'We will never have champions if fighters can’t start young.' Getting to know Thailand's child fighters

Kids as young as seven are still taking part in Muay Thai fighting, despite the known risks including the death of a teen fighter last year.

Source: Dateline

Promo: After the death of a child boxer, is Muay Thai an ancient art form or child abuse? Watch Thailand's Child Fighters On Demand.

It’s after 11pm, in a small village in the Thai province of Chaiyaphum. It’s a school night.

Two-by-two, young Muay Thai fighters take to the ring. They trade punches, kicks and knees to various parts of their bodies – including their small heads.

Each impact sends arcs of sweat flying through bright sodium lighting and into darkness.

Muay Thai – or Thai kickboxing – is a beloved national sport here, and has been for centuries. However it’s facing modern-day scrutiny in the wake of the tragic death of a young fighter after a Muay Thai bout.

Anucha Tasako was 13-years-old; and 13-years is as old as he ever got to be. He was knocked out in November last year, fighting a charity boxing match in the Bangkok suburb of Samut Prakarn. Anucha died of a massive brain aneurism that doctors attributed to the 170 professional Muay Thai matches he’d fought since the age of eight.

Doctors said Anucha had just been hit in the head too many times for his young brain to cope.

His death caused shock in Thailand, and beyond. The Minister of Tourism and Sports in Bangkok called for a ban on professional fighting for children under 15 years old – a suggestion that may seem reasonable to many outside of Thailand; but is scandalous within the Muay Thai community.

7,000 kilometres away in Los Angeles I was saddened to read of Anucha’s death, and watched with interest as this new debate raged in Thailand. Should child fighters – in many ways the backbone of this skilful yet incredibly violent sport – be banned from entering the ring? I wanted to meet those calling for a change in Muay Thai law, and also to meet the children who would be affected by it.

And that’s how I ended up in a small village fighting ring, at 11pm on a school night, watching a kid called Phuripat Poolsuk fight.

The life of a young Muay Thai champion like Phuripat involves a training regime that can be as brutal as the fights themselves. Phuripat is up at 4.30 every morning – running for hours, doing hundreds of situps, and sparring with his dad, who is also his trainer. Phuripat is a small 13-year-old who looks more like he’s eight or nine. He’s a fierce fighter who has never been knocked out in the ring - although he tells me that he once bit off half of his own tongue when he was hit during a training session.

For Phuripat, Muay Thai is a deep mix of tradition, pride and culture. It’s also income for his family.

Many young fighters quickly become the main breadwinners for poor rural communities – who, perhaps naturally, tend to encourage as many big-paying fights as possible to alleviate the financial strains of village life in modern Thailand.

Phuripat doesn’t feel exploited, however – he has a genuine love for the sport of Muay Thai and couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t allowed to fight professionally. His proud grandfather tells me a youth-fighting ban would cripple the sport. 'They have to start young to get their boxing bones,' he says. 'We will never have champions if fighters can’t start young.'

It’s not unusual for Thai kids to turn pro around the age of seven or eight. I’ve seen highly competitive fighting, with no protective gear and full hits to the head between six-year-olds. This is concerning for those in the business of studying brains, like Professor Jiraporn Laothammatas, who is one of the strongest voices calling for a ban on junior Muay Thai.

She shows me scans of hundreds of cross sections of young brains, looking like walnuts, with tell-tale splotches. “Old blood accumulation,” she says. Bleeds on the brain never dissipate – they stay on board and can cause problems like Anucha’s aneurysm. More common than untimely death, is the lower IQ and memory loss.

“We are sacrificing our children, which means we’re sacrificing our future,” she says. ‘What about the Muay Thai fighters that go on to fame and fortune?’ I ask. “You’re only looking at the ones that win,” Jiraporn replies. “When there are two people in the ring, there’s always one that loses.”

Change won’t come easily to laws around Muay Thai. Many in the mega-rich gambling industry believe that kids fight harder, are less corruptible, and more entertaining than adult fighters in the Muay Thai ring. Any politician trying to restrict the gambling masses in rural Thailand will likely find themselves unpopular. And because rural people tend to vote more, moves towards child safety in the boxing ring will likely come with political demise for those who propose them.

As far as child wellbeing goes, a well-meaning law could also have the result of pushing the sport underground, thereby removing the few protections child fighters currently have.

After getting to know young fighter, Phuripat, I learn he would love to be a film-maker. As I bid him farewell, I imagine him directing epic Muay Thai movies. It’s 3am, and I need to go to the airport. Phuripat will be at school in a few hours. Driving through the unlit backroads of rural Thailand, I realise that as the memory of Anucha’s death becomes more distant, so does the prospect of legislation or change for Thailand’s child fighters.