Vuyisile Colossa from South Africa competed in the AXN Network series The Challenger Muay Thai and was given a biased decision loss - AXN Photo

Pidsanu KunchatI from Thailand competes in the AXN Network series The Challenger Muay Thai- AXN Photo

Cedric Muller from France competed in the AXN Network series The Challenger Muay Thai - AXN photo

Video Beat MAX - AXN's CHALLENGER MUAY THAI

James Loving - National Radio Text Service

Questionable decisions lend itself to discrimination and racism. Could this be another case of money talks and the truth walks as in advertising dollars and regional appeal? This show is a bit dull but more seriously it is selfish and uncaring. They value producing a TV program more than protecting a person's life - Recommended TV Listings

Thursday November 24, 2011

THE TOUGH GET GOING

Having observed and reviewed the previous Challenger Muay Thai and The Challenger boxing series from the USA on the AXN television Network this appears to be the strangest of them all. Last year AXN promoted that here would be a series that never happened. Now it's on a year late. The question is what happened? Why late?

Obviously putting together a cast of fighters that would make themselves available could be a tough sell depending on the fighters making a commitment to be in a contest that could cost them money that they could be making while they are consuming time in Malaysia to video the show while being away from their family or loved ones. The AXN set up the scene for its current version on the web site with the following.

From Malaysia, Thailand to Israel and South Africa, the motley crew of fighters trail blaze an impressive track record both in their countries and in the international arena, with numerous championship titles under their belts. With ages ranging from 18 to 35, the caliber of fighters is certainly unparalleled. Some have started their training since the tender age of seven, while others have fought The Contender Asia champion Yodsanklai and even won. With intimidating monikers like 'The Cheetah', 'The Sniper' and 'Black Dynamite', it is clear that the boys are not in town to play. With such high stakes, each and every fighter will not go down without a fight!

The previous series The Contender Asia was televised three years ago with the winner being from Thailand Yodsanklai. Clearly Yodsanklai was the best of the bunch of fighter that weren't so good. Some of those that competed in the competition came to Cambodia and lost to Khmer fighters. The current crop of fighters is much better with superior credentials. But hey…. something is wrong with this picture and it emerged two weeks ago in a quarter final match when Thai fighter Pidsanu Kunchat took on black South African Vuyisile Colossa 28.

In the second round Colossa hit Kunchat with a shot that rocked him against the ropes and he went down. It was arguably by far the hardest punch in the tournament and most certainly the hardest punch in this fight. For the remainder of the fight Colossa was all over his opponent but in the recap of the bout the Thai was given too much credit for clinching and knees to the body that did nothing to Colossa. The decision went to the Thai. That decision leaped up as a BIG RED FLAG. The result being was for us to see what the backgrounds of the fighters were.

Colossa has a record of 40 fights | Wins: 28 | Loss: 12 | KO: 14 | Draw: 0 | Titles: 5, of his NOW 13 losses 12 came by decision. His only clear loss was in his fourth Muay Thai fight when he was KO'd in Liverpool England to a Brit Neil Woods in 2003. In addition Colossa has a mixed martial arts record of 4 W - 1 L.

After the fight a Challenger TV show trainer came into Colossa's dressing room and said that's fighting. What we took from that comment is you win some and you lose some even though Colossa clearly won the fight. The question we then raised was why such an unfair decision? Though Colossa is older Kunchat has more experience with a record of 136 fights | Wins: 90 | Loss: 40 | KO: 27 | Draw: 6 | Titles: 5.

Tonight is the last of the quarter finals. Those that have qualified for the semifinals are from Brittan, France and Thailand. The show is produced in Malaysia but the Malaysian fighter lost to a Frenchman Antoine Pinto 20, after dominating the fight for four rounds but got careless in the final minute and took a leg kick to his temple and he blacked out and went down. That was a fair result.

Colossa has fought Contender Asia Champion Yodsanklai as many as 4 times and finally beat him in 2010. One of his losses to Yodsanklai was a decision in Bangkok. His three losses to the Thai were all by decision with only one being unanimous.

Our conclusion about this TV show is it is ruled by location being in the Southeast Asian region the Thai will win. We base that largely on the primary sponsor of the program (MONEY) comes from Thai sportswear company JBT.

The other problem is that an injured fighter Cedric Muller was cajoled into fighting a fight that he didn't want to fight after he suffered a concussion in his previous fight and lost his memory while bleeding horrifically from a cut on the top of his head from an elbow during the bout. The Frenchman at 35 is the oldest fighter in the competition. When he fought last week he still couldn't remember his previous fight and wanted to quit the competition and retire. The shows trainer sold him on the true fighters never quit and the samurai death to the end bullshit so he fought.

Luckily he didn't take any serious blows to the head from his opponent Jordan Watson 23, from Britain. Watson focused on leg swipes that repeatedly took Muller to the canvas. It is widely known in sports that severe concussions can lead to death thus this fight should never have happened. It appears that the program didn't have any back-up plan or budget to protect a fighter in case of injury. Muller should have been replaced as fighters were in the original two series of The Challenger boxing competition produced in America.

This show is a bit dull but more seriously it is selfish and uncaring. They value producing a TV show more than protecting a person's life.

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