Thai twins tough boxers

Press, 22 January 1988, Page 16

Thai twins tough boxers

By

DAVID STOREY

of Reuters

Bangkok When twins Khaosai and Khaokor were spin-dle-armed five year olds their mother, a fanatical fight fan, gave each of them a pair of boxing gloves. From playful sparring in their poor rice-growing village in north-east Thailand, the inseparable Galaxy brothers have developed 23 years later into two of the toughest fighters in the world. They have also developed into one of international sport’s more engaging double acts, matching each other knockout for knockout in the ring and in gentle banter outside it.

Khaosai, a calculating destroyer of opponents who has a punch in both fists like the kick of. a mule, is the World Boxing Association (W.8.A.) junior-bantamweight champion. In Bangkok’s Lumpini stadium on Tuesday he meets the Thai challenger, Kongtoranee Payakarun, and is widely expected to complete the

seventh defence of the title he has held since 1984. He knocked each challenger out. Khaokor, 15 minutes the senior, shares his twin’s southpaw stance and thunderous punch and fights as a bantamweight, the next class up. After flooring the South Korean, Doo Bok-Sa, with a left in the second round of a bout in Bangkok in November, he is top challenger to the Puerto Rican world champion, Wildfredo Vasquez, and is scheduled for a crack at the title in June. “I’m dying to get fighting again,” said Khaokor. “He’ll be world champion this year,” said Khaosai. “This year, definitely,” agreed Khaokor. They were interviewed at their training camp, the Galaxy, from which they also take their surname. The camp is a bleak home for a national hero — a squalid, mosquitoinfested conversion of an anonymous concrete terrace house in ah inaccesible street on. the wrong side of Bangkok's Chao

Phya River. The ring stands at the back under a makeshift scaffolding draped with tarpaulins to keep out the tropical sun. The twins, clean-cut and polite, have transcended backwoods origins and their present sleazy quarters. They share a room and train together with tatty medicine balls, patched punch bags and concrete weights. While Khaosai’s purses run to millions of baht (hundreds of thousands of dollars) Khaokor still fights for 20,000 to 30,000 baht (about $1000). “I’m just beginning to be successful. My winnings just about cover my expenses,” said Khaokor. “He’s extravagant,” smiled Khaosai. “He’s stingy,” said Khaoko with a playful left jab. “I’m economical,” parried the champion.

Their trainer, Pong Thaworn-Wiwawabut, says the two, both single, are “disciplined and responsible. They don’t drink and don’t smoke. I don’t have to pusji them to train.”

The twins, both with the same square jaw and chunky physique, have different but complementay characters. “Khaokor is a tiger who likes to smile. He’s a joker. He’s more charming,” said Khaosai. “I’m more handsome,” said Khaokor. “He is, and the girls chase him. But I’m more articulate. His words have no weight,” grinned Khaosai, who is clearly the more reflective. While keeping his modest lifestyle in Bangkok, he has invested most of his two million baht (about $100,000) winnings in land near his home village of Banchalinglap, near Petchaboon. The remote, hilly district also spawned another great Thai boxer, the junior-welterweight world champion, Saensak Muangsurin, now living in poverty after retiring with a damaged retina. Khaosai is planning to avoid such a fate. “You have to remember when you box you do it for money. It’s our profession, our livelihood. It givegSjhe

chance to set yourself up.” He professses real nervousness before his fight against his compatriot this month, although it does not come from sentiment. “We used to train together, live together, we’re the same age. But once in the ring there’s no such word as friendship. “I’m not frightened of European or Japanese or other foreign boxers. Only Thais. Foreigners can’t take punches like Thais can,” he said. Khaosai said he will retire in about three years. “You can’t go on for ever. You have to face the fact that someone is ultimately going to come along and beat you." Would the twins ever end up fighting each other in the ring? “Well, when we spar together we don’t play at it,” said Khaokor. “But I really don’t know what we would do if we actually had to fight together.” Their manager has no intention of putting both his golden geese in the same ring, however, and they are carefully trained in their chosen weights.