modified rules ?! first ive heard of it and ive been fighting here for 6 years.

for a short period about 4 years ago, the wmc banned elbows from their fights but out in the stadiums, that was never the case. and for the last while, all fights have been 5x3 minutes with elbows.

you might see occasionally see women fighting 5x 2 mins - but always with elbows. why ? dinosaur thinking from male promoters who think that women dont have the energy for 15 mins. its becoming rarer all the time and will soon be thing of the past. ( unlike in the west where 3 rounds seems to be normal for men and women - why ?! )

for the most part, i wouldnt say that the women who fight here are of any less standard than the western fighters - yes, they like to clinch but you might have noticed that thai men are kinda into the grappling as well !!

the standard is lower among women in general here than for the men, but thats only an historical issue and is something that's changing pretty rapidly.

the biggest problem with comparing western and thai women is that very few western women come over here and the Thais are reluctant to send their young figthers to europe etc for fear of what might happen to them ( dont need to spell this out i think ! )

fighters like amy birch, shana beaver, ilonka elmont and lisa haughton-smith who have mande the jounney out here will agree that there are some very scary individuals out here indeed.

women are still banned from lumpini, rajdamnern but outside bangkok there are womens fights on most shows on a weekly basis.

the queens birthday show will showcase some of the best fighters here - be interesting to see the results. the one to watch will be daoprasuk petchopas = recognised as the best in the country, not defeated for about 3 years - including many foreigners.

sao