Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Time for training

They meet Stephen in the training area. He explains to them that though now they are a team, in the future they might have to fight against each other. Also, they have to train hard so as to be able to win challenges. They start with some sprints and stretch and then continue to work with their Thai trainers. As they are training, the fighters are sizing each other up as competition.

Stephen explains that to fight at the level of the contender, they have to train twice a day, with a minimum of 2 hours each session, 6 times a week. We see the contenders sprinting and warming up as they prepare for their work out session. Some punch and kick punching bags while others practice with their trainers. There are 8 weapons, Stephen says, the kicks, the knees, the elbows and the punches and they all accumulate points for the fighter. Their training is tough as the men are pushed to their limits; they are made to kick higher and harder. However, the men are fixed with looks of determination on their faces.

Bruce says it is an honor to be there training as he has a lot of respect for Stephen as he is a great ambassador for the sport. At this point, Wayne says it was a good time to check out the competition by analyzing the other team as well as the strengths of his own team. He starts giving his own commentary in the interview over his analysis of the fighter. First, he commented that David from the blue team seemed to be in the best physical shape and technical sound and thus was the man to look out for. He commented that Yodsaenklai was serious competition because he was very strong and had great boxing skills. He added that he lost to him once in Australia and that if he could beat him in this competition he would be a "superstar". He continued on to say that Soren was a great fighter and that he had fought with him once and was someone to look out for. He said that the westerners were very good but the Thais were the ones to beat.

Rafik commented that although Wayne was very popular in the Muay Thai scene with his plethora of titles, he felt that he was putting on weight or as he put it "he's fat!" Laughing, he says that he believes that it would be really easy to win Wayne now due to this weakness. Alain commented that Zidov was putting on weight as well and it would be easy to beat him. As the fighters continue to size each other up, they release more power kicks and punches in preparation for the completion.

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