Ramon went to Thailand for a rematch with Nangpon in
Lumpinee only two months after their
first fight, on
24-04-1990. As might be expected, he lost that fight on points.
The Thais had asked him if he wanted to bring the belt with him. He didn’t
but it was a very good fight. It was his first time in Thailand, fighting
with elbows and using their rules. The temperature when he arrived was 40
degrees Celsius. He had trained at home, but had only one week before the
fight to train in Thailand – and in that heat.
As mentioned before, in Thailand you can’t win on points if you are a
foreigner. You can see fights where the foreigner fought for 5 rounds and
won at least 4 of the 5 rounds but still would lose the fight on points.
Well you can imagine the difficulties Ramon was facing there: the
temperature, the climate, their way of scoring the fight and of course the
Thais wanted him to lose because he had defeated their national pride. Ramon
had to be better in their national sport than their fighters. So, he had to
score a knockout and that was not always possible. |
| It’s a funny thing that under Muay Thai rules, the kicks
and the knees are counted more in the scoring. So, Dekkers had his own
unique way of imposing his will but the Thai was playing to the crowd and
Dekkers, even though he was giving everything he had, was not going to get
his decision this particular night. The Thai was doing everything he could
to keep that fight within the rules and within the scoring of the native
culture and within the scoring of Muay Thai itself. And even though Dekkers
tried some very fancy techniques, the Thai only seemed amused. As you can
imagine, the judges awarded the victory to the Thai as Dekkers, in his
heart, probably wanted some more of that man again. Did the crowd think that
Dekkers had won? Nobody knows. But many people around the world thought that
he had. |
