Sean's email write-up of his fight in Kazakhstan for the WMC Intercontinental Title, March 2007:
This was my first fight in a couple of months, mainly due to my right shin being left in a fairly mushy mess after my last outing. With a couple of weeks notice, I managed to get myself in pretty good nick. My walking about weight sits at about 75kg these days. It's pure muscle by the way, not podge. Really, I'm a machine. Anyway, with the fight being matched at 72kg, everything seemed okay. Oh, and by the way, I also had the questionable pleasure of going to Kazakstan for a week where the fights were being held. Yeah. Kazakstan. Home of Borat, frigid wastelands, and sneaky Kazak fucks who smile approximately once a week and only when shafting you for the umpteenth time over the weigh-in. More of that later.
In any case, just to set the scene, Kazakstan lies immediatley north of the Himalayas, borders Russia, China and a whole bunch of other nondescript former soviet states ending in 'stan'. The weather varies somewhere between 'subzero' and 'so far below zero as to not being condusive with supporting life'. We arrived as things were warming up. It was only -15 degrees. In terms of the people, they were okay. No one smiles much in Kazakstan. Then again if I was stuck living in a poverty ridden sub arctic wasteland whose government managed a pitiful 6 on the scale of human rights recently (with 1 being good and 7 being completely shit), then I suppose I wouldn't have much to smile about either. In actual fact, Almaty (the southern capital, where we arrived) reminded me a bit of Easterhouse (just outside Glasgow, Scotland), only the size of a large city, obviously, and colder. Also, as a footnote, people are always walking about in groups of two or three, either whispering suspiciously to one another, trying to look inconspicous, or bundling large packages into the back of their cars. All very shady. Anyway, just to wind things up with some more sweeping generalisations:
Kazaks like...
Anyway, moving on, Andy and I set off from Chiang Mai and fly down to Bangkok to meet Stephan Fox and the other fighters that are going with us. For those of you that don't know, Stephan Fox is the vice president of the WMC (World Muay Thai Council). At least I think he is. He may be something else now. Either way, he's the guy pulling the strings in Thailand for us. As it turns out, Stephan is on a later flight but we manage to meet up with the other guys regardless. Myself, Alex Dally from England, a French guy, a Swiss, a Thai and a guy from Hong Kong, plus another three trainers making ten of us in all. The fights are scheduled for the Friday, with the weigh in on the Thursday. It's a big show in Kazakstan, set up to celebrate the newly elected President (who as it turns out is a huge Muay Thai fan). In any case, there are four belts up for grabs. My fight is for the WMC Inter Continental Title at 72kg. We arrive in Almaty on Tuesday morning. There are lots of TV crews running about filming us. I won't go into detail. Suffice to say it's cold. And shit. Immigration are a bunch of wankers, even more miserable and humourless than the rest of the population. We arrive at our hotel. It's not COMPLETELY shit. Anyway, we all go for a sleep (6 hour flight left Bangkok at 3am), get some lunch later on, and at about 7pm head to the Kazaks gym for a quick training session.
Oh! We've been assigned an interpreter as well by the way, who despite being a humourless bastard certainly helps on the communication front as he introduces us to Farhad (a trainer/promoter/sneaky mother fucker who is organising the event in Kazakstan). Farhad is probably in his late thirties, well built, short dark hair, with a square, brick shaped head (ex boxer) and thin shifty eyes. Unlike most Kazaks he smiles a lot. I don't like him. I don't know it at this point, but Farhad is also a card carrying nutcase with his own band of three hundred mercenaries that he rents out to various countries around the world (really).
Now, things begin heading downhill fairly shortly, so if you'll just give me a minute to explain a couple of thing about weight cutting, we'll get right on it (I appreciate a lot of you know this stuff anyway, but I can guarantee my mum dosn't, so bear with me). I weigh about 75kg at the moment. I'm pretty damn ripped as well (that means low body fat mum). This fight is set at 72kg. This is not a problem. Dropping 3kg for a weigh in is easy and can be done safely... assuming you don't have a team of scheming fucking Kazaks fucking you around at every available opprtunity. It's Tuesday now. I'm 75kg. No Problem. I'm set to weigh in on Thursday and fight on Friday, giving me well over 24 hours to rehydrate/refuel before I need to fight. Or so I thought. After our training session (with all our Kazak opponents present), everyone has a quick check of their weight. All the Kazaks are bang on weight. We think nothing of it, and are told again the weigh-in is on Thursday. Fine. Farhad then tells us the fights themselves are also on Thursday. Shit. Okay, no big deal. A little unprofessional to leave it this late to tell us, but we can weigh in Thursday morning and fight at night. Not ideal, but still over 12 hours to rehydrate and refuel.
Either way, I still need to bring my weight down, so from here on in until the weigh in, I'm eating and drinking less and less to try and reach 72kg. Now the following morning (I'll skip all the boring shit of what I did that day, which was basically eat and drink very little, gobble herbal laxatives, and read my book) the second surprise is revealed. The weigh in time has been changed. It's now 1pm and the fights start at 7pm. This isn't ideal. I'm not cutting much weight (three kilos isn't too bad), but 6 hours to rehydrate and refuel really isn't that long. It can take in excess of 24 hours to fully hydrate, refuel and restore blood sugar levels. Plus, the actual fights are in Astana (the actual capital) which is a 1 and a half hour flight away. Sneaky mother fuckers. But there's not much to be done. That evening, the final surprise is revealed. The weigh in is now at 6pm, and the fights start at 7pm. Bastards. This is complete bullshit. There are a rules and regulations in place to prevent this sort of thing. It's completely unprofessional and incredibly dangerous for a fighter to be made to cut weight then fight only one hour later. Not good. Not good at all. Of course, the Kazak fighters were all perfectly on weight, so it won't be a problem for them.
Sneaky. Fucking. Kazaks.
In the UK or even in Thailand this would never have happened. Farhad really is taking the fucking piss now, but he knows as well as us that we're not going to come all the way from Bangkok and not fight, so's he's buying his fighters every advantage he can (even if it's completely against every regulation and guideline in the book). Farhads a fucking c-unit!
Thursday morning. The day of the fight. I'm very hungry. Very thirsty. I havn't drank in over 24 hours, and have gone the last two day almost with food. I should have weighed in by now and been eating and drink for the past three hours, but instead I find myself completely dehydrated, starving, on a plane to Astana three hours before the fight. We check into our new hotel (which I must say, was actually pretty goddam impressive), and just have time for a change of clothes before we're carted of to the fights. At 6:45pm we're sitting in a press conference room. We've been there 45 minutes. I'm very hungry. And thirsty. And pissed off.
Farhad, the smug Kazak fuck, is talking to a journalist and all the Kazak fighters are standing around in suits getting interviewed by TV crew. I'm slouched in the corner in my hoodie and jeans. I am not amused. 6:50pm. Ten minutes before we start. The press conference ends. Farhad comes over. "Okay everybody! 10 minutes we start! Everybody get ready!" "Are we weighing in then?" we ask. Blank confusion. "Weight? Check weight?" we ask. Blank confusion. Interpreter comes over. Chats to Farhad. Turns back to us. "Weigh-in already! Tuesday. Check weight!" You fucking little shit... It turns out out that very first training session two days ago when we first arrived was the official weigh-in. That explains why all the Kazaks were on weight. Farhad... you little fuck. Farhad smiles at me.
My opponent has been fueling himself for two days solid, has flown into Astana the day before, probably woken up fresh as a daisy this morning. I've not eaten or drank in two days and have been travelling for the better part of four hours. I want farhad to die. We manage to convey our predicament to Farhad, who puts it all down to a little language mix up (we put it down to him being a lying fuck) and sends someone to organise some food for us. The guy comes back with a plastic bag full of hotdogs an some 2 litre bottles of coke. Now you don't need a degree in sports nutrition to know that hot dogs and coca cola are not the best way of fuling yourself after two days of dehydration/starvation 10 minutes before a fight. Fuck it. I gobble a couple of hot dogs, manage to find some water, drink it, get warmed up, get my wraps on, and get myself ready to go out.
Mental state at this point: Surprisingly calm. After being so severely fucked over there would be nothing so satisfying as ripping a hole in someones head with the point of my elbow. It a big venue. An ice rink infact. Fox Sports is filming the whole thing. We've all got fancy sponsorship shorts on. There's lazer shows going on. A very big crowd. Then again, it's still Kazakstan. There's ice everywhere and curiously enough, horse shit as well (not that curious in fact, there are horses charging about everywhere as well). Anyway, my wrist is going numb from typing. How about I get to the damn point?
Round 1 Kazak guy like s to counter with his hands. has a decent right cross and also likes to throw roundhouses to the body. My distance dosn't feel great but I feel okay considering the past two days. I take it easy the first round (Thai style). he probably won the at round on the scorecards. Round 2 Kazak sterps yp the pacer a bit, tryin to mix up his boxing a bit more, throwing crosses and body hooks. Without sounding arrogant, my midsection is absolutely solid at the moment and I really don't feel the body shots, or the kicks. I catch him with a nice left hook with staggers him a bit, and also have some luck with right and left low kicks. He manages to throw me in the clinch, but not cleanly. I throw him a minute later, and do so much better than he did to me. Ha! Round 3 He tries to throw me in the clinch again. I roll back so hard on the way down I flip him clean over the top of me and land up sitting on his chest. He looks confused. I catch him with a couple of punches later in the round, and more and more low kicks. I also spike a cheeky elbow through his guard in the clinch, though nothing serious. A minute or two later he's beginning to look tired. I step forward, he backs up onto the rope. I step in. He puts his hands up. I pull then down with one hand and mash him in the chops with a particularly savage right elbow. I let him go. He falls over. Ref starts counting. I todle of to the neutral corner. He gets up by about the count of 5, wanders over to his corner and leans against the ropes bleeding everywhere, and generally dosn't want to play anymore. I win. Woo hoo.
Shiny WMC Inter Continental Title. Farhad has to present it to me. I smile at him. He smiles back. Well, more of a baring of teeth, but there we go. We head back to our plush 5 star hotel and order hideous amounts of room service. I wear my belt around everywhere. I can never sleep after a fight. I think I got about two hours sleep. I got back up at 6am, and went downstairs to the gym. I spent about 15 minutes inthe herbal sauna, feeling very much at peace and incredibly smug, them went for a swim. Big, fancy pool, totally deserted this time in the morning, with huge floor to ceiling windows surrounding it and looking out onto the minus twenty snow covered Astana. It's still dark outside and I spend a good twenty minutes floating around on my own. I'd forgotten how nice it is being warm inside when it's freezing cold outside. Afterwards, I dry myself of and head back upstairs where my breakfast is waiting for me curtesy of room service. We don't get back to Bangkok until Saturday. I decide to stay a day so I can get my xbox fixed (which I failed to do) and go out and get beastly drunk. Back in Chiang Mai now. No longer hung over. Ankle hurts a bit from smashing it off the Kazak though. Still feeling smug.