Interview with Emanuele manager of Sor.Wisarut in Pai (TH)

Muay farang runs fast and every month there are new promoters looking to work with us, new boxers willing to be promoted and thai camps that wish different kinds of co-operation. Muay farang was born from a philosophy that who follows us knows very well, and we casually found this philosophy at Sor. Wisarut, a camp located in Pai, in the deep north of Thailand , and only for being managed by an italian, it is de facto ‘muay farang’.

We asked him to tell us his interesting story and he kindly agreed:

>”My name is Emmanuele Corti, i’m 32 years old coming from Trieste and I live with my wife Supannee (Mam) in Pai, a small town 130 km east of Chiang Mai close to the burmese border, a place that has become known in the last few years due to activities

such as eco trekking thru the hill tribe villages and rafting expeditions. In the last 10 years I’ve been living in this country, Australia and Italy for fighting, and at the end I have decided to move to Thailand.

Me and my wife wanted to follow together our great passion for muay thai and, considering that we met each others in a camp, we eventually took over a gym. My wife knew about a little camp located just out of town, beside knewing personally its owner, Mr. Wisarut, who could no longer manage it full time because he wanted to join politics, and he was actually looking for a strong willing person that could take over following his spirit, which was raising new boxers.

The gym itself was really thai style, a couple of broken heavybags and tyres, a small mirror and a ring covered by a roof of leaves….everything was in fact missing, but it was present the most important thing in my opinion, a lot of young thai and burmese refugees attending it with passion.

So, found the agreement with Mr. Wisarut, and personally assured him that he could always take part to the gym’s life and that i would have mostly focused on the sport side despite selling lessons to farang willing to enjoy a ‘cool and exotic’ experience for publishing pictures on facebook, after having fixed and made more suitable the establishment for the training we started with 2 trainers.

I got to admit that at the beginning there was much distrust in a farang owning, cornering and even help training young thai fighters (thing that has never been seen before in this remote area of Thailand), but in less than 3 months we have been able to put together an interesting group of both male and female “nak muay” aged between 11 and 19 years old becoming in this way one of the most productive “Kai Muay” of the province. Together with the group of the locals we train foreign students on a 2 daily sessions schedule, always focusing and promoting the competitive side more than the commercial one, and we have collected positive results both with male and females in different promotions of northern Thailand against valued local fighters.

Nowadays we got as trainers Sakmongkon Sor. Pleonchit(Head trainer, Muay Mat), Denyaso F.A. Group and Mr. Wisarut (assistant trainers- Muay Kao and Fimeau), with myself taking care mostly of the phisical conditioning as still fighting.My next match will be in Maehongson against a rising Thai fighter. During this year we have been active in improving the equipment and structurally enlarging our little camp and we now offer 3 bungalows for the foreign students staying on a long term basis, beside having opened a small restaurant serving Thai food, and we also started a co-operation with the temple and the local school in order to promote muay thai as an alternative oppurtunity for kids coming from difficult situations.

What do you think about the idea and the project Muay Farang?

In many years i have been living in Thailand, I believe that Muay Farang has been the very first management able to give real visibility and develop with continuity foreign fighters in a well known closed environment such as muay thai made in Thailand.

For the first time I have seen offered matches that were giving our boxers(farang) a real rising oppurtunity, and not the usual shows put up only to enhance the quality of the Thais compared to farang opponents not ready yet, and most of the times sent to the massacre by careless managers and promoters.

My only regret is that this project didn’t start 10 years ago when i moved my first steps in this country, i would surely joined it and it would made my carrer easier.

Muay Farang thanks Emmanuele , Mam and Sor. Wisarut Muay Thai all and who knows if it would’t soon become Sor. Wisarut Muay Farang, we would be proud of it!!

Chok Dee