Has boxer Buakaw given up losing?
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His countrymen have high hopes for kick-boxer Buakaw Por Pramuk, a national hero whose fights overseas have also earned him fans in Europe and Japan.
December 18 will be crucial.
Buakaw will be in the ring at the Royal Plaza that day against fancied Australian Frank Giorgi, the reigning contender of muay thai and the front edge to ever-increasing foreign interest in Siamese elbows.
As CNN reported recently, Buakaw is a tourist attraction, with lots of foreigners coming to see him fight, even if they’re not signing up for lessons.
He took up the sport at age eight, reasoning that he couldn’t do anything else quite so well. He joined the Por Pramuk boxing camp, took the ring name Dam-tamil – and lost all four of his first matches at Lumpini Stadium.
“I looked around at the winners and thought, ‘I’ve got no future in this,’” he says. Fortunately, his fighting spirit prevailed, and then his feet and fists. Just watch them fly the weekend after next.
Oman, oh man
Celebrity scammer Nathan Oman was among the 10,000-plus prison inmates who’ve just been sprung by royal pardon. The singer-and-sometime-actor still had three months to go on his one-year sentence for conning people out of money and declining to repay.
You’d think his family would have shown up at the front door of the prison when he was released, but no. The only person there for him was a songwriter pal (jailhouse blues a speciality).
Nathan looked quite healthy and seemed cheerful enough nonetheless while he offered yet another apology for being an idiot.
He said he plans to get back into the music business again. Evidently he’s written some tunes himself and will also release a guide to avoiding prison (by doing no wrong, primarily).
Well, Soopsip always said his life would make an interesting plot for a movie or TV series. (Dare we add stage musical?) As long as he doesn’t start claiming the project will involve major Hollywood stars.
