“Evolved Fighting” MuayThai Event
On the East Coast of the United States, a few “hotbeds” of MuayThai can be found from Boston down to Atlanta. One such hotbed of MuayThai is Philadelphia, PA where promoter Angel Cartagena holds his “Evolved Fighting” MuayThai event every 3 months.
This event has steadily grown in size over the last few years, and is now seeking to move into a larger arena than the facility it currently calls home, which has a seating capacity near 2000 people. The popularity of this combat sport has begun to rival that of Boxing and even the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, whose most popular event, the UFC, now draws a greater pay-per-view audience than the most anticipated boxing matches.
The Evolved Fighting event series used to feature a hybrid of MuayThai & K-1 styles of kickboxing, but over the course of the last year, the demand for pure MuayThai has caused the event to shift its focus, and the promoter and his officials have begun to focus their energies on proper training for their referees and judges. Fighters are therefore finding themselves needing to learn and utilize traditional MuayThai fighting techniques and master their clinch in order to remain successful in the ring.
On November 30, 2007 and new head official, Kru Brooks Miller, was brought in to help educate the officials on proper MuayThai scoring, ensuring that the matches were all scored fairly. Kru Brooks held a meeting with the event officials in the afternoon prior to the event to review Thai scoring practices and give the judges the opportunity to ask questions and be sure they were all in agreement on the criteria. Kru Brooks also had the opportunity to speak with the fighters themselves, helping to clarify for them what is and is not legal in MuayThai, most especially the tactics employed in the clinch.
The event itself featured twelive bouts, all of which were very evenly matched by the promoter, Angel Cartagena. Most of the evenings fighters were novices, but all were well coached and displayed good skills and sportsmanship. A few of the bouts featured experienced fighters, and these matches were especially exciting for the crowd.
Tags: Evolved Fighting