Pra Chao Suua was the fifth gym for the Fight Record team to visit and what a success it turned out to be. Let’s start at the beginning of the journey, 12.45 Thursday afternoon. Bags were packed and the car fuelled up. Ready to hit the road for a 3 and a half hour journey, covering nearly 200 miles to get to the Pra Chao Suua facility. Dom had to be back on the road at 4 am on Friday morning because he was going away so we had to be back on the same night.
When we arrived in the Midlands, we were there to meet Nathan Bendon, who does train at Pra Chao Suua but he wasn’t able to make it to the gym on the night, so had asked us if we were able to make it to his place. His unit on the outskirts of West Bromwich is a brilliant facility. A nice, wide open space with a ring, bag rack, toilet and changing facilities. We got the photos that we needed and then caught up with Nathan ‘on the record’ with an interview, covering his journey in the sport so far, looking forward in 2018 and his upcoming fight with Shaw. We spoke a lot about his upcoming fight with Shaw.
After Nathan’s images were taken and we had finished the interview, it was time to get packed up in the car and venture to Pra Chao Suua in Willenhall. When we were told by Bendon that we may struggle to find it, we thought it would be okay, lo and behold, when we got there. We struggled. Someone saw us wandering around and asked us if we were looking for the gym. We walked in and Dean James was taking a junior class.
When I had spoken with Tony Myers previous to our arrival, he said ‘The gym focuses on training in Muay Thai as it is done in Thailand’ and that was very clear when we were there. Sam Omomogbe was there when we arrived and was getting ready for his session. The gym was a very simple set up, no fancy equipment just a want to train hard and develop. Introducing ourselves to all the fighters, letting them know what Fight Record is all about, what we hope to achieve and why we were there on the day. Some of them already had knowledge of who Fight Record was because of the posts that have been put out over the past week. The fighters were very welcoming of us and made our jobs incredibly easy. Macauley Coyle had a good catch up with Dom about the development of Muay Thai and how important the ‘entertainment’ aspect of the sport is, especially in the west.
After we finished getting the media that we set out to get, we got a few selfies for social media, said our goodbyes and was back on the road. Another 3 and a half hour journey back up north. A very long day driving was made worth it with the love for the people who we get to meet and the opportunities that arise with every next step made with Fight Record. The interest and hype are awesome to see.
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