In a previous substack, I wrote about how I ended up in a Thai prison. Even after the post, people kept asking me why I did it. For some, it was too surreal to be true. Others kept having follow-up questions, so I decided to turn it into a trilogy post.
I’ll cover:
- The actual lead-up to the fight
- fighting and being there itself
- the aftermath
In this part, we’ll take a look at how it all came together, because, believe it or not, that was quite the process.
How it all started: the prison fight show
I returned to Thailand after being away for almost 10 months. As soon as I stepped foot into the gym, the owner asked me when I’d be fighting. This is very common in Thailand. We agreed I’d be fighting in February since I had to get into fighting shape again. The offered bout would take place at the legendary Radjadamnern Stadium.
Obviously, I was looking forward to this fight. In the middle of camp, the owner came to me, asking if I wanted to fight in prison. The fight would be at the end of March in a prison in Issan.
I said yes but barely paid attention to the whole thing because it didn’t really sound appealing. I assumed no one would ever mention it again if I had a good performance at Radja.
So that was the goal. Have an amazing performance at Radja and get a fight offered in Radja or somewhere that isn’t a prison. But a week before the bout, I injured myself. I had to pull out.
During my recovery time, I got offered another bout 20 days before the prison fight, but when it got offered to me, I didn’t know for sure if I’d be able to make it injury-free. So the gym owner told me to focus on the prison fight.
So now I had to prepare for a fight I didn’t even care about.
The prison fight show meets the BBC.
During the rehab time, I got a call that I was requested to do an interview for the prison fight show. I had to decline due to other obligations. The gym owner told me it wasn’t an issue since it wasn’t that important.
Later in the afternoon, I got another phone call asking me where I was. I had to do the interview. I was quite confused but received a picture of a whole camera crew with a huge set-up. It didn’t seem like some small local crew. At the time, they told me the BBC was there for me. It wasn’t until fight day that I found out they were actually a Netflix production. Potato, potahto, am I right?
That is where everything changed for me. With the production being there, I assumed it would help my career progress in the right direction.
The prison fight preparation
I got back into training four weeks before the actual fight. I felt so well rested once I got back into the gym. All my conditioning sessions were going amazing. At the end of the first week, I had to go to Chiang Mai, and it was during the peak of the burning season. The sky over there was black, and you could barely see anything in the distance.
You can obviously guess what happened. I had issues with my lungs; it started slowly, but at the beginning of the third week, my cardio was nonexistent. It got so bad that the trainers got worried because they noticed the sudden drop in my performance.
Out of desperation, I took a day off during that week. That Friday, I just went to the gym and did some light work. The next day, I was lucky to get paired up with a new trainer at the gym. He came to visit to help out due to the large number of fighters present at the gym.
He noticed something was off with my cardio, so I told him I was sick. Once he knew I had a couple of more days to recover, he let it slide and gave me some light work on the pads.
The following days, I didn’t train just to make sure my body could recover.
The main goal was to get fit for the fight, and at that point, I had no clue if that was possible.
Next week, I’ll cover the days leading up to the fight and the fight itself.
On training and fighting in Thailand
Thinking about coming to train or fight in Thailand? Like mentioned before, not learning about the culture is one of the biggest mistakes you could make.
That is why I wrote my e-book to fully prepare you for your upcoming trip. You can buy it here.
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram.
Until next time.
Alex
