Shall We Dance?

In Bangkok last week, Thailand's Chamroen Songkitrat squared off with Algeria's Robert Cohen for the bantamweight championship of the world. Early in the fight, a right cross broke Chamroen's nose and splattered blood all over the ring; for 15 rounds both men whaled away at each other furiously. Chamroen was beaten on points. By western standards it was a lively scrap, but to Thais it looked like a mild family argument.

Shortly before the Cohen bout, Bangkok fight fans took in some home-style boxing in Rajadamnern Stadium, and found it more to their taste. Before a typical bout a pair of lithe welterweights, Sriswasdi Thiamprasidth and Kaeh Chomsrimesk, bowed gracefully to the crowd, knelt on the canvas for prayers to Buddha, and warmed up with a graceful, slow-motion dance. Then the gong sounded for the first round, an energetic four-piece band swung into a tune that sounded like an old-fashioned American carnival hootchy-kootchy, and the fighters started dancing in earnest.

Sriswasdi charged out of his corner, butted Kaeh in the chest, kicked him in the thigh, and clipped him on the back of the neck with a wicked elbow. By the middle of the second round, both fighters were smeared with blood. The music rose to a frenzied tattoo. With every blow, the 8,000 Thais in the stadium chanted for more blood. Sriswasdi jerked Kaeh's head down and kneed him viciously under the chin, blocked a feeble counterpunch, spun his man around and jabbed at his ribs with both elbows. Dazed, his opponent backed away. Sriswasdi took aim and kicked him in the groin, finished him off with a knee in the belly. The crowd screamed approval.

Glass in the Gum. Such biweekly settos are a "reformed" remnant of medieval tournaments in which Thai warriors jousted with sword and lance from the backs of elephants. Once a man was unseated, the fight was finished on foot, without weapons. After a while Thais stopped bothering with elephants and did all their scrapping hand to hand. Fighters took to wrapping their fists and forearms with cotton twine, dipping the resulting gauntlets into gum and sprinkling them liberally with broken glass. Before a fight, the gum was allowed to harden until a man's arm became a club. There were no weight limits, no rounds--only a punctured coconut shell floating in a container of water. The fight continued until the shell sank, or until one of the boxers fell unconscious or dead.

For centuries Thailand supported this formalized mayhem, but in 1934 the government decided to civilize boxing. Fighters were forced to wear four-ounce gloves, bouts were limited to five three-minute rounds, and some basic rules were established (no biting, gouging, or kicking a man who was down). Today the sport is controlled by the national police department, and Thailand supports some 500 professional fighters. Buddhist bonzes (priests) box for exercise, and the prefight prayer is an important ritual.

Full of All Actions. Since weekly boxing is one of Bangkok's biggest tourist attractions, the fight programs have helpful and somewhat startling translations for English-speaking visitors. After Welterweight Sriswasdi Thiamprasidth won his $50 purse, the traveling sportsman could have got a bet down in the next event on another "youngster full of all actions with never retreat, who loves the give and take method to provide sensation for fans to their hearts' content."

Some Thai fighters get so expert at their special form of assault and battery that they run out of opponents. Often, to keep busy they try western-style boxing on the side (Chamroen, Robert Cohen's opponent in last week's western-style bout, is also his country's featherweight, bantamweight and lightweight champion, Thai style). But without their music, forbidden to use their feet, forced to depend on their padded fists, most Thai fighters are hamstrung. Effete westerners, Thai fans agree, have ruined a fine, manly sport with foolish rules.

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