fuked like that
i dont unerstand he could have easily just smashed the manager..why would he let this happen??
For those who are saying he should have beat up the manager needs to understand that just like in japan and pride, the thai mafia is running the show…you beat one guy but you will have 10 guys on your ass with uzis…ask junie browning
I forgot who he fought, but I’m pretty sure he took a dive once.
Man that sucks. Poor dude. So much talent but there’s no way out for him to break out on his own.
Hopefully a bigger promotion will get the brains to give him a chance or sell tickets with him somewhere. Just put him in there with fellow strikers like they do with pat barry, cro cop, kongo, ect. in heavyweight and people will pay. I’d never heard of the guy before this but if they put him in a “smaller” promotion show, a i’d STILL tune in now just to see what he could do. I’m not saying he could jump into MMA and be champ but he could easily make a few good pay checks given the right matchups…
Who-day! Tell it like it is! What happened to Junie btw? I hope he got all of that chaos figured out.
Damn! I really feel Buakaw. I mean I hate when people **** with my money. When people **** with my money it makes me want to bust their knees in with a baseball bat but I don’t because I’m a civilized person
.
Unfortunately I don’t think he will ever have the career he was meant to have unless he flees as some sort of refugee or something. But even then he has his life in family in Thailand. Best wishes to you buddy. =(
Ive watched him on youtube and never seen anyone kick as hard or fast as him. Not even Jose Aldo! He should get payed $200 a kick!!! Sorry to see his management **** him that bad
Thats ****ing criminal
Are you telling me that i make more money off my part time minimum wage job than Buakaw does per fight???
Buakaw is da manny pacquio of muay thai,buakaw’s management are just like bob arum at top rank their just trying 2 get as much money as they can,y do u think buakaw never fights thai’s they just get him winnable fights,hopefully buakaw leaves por pramuk gym n his management.
that is a sad story… just wondering why boxer in thailand even he’s a champion or not as much as posible and solely fight only in thailand, and if you are a foreigner fighting in thailand you know you dont want to go to a decision.. they baby sit a fighter and milk them
To the writter of this article, you are an idiot. Buakaw receiving $200/per fight doesn’t prove that MMA fighters don’t have it so bad. This proves that fighters in general are manipulated, under-paid, and abused by those who call the shots. How is it that the K-1 champion is making $12,000 to win the most prestigious 8-man tournament?! Combative sports are the highest degree of scams!
Ting Pradu
Ong Bak!
My Thai brother getting fkn robbed!
Buakaw Por. Pramuk is one of my favorite fighters and it saddens me to hear he’s being mistreated by management. But it seems like most foreign fighters face this problem. Fedor’s manager has had him on puppet strings for years. Alistair had Golden Glory trying to get any penny they could get out of him after that Brock “fight” Someone really needs to step up and get control over the evolving types of sports. We’ve seen what happened with management in boxing. Lets not let that happen to MMA.
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