BBQ Beatdown

Once a month Tiger Muay Thai hosts an event they call the BBQ beatdown which is a night filled of food, drink, dancing and of course fighting. The idea of the night is to get everyone who trains and works hard every day together for a night of relaxation and to let their hair down. The cost of the tickets include an amazing buffet style BBQ and inclusive drinks (until they all run out!) and then a ring side view of all of the armature fights that take place during the evening.

The brilliant thing about the beatdown is that it actually gives you a chance to start having a good chat to all of the people that you keep seeing about all the time training and meet a lot of new people that are all like minded and have been working hard. Since it takes place onsite at Tiger it gets most people involved and even gets all the trainers partying along with students which can be quite a funny site.

I arrived shortly after the doors opened and bumped into Alex as she arrived and then it only took a few moments for us to find Rhi and Josefine who had already grabbed us a table for base camp before it started to really fill up. In next to no time more and more people piled in and suddenly the place was packed. Rhi and Josefine decided to go on a mission to fetch beer and for a while we though they were gone for good as it took about 15 mins for them to finally come back. True trooper that they are though they brought all they could carry to fill up our table for as long as possible. Our group slowly grew in numbers and eventually we had to start playing musical chairs to make sure that whoever was eating was able to sit down and actually enjoy their food, however it turned out to be timed quite well as one person would finish just as another was making their way back from the buffet so that wasn’t too much hassle.

During the beatdown all of the fights that take place are with armatures that are training at Tiger and most of the fights this time happen to be from people in the beginners class. It is great to watch as these are not seasoned fighters or people who has been training months specifically for this moment in the ring. In general they are just normal people that have been here for a few weeks and have stuck their name down to see how they can do and for that they are much braver men than me.

The first few fights were real slugfests with everyone trading punches and then going into clinches after a few hits with left the decision in the hands of the judges in the end. Quite a few of the fights were quite evenly matched which made them great to watch, however there was one specific fight that really wasn’t and did get a few people a bit annoyed. Alan is a Scottish guy that been here about 4 weeks and had never done Muay Thai before coming. He was a true beginner in every sense of the word but also a great sport and just wanted one go in the ring before heading home today. He stuck his name down and ended up getting matched up with a Canadian guy who had much more experience. The Canadian had been training in the beginners class at Tiger, however he had been training Muay Thai for a few years and had had a few fights before and so it obviously wasn’t going to be a fair fight at all. Even though Alan found out about this way before the fight he still decided to go ahead with it and was quite happy and jovial about it all as he was just there to have some fun and have a good fight.

To say the fight didn’t quite go Alans way is a bit of an understatement! In the first 30 seconds or so he dropped his guard twice and it was capitalised on, catching him on the chin and knocking him to the mat. Twice he was almost counted out by the ref and no one would have though any less of him for dropping out, yet this man got back to his feet and carried on, still smiling and still as happy as ever. After that the Canadian guy was a bit more sporting and avoided head shots for a little while, instead going for leg kicks or body shots to make the fight last a bit longer. The fight continued into the second round but it wasn’t long before Alan was caught with another punch that sent him to the mat and the ref called off the fight. It was an honourable performance from a man that had only been training in the sport for a few weeks and I think that opinion was shared by the crowd who continued to chant “Alan” and “Scotland” even after he had been classed as a TKO and the other guy was announced as the winner.

Alan is the type of guys that really makes this place great and is what sportsmanship is all out. Even after the fight was over he could still be found having a drink with his opponent and didn’t have any hard feelings towards him at all, just a smile on his face and jolly as ever. Everyone in the place thought Alan was going to lose (which he did) but even so he didn’t let it stop him getting in the ring anyway. The thing is the fight wasn’t for everyone else. It wasn’t for us all to ohh and ahh over and place our bets on. It was one guy trying to have a go at something that he had no chance of winning and he really didn’t care. He can now go home with his head held high knowing that he stepped into a ring and got back up every time he was knocked down and that is more than you can say for a lot of people (me included). As he makes his way back home to Scotland today I know that he will be missed by many people here at the camp, especially for his positive and jovial attitude to everything camp life has to offer.

Once all the fights were over it was time to start the parting and there is nowhere that takes the saying “Train Hard, Party Hard” more literally than everyone here at TMT! As the music was cranked up and think drinks started to flow everyone hit the dance floor and the party was in full swing. As always Rhi and Alex were the life of the party with their very “unique” dance moves that may have been slightly fuelled by alcohol.

What is really great about having a bit party with everyone from tiger is that you are getting to hang out and relax with all the people that you see day in and out training at full speed every day. even though you will have a quick chat or a glance with someone after training, most of the conversations are basically “How are you?” “Tired and dead, you?” “Pretty much the same”, before everyone heads of back to their hotels or apartments etc. to grab a shower and prepare for the next session. Seeing everyone just having fun and doing stupid dances was great and everyone was getting along like one big happy family.

Yet again this was another awesome night with awesome people. I know that seems like my go-to phrase when talking about this place, but everyone I meet here is really friendly and all have the same mentality when it comes to having some fun and enjoying themselves which is great. I don’t have many more nights to go before I need to leave but I certainly enjoyed this one.