From outside it doesn’t look like much, but inside Lumpini Stadium are generations of Muay Thai history.
Six decades of that history will come to a close Friday when top fighters gather to close Lumpini Stadium with a final storm of punishing elbow and knee strikes.
Petboonchu Borplaboonchu and Seanchai PKSaenchaimuaythaigym (Yep, that’s his name) are among the marquee fighters who will enter the ring of the ramshackle stadium near Lumpini Park.
The stadium will live on – at least in name. After managing the downtown stadium since 1956, the Royal Thai Army decided to find a bigger venue outside the clogged arteries of the downtown core. On Tuesday the new stadium, which can seat 3,500, will open its doors on Ram Intra Road, Bangkok Post reported.
It may have the same name, but it will be impossible to transplant the mystique of the storied stadium, which is a sacred site to muay Thai fighters and fans the world over.
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Watch the Coconuts TV video on gambling at the Lumphini fights here!
Photo: Kwanz
