Curious to see what the atmosphere was like at a Muay Thai fight in the 1920s? Well, look no further because this might be the only actual recording of one in existence from that time period.

It isn’t every day that you find a Muay Thai match that is so old that it was filmed in black and white. It also isn’t every day that you hear Muay Thai referred to as a Siamese boxing.

Although the narrator is on the right track by highlighting Muay Thai to begin with, his narration of the clip dates it and the world’s knowledge of martial arts at that time.

After a wild exchange of strikes in the fight, one of the fighters is knocked to the mat but instead of using the traditional 8-count that we would today, they allow all the way up to a 20-count before calling a stop to the contest! Giving plenty of opportunity to the concussed fighters to unscramble their brains.

As cool of a video as this is to look back at on nostalgically, I’d hate to have been a fighter from the era. Even with modern medicine and science fighters from our own day and age face too many medical issues, I can only imagine what those from nearly over a century ago had to go through.

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About Muay Thai:
Muay Thai is a combat sport of Thailand that uses stand-up striking along with various clinching techniques. This physical and mental discipline which includes combat on shins is known as “the art of eight limbs” because it is characterized by the combined use of fists, elbows, knees, shins, being associated with a good physical preparation that makes a full-contact fighter very efficient. Muay Thai became widespread internationally in the twentieth century, when practitioners defeated notable practitioners of other martial arts. [Source: Wikipedia]

The Siamese boxing contest opens with a sort of weird dance to the strains of an orchestra.

The dance symbolizes that the fighters are looking over the ground for the combat.

All during the round the orchestra places, starting slowly and then getting faster and faster, encouraging the boxer’s to fight furiously.

Siamese boxing is the real art of self-defense. It teaches defense against everything, kicks, fist blows, elbow jabs, knee punches, or what have you. One of the favorite blows is knee to chin, which is often a knockout.

Siamese boxing is not cluttered up by a bunch of rules or red tape. They go in to fight and they do, oh boy, what a fight!