On Friday a friend of mine had decided that he would try his hand at Cambodian boxing. Sounds quite foolish but he is a trained Thai kickboxer and has been in many fights. His was the 5th fight of the night. We first saw the top Cambodian fighter (win of course) and a few other games before my friend Medhi was "on".
Being a white woman with a big camera during fight number 4 I decided to ask the army man guarding the free area around the ring - "som" [that means please] and point at my camera. The hope being that he would allow me to stand right up against the ring. This is Cambodia - and so the reply was "yes". From a distance the fights didn't look so bad but up close you could really see the power behind the kicks and the punches.
Medhi's fight was definately the most entertaining as he and his opponent went in for the "kill" straight away and there was far more kicking than in the other matches. We were surprised when Medhi was called out because he was up and fighting. Apparently, we discovered later that in Khmer boxing if you touch the floor 3 times you are out - it doesn't matter if you just slip or get up right away. A second reason also was that as the fight was being filmed the scheduled air time had run out and the TV people wanted to make sure they covered the full fight!!!
Being a white woman with a big camera during fight number 4 I decided to ask the army man guarding the free area around the ring - "som" [that means please] and point at my camera. The hope being that he would allow me to stand right up against the ring. This is Cambodia - and so the reply was "yes". From a distance the fights didn't look so bad but up close you could really see the power behind the kicks and the punches.
Medhi's fight was definately the most entertaining as he and his opponent went in for the "kill" straight away and there was far more kicking than in the other matches. We were surprised when Medhi was called out because he was up and fighting. Apparently, we discovered later that in Khmer boxing if you touch the floor 3 times you are out - it doesn't matter if you just slip or get up right away. A second reason also was that as the fight was being filmed the scheduled air time had run out and the TV people wanted to make sure they covered the full fight!!!
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