Full Metal Dojo: Fight Circus Diary
A 2-on-1 Fight and Crying Teen Lethwei... WTF am I watching???
The mind of man is capable of anything.
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
I was spoiled for MMA choice this weekend and rather than write about every single fucking event and make this post obscenely long, I’ve opted to focus on the wildest and weirdest of the bunch: Full Metal Dojo’s Fight Circus and still make this post too long.
If you don’t know, FMD is a MMA promotion based out of Bangkok, Thailand run by Jon Nutt. It has operated since around 2016 and before that Nutt ran another promotion, Dare Fight Sports. FMD is mostly known for their wild live shows from Bangkok nightclubs, but as of their last event they have partnered with the adult streaming service CamSoda to broadcast worldwide. FMD has been on my radar for a while and I’ve even tried to time a trip to Thailand with one of their events, but it’s never worked out, so this is actually the first time I’ve seen a show. Let’s do this.
It’s the morning of the event, about an hour to show time, and I go to the fightcircus.com website and see the following warning:
I gird myself against the oncoming sordid debauchery and press enter. I am not disappointed. Yes, this fight stream has been fully integrated into the cam site as the glowing, greasy ass with a massive dildo jammed in it on my screen would attest. Scrolling below the viewing window are a series of cam girls in various stages of undress. I will screenshot the least gratuitous selection. Alright! Good Morning!
I’ve still got some time to kill so I’m just gonna browse around the website a bit… hmmm, well that’s interesting… very acrobatic… there’s like a schoolhouse skit happening with some fairly elaborate production values and oh, she didn’t do her homework… whatever will happen to the bad girl… oh my, the teacher is going to… alright enough of that…
Just like that some Mr. Bungle-esque circus tunes enter my earholes and the stream comes alive at 11AM JST and and we’re on!
The introduction video spoofs UFC’s Fight Island and is full of goofy puns and I’m digging the not-totally-self-serious-MMA-warrior mentality. On the card it’s a mix of amateurs and bizarre fights, but then a couple of legit contests with the winner getting a fight in a World Lethwei Championship show. I’ve done a diary for a WLC card in the past and enjoyed it. (Lots of WLC promos happening on this show, so I’ll add one more here for their next show Hideout Battle, which is a pretty sweet name.)
Back to FMD and we’ve got a midget Batman and Superman dancing out with impresario Jon Nutt and ladies in “sparkly bikinis.” He then sings the Thai National Anthem and does it quite well! I’m impressed, though he’s probably insufferable at karaoke.
Having some issues with the stream now unfortunately… but the sporadic flickering appearance shows me the first fight is about to begin between a kebab salesman and a Greenpeace activist some 35 or so KG lighter. I’m restarting my gear. Uno Momento. That didn’t seem to help and cries on Twitter show me I am not alone.
I stutteringly see the Kebab King has a poor fight IQ as he lets the much lighter fighter off the ground. Quality comment from ron383 in the stream chat here.
The stream sort of teases it will improve, but it doesn’t. I’m not sure how much longer I can last. It appears the issue is a local one as the between-fight promos are running fine - could be shitty internet at the titty bar? Women’s Lethwei about to start and the stream seems to be working okay now. Let’s pray it holds up 🙏
One girl is crying between rounds and the uncouthness of watching two teenage Thai girls bare knuckle fight is starting to crawl up my back and perch itself on my shoulder and chatter at me about Western male white privilege or something. (Later, in similarly unwoke fashion, one of the commenters asks for the other’s pronouns and he says God/Warhawk or something and I laugh.)
The round has started and the girl is full-on sobbing and the other girl really needs to finish this off but she feels bad too and is just kind of lightly sparring. Hopefully the ref will call this soon. But he doesn’t.
"The exploitation factor of this is wearing on me a bit," the man thinks while watching two teenage girls fist fight on a camgirl porn site, as the commentator encourages the crying girl to vomit in the ring.
They all hug it out in the end and my shame subsides and I’m feeling a bit better, otherwise I might not be able to continue watching this or getting up and going to work or really continuing on in my life and all that important shit I must do.
Now we have a mixed-gender grappling match, which sounds like it’s probably just porn, but we shall see. Sort of a nerdy looking dude against a low-key cute girl with braces reffed by former UFC fighter Tommy Hayden. Lots of talk about boners from the commentators. The girl eventually sinks in the choke and comes away with the victory.
Okay, this next fight looks good and not quite as morally reprehensible: it’s a “Trinity Rules” contest of one round boxing, one round Muay Thai, one round MMA with two fighters of wildly different sizes, with the fat one fighting out of his bakery and the skinny one having a legit Muay Thai record. Despite the 70KG differential, the big man is getting his ass whipped. The Muay Thai round is next and it’s about to get very bad for the baker.
One kick to the face and big boy sensibly calls it quits.
Another World Lethwei Championship rules fight; possibly some legit competition here; let’s hope nobody starts crying in this fight. Amusingly, I think this ref is the same guy who is the new ref in ONE Championship. Sure Chatri’s thrilled about that. Alright, that was some real fighting shit, with an elbow to the temple KO. The winner Fabio Hawthorne got a bong and he’s super pumped up. We’ll see him in WLC sometime down the road.
Next up we have Ryu from Street Fighter in a kicking-only “Human Cockfight.” This is actually sort of cool. The guy in the gi has wicked kicks and swag to spare.
Karate guys calls for the Muay Thai guy to kick him, like “Bring it on!” and he takes it like a champ and then knocks MT guy on his ass. This is definitely entertaining and Nutt christens Karate guy “Paco” after the match. (Yeah, Paco’s a MT guy, but whatever.)
And then HORROR strikes and the stream dies just before the 2-on-1 MMA match… BUT it appears they hold off the fight until the stream is up... And we’re back!
Just absolute madness to begin as the two brothers rush the large Ukrainian man. HEADKICK TO THE BODY! I think someone shouts and it’s definitely going to be my new catchphrase. One of the Thai bros is punching the Ukrainian (very ineffectually) in the face as the other wraps up his body. After some frantic scrambles the Ukrainian winds up on the ground with the feistier brother wrapping up a choke. And the big man taps! BUT, wtf! They’re going to go again! ENCORE ROUND! Apparently the Thai corner is furious but the fighters are like whatever and we begin again. Thankfully it doesn’t go too long as the ref calls the fight to unanswered strikes. What a nut show! Literally! (rimshot) But seriously, that was absolutely wild to watch as two little Thai guys swarm the Ukrainian fighter and come away with the victory, twice! This sums it up pretty nicely, with a nod from RIZIN’s MMA Shingo to boot - perhaps we shall see some 2-on-1 battles in the next RIZIN event. No, probably not.
I’ll have to locate some gifs because there is no description that would really equate to those mad minutes.
Two more fights to go but I very much doubt that last one will be topped. Next up is an openweight fight with Pride rules, so very much the old school MMA. It’s a forty KG difference but the lighter guy has more experience. After a mixed bag of striking the big man gets the takedown. Another takedown from the big guy to start the second. And the third. Blah blah blah whatever. Big guy should take it on the scorecards and does.
For the main event we have two super heavyweights (300+ pounders) in a Trinity Rules fight like we saw earlier. Some bad tattoos on display, including a curious crucifixion scene, over very large amounts of skin. The bigger of the two men has the smaller shorts or perhaps it’s an optical illusion. This surprisingly makes it to the MMA round after two rounds of labored striking. Steven “Panda” Banks takes it home pretty definitively in the third. And that’s it!
I would call my first Full Metal Dojo experience a bit of a mixed bag: shitty porno stream (that mostly straightened itself out by the end), lamely “edgy” commentary (but could anything possibly be worse than Mitch Chilson?), some slightly uncomfortable moments questioning my life choices (that faded as reliably as the outgoing tides), but then the insanely awesome 2-on-1 fight, solid Trinity matches, and the surprisingly great only-kicking fight.
FMD is a definite 11 on the BRO-o-meter, but fuck, what do you expect in MMA, and as I mentioned before I quite enjoyed the lack of self-seriousness and disinterest in sporting rigor. One would imagine Fight Circus Vol. 1 would have a second installment, so I’ll definitely be watching from the porno-stream, ringside, or wherever. ✌️
Check out my last post on Road to ONE 3, ONE Championship and Abema’s next Tokyo show featuring Shinya Aoki.
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Missed the part about how they gave golden axes, machetes and swords to the winners!
Can’t believe I missed it! Fantastic article though, highly entertaining.