A big MMT thanks to Tong Po for forwarding this article from MMAyou.com It’s an interview with “The Most Dangerous Women in The World” aka Lucia Rijker. Some of you may not be familiar so here we go.
Lucia is one of the most talented Nak Muay’s to come out of Holland. She was born in 1967 to Dutch/Surinamese parents. By the way does anyone know why there are so many bad ass dutch fighters who are from Suriname? (Hoost, Bonjasky, Spong,)
She started studying Judo at age 6 years of age. She began her kickboxing career at 15 when she started training with legendary Dutch trainer Johan Vos. From what I’ve read she was one of the only female fighters at Vos, and fought and trained exclusively with men.
She raised some eyebrows in her 6th match by defeating the American Kickboxing Champion Lily Rodriguez, (Benny the Jets Sister) in 30 seconds. Devastating Dutch leg kicks 1 - Soft American Kickboxing Booties 0.
She eventually went on to amass a 35-0 (25KO) record. Her only defeat came from a 2nd round KO by Somchai Jaidee of New Zealand. A little side note, I couldn’t find any info on this fighter Somchai Jaidee. I honestly think it’s a kiwi fighter who adopted a Thai name. (It means Good Natured Somchai… Somchai being the most commons men’s name) If you watch the vid, firstly he doesn’t look Thai, secondly he doesn’t move like a Nak Muay. He hops around like a nervous amateur. Anyway just needed to get that off my chest.
Rijker eventually transitioned into boxing where she continued her winning ways. She maintained a perfect (17-0) 14 KO’s record. A fight between Christy Martin and Leila Ali never materialized.
If you watched Million Dollar Baby you would have seen Rijker as the psycho “Billie the Blue Bear”
Anyway the interview is pretty interesting; she goes on to talk about the attitude of Dutch Champions, which I find to be directly in line with the values of Thai Nak Muays. “They don’t become celebrities, they don’t become stars. They don’t let the money and the fame get to their heads.”
I was also pleased to see she has a Vippassana practice. She gives an example of something that I’ve written about in the past about being at the whim of your emotions, and assigning value to your thoughts and feelings.
“Also fighting related, if you judge a punch that hits you hard, if you take the word hard out, the punch has a lesser effect on your focus and on your game. But the moment you judge the punch or the sensation that the punch gives you as bad, or as hard, or the word damaging, then that punch affects your focus and your game.”
Because it’s MMAyou.com they try to goad her into saying somethign about Gina Carano. Interesting though… Rijker who hasn’t been active for a while would need to get a ground game. As much as I respect Carano, Rijker is in a whole other league when it comes to stand-up… even at her current age.
11 responses so far ↓
1 natemuaythaimaster // Aug 1, 2008 at 7:17 am
never heard of lucia before but she has some nasty hooks
2 natemuaythaimaster // Aug 1, 2008 at 7:20 am
one of those hooks to my dome and it would be like a sledge hammer going through a watermelon
3 greghow // Aug 1, 2008 at 8:08 am
God, another girl who can beat me down!
Seriously, this is a good interview. She actually seems genuinely intelligent.
4 Gusnark // Aug 1, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Yeah, she’s a legend.
But watching that vid, I could never fight a woman. Even if she was equal or even better. Only if she was looking like a man and me not knowing about he being she, hehe.
I’m asking the same question, what’s up with the Suriname fighters? I believe it must be predisposition, since there’s a lot of great fighters and many of them are Surinamese.
5 ShadyEskimo // Aug 1, 2008 at 3:14 pm
It is because Holland or Netherlands colonised Surinam back in the days, like french colonised asia, and the Spanish colonised the Americas Etc Etc, so there are a lot of them in holland!! My fav Football player Now retired is Ruud Gullit also a half dutch half Surinam guy!!!
6 Gusnark // Aug 1, 2008 at 4:48 pm
ShadyEskimo, it’s not about Surinamese living in Netherlands, it’s about why Surinamese are being such a great fighters.
7 mmcmx // Aug 1, 2008 at 11:37 pm
low clases, gethos = fighting sports
france= north african kickboxers
spain= north african kickboxers
italy= albania kick boxers
holland= surinamese kickboxers
thailand= south provinces,Isaan,..
of course it’s a generalitzation but it’s still a lot like that. Rich people do Judo or TKD at the most.
8 Mark // Aug 1, 2008 at 11:49 pm
“I use to drop people all the time in the gym with my liver shot.
I perfected it because in my perspective it was the least amount of damage with the most effect. So punching to the head hurts brain cells unnecessarily. Brain cells are not remade after they starve. They die, they’re gone. The liver, you will recuperate unless you’re, you know, you get hit there every day.”
This exemplifies the Buddhist attitude in Muay Thai. In his last fight, against largely unknown Shunichiro Ohno (19-6-0), former Lumpini champ Neungsiam (80-30-0) explained that he deliberately didn’t use his elbows as much as he might have, because he knew Ohno couldn’t handle them. He said he mainly used the elbows as a warning when Ohno got too punchy… he didn’t want to slice Ohno’s face up unnecessarily. I think we also saw that with Lamsongkram’s cruising win over Villaume in Jamaica, after he broke Farid’s ribs.
A mark of a true master is the ability to elegantly - even playfully - make their point with their humanity and compassion intact.
9 tong po // Aug 2, 2008 at 12:09 am
Mark, you are a true sholar and a gentlemen! I will drink to your compassion!
10 tong po // Aug 2, 2008 at 12:10 am
I meant scholar- maybe its from getting hit in the head too much
11 Blackwidow // Aug 10, 2008 at 7:51 am
She was featured in a documentary. Shadow Boxers.
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