This weekend I had an opportunity to hangout with Matee “Dragon Leg”Jedeepitak.
Matee confessed that he was initially offended…”Who does this guy think he is?”
“Straight up, Matee is a Muay Thai Legend. With over 190 fights Matee has held the Lumphini and WMC belts numerous times. Currently he’s here in the Bay area training with Neungsiam Samphusri for their upcoming fights in Fresno. Matee is fighting Youseff Ahknikh a legit Dutch fighter, should be a very interesting match.Before I had ever met him, I heard countless stories about his pre-fight antics. Chris Cariaso of fight and fitness told me he once saw Matee drink about 9-10 pints of beer the night before fighting Danny Steel.One of the things that I was surprised to learn, was that Matee didn’t come from established camp. He was “Home schooled”, his dad was his trainer, and his brother the manager. You could say it was a family business. For Sparring partners he would go and train at a local camp for a few hours and head home at the end of the day. For those of you who know how camps in Thailand are set up, this is very rare. As he was coming up the ranks, he said a lot of fighters wouldn’t give him respect or the benefit of the doubt. He said he got a lot of shit from fighters because he wasn’t from an established camp. “What’s the matter… to good for our camp?” He said it only increased his “motivation”. Judging by Matee’s fight record , most of those fools caught a severe beat down.
Matee told me a story of how he originally met Bunkerd. Matee was 17 and Bunkerd was 27, when they met in the Lumpini Stadium ring. Bunkerd was already a veteran of the ring with well over 250+ fights. Bunkerd had accumulated so many injuries that at this point in his career his head was permanently cocked to the right. Matee confessed that he was initially offended… “Who does this guy think he is?” He was sure Bunkerd was taking the piss out of him. It was only only after the fight did he realize Bunkerd couldn’t actually hold his head straight. Anyway I’m training with him on Friday, should be sick. I’ll keep you posted… So what’s with the pic? To make a long story short, Bunkerd was “unable” to man the grill, so Matee stepped up.
12 responses so far ↓
1 DJ // Nov 17, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Awesome! I train with Matee in Michigan. I wanted to be at those fights so bad…
For real, he’s a really great guy to be around, just as long as he’s not kicking you in the leg. Did you have a chance to see the fights?
DJ
2 nopadon // Nov 17, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Dj,
I was in Bangkok, so I also missed the fights. Some folks I know are getting a DVD… I’ll be sure to post it when I get a copy. Some friends of mine took some great pics of Matee from the fight. I’ll get those up in the next couple of days.
Mai
3 Neungsiam “The Rock” Makes a Comeback | My Muay Thai // Nov 18, 2006 at 2:33 am
[...] Last Tuesday, November 7, there was an amazing fight card for the World Xtreme Muay Thai Challenge in Fresno, California. It was truly one of the most impressive line-ups that the West Coast has seen in a very long time. The 2 pro fights featured Matee Jepeeditak, fighting for the IMTO Welterweight Title and Neungsiam (Samart) “The Rock” Samphusri fighting for the IMTO Lightweight Title. [...]
4 Mr Dean White // Feb 8, 2007 at 7:48 am
Dear Sir
Would you put my gym on your Muay Thai Camp list please
Many Thanks
Dean…
5 Dii Mak // Feb 8, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I was at the fight and Matee had a game opponent from the Netherlands. It was a great fight and Matee of course landed some nice kicks. He also cut the guy in the middle of the forehead pretty early with an elbow, so the dutch guy had to fight with a pretty consistent stream of blood running down his face. Very entertaining and great to see him fight.
Hey, that’s a cool shirt Matee is sporting while manning the grill in the photo huh? q-:
6 Myles // Nov 5, 2007 at 11:30 am
Matee is the man!!
7 Stack // Nov 5, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Matee rules.
8 BJ // Nov 10, 2007 at 9:44 pm
i am looking for muay thai fights from thailand ,i would like to see championships fights can you help me out
9 alekos87 // Nov 29, 2007 at 7:00 pm
how the fuck is his head gone sideways ?
10 Shadyeskimo // Feb 27, 2008 at 9:08 am
Damn You are lucky to train with actual Legends. Sometimes I curse the Country i was born in, No martial arts traditon or any foreign Martial arts Exept Karate and Tae Kwon Doe, and I must say TDK isnt realistic and karate well no Instructor above brown belt. Sucks, But here in Denmark Thank good they have Everything Wing Chung, Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu etc.
11 8 limbs not 6 // Oct 20, 2008 at 6:01 am
[...] I came across a vid this past weekend of a friend who runs Sit-Kangmonkorn out of Pittsburgh. Stephen aka Pisand is a student of Matee Jedeepitak. Matee was the subject of my first blog post. [...]
12 Stack // Oct 20, 2008 at 7:04 am
Once again…Matee flat out rules.
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