Howdy party animals,
It’s been a pretty hectic week, but last weekend was absolutely BANANAS!!!

It was one of those weekends that made me realize how much I love this game and that I’m really willing to do a ton to have as much of an impact in this sport as possible.
On Friday, I headed up to Lion Fight in Connecticut for Lion Fight. The trip took just about 5

1/2 hours door to door. It had been worse, but certainly had been better getting up to the Foxwoods resort. I had been asked by Petch Banchamek to work the corner of the main event of the night. He would take on Jo Nattuwat for the Lion Fight 155 lb title. It was an absolute honor be asked to work the corner of the biggest event in North America for the main event and coach a fighter with almost 400 professional fights and a list of accomplishments under his many, many belts.

As expected the fight was a beautiful display of Muay Thai. It was amazing to be 3 feet outside the ropes and witness that level of mastery firsthand. It made me want to be better. Though many (including myself) thought that Petch did enough to win the fight, the decision was awarded to Jo, and he retained the Lion Fight title belt.

The next morning, I was scheduled to teach a seminar at Renzo Gracie, PA in Hatfield. I had to make the trip home after the fights to get back to get some sleep. I said some hellos to a few friends at the after party, and got back on the road around half-past midnight to get home around 5:00 AM. I woke up and got up to Hatfield to show the dudes whats up. It was a good turnout of a solid crew of students and fighters to learn some new stuff. I showed them a few of my favorite drills, talked some shop, told a couple stories, and said goodbye to the crew. It was a pretty great time, actually.

Next, I hustled back to Philly to snag Mike, Aaron, and Julia, so we could head up to Queens, NY and watch Kenny and Kevin do their thing.

Almost 4 hours later, we got to the event, and met the boys, who had weighed in comfortably and were getting ready to do the deed.

Kevin was up first, but still much later in the card, 9th out of 20 fights. He looked great in his fight, cleanly landing beautiful technique throughout the fight. He slowed a bit halfway through the fight, but caught his wind and finished strong. It was a dominating performance from Kevin, who is quickly improving every time he steps in the ring. That was his 3rd fight in the matter of a couple short months, and he’ll be competing again in 2 weeks on the USKA card in South Philly.

The co-main event of the evening was our tallest of homeboys, Mr Kenny “Juggernaut” Jones. He came out hard and RIPPED his opponent with a body kick that caused his opponent to drop and actually wave his hands as if to say he did not want to continue. After a leisurely count to 9, the fighter showed that he wanted to continue, and the fight went on. Kenny used diligent basic technique and smashed his opponent for 2 rounds, before his coach threw in the towel before the last round would begin.

It was a great night for Stay Fly Muay Thai, who looked like some of the best technicians on a card stacked with fighters from some of the most respected gyms in the northeast. It made me proud to be their coach and see them do the work and represent us the way we want to be seen.

I’m proud of this thing that we’ve built. I’m proud of the people who fly our flag and show support. Thanks to all of you guys out there fighting the good fight. It means a lot.
On to the next one, which will be even before I can catch my breath.

A weekend filled with Muay Thai, and about 17 hours in the car…no better job in the world than this.

STAY FLY, KIDS
-Justin

Video of the events: