Friday Night Fights promoter Justin Blair responds to Chaz Mulkey comments

The talk of the town the last twenty four hours has been the comments by Chaz Mulkey about New York Muay Thai. The feedback has been coming in, and there are people that agree and disagree. Friday Night Fight's promoter Justin Blair was kind enough to provide Muay Thai Authority with his opinion regarding the issue. Friday Night Fights's is the longest running Muay Thai promotion in New York, and they are at the epicenter of New York Muay Thai. They have hosted fighters who fight out of the Western U.S. such as Eric Utsch, and Douglas Edwards.

Justin Blair -

I don’t agree with Chaz Mulkey’s statements at all. I think that they are poorly informed, generalizations that do not accurately reflect the state of Muay Thai in New York. There are a few of us that work hard to consistently produce high quality shows – I can speak from the heart on this as our promotion is the longest running and most frequent running in New York City. In fact, 3 of those fighters listed on your website’s list for 2010 fighter of the year fought in New York City on the Friday Night Fights in the same year. So you tell me how do we rate?

While I do see some validity in Chaz’s statement about no elbows in New York, I feel that the rest of his statement shows more ignorance than anything else. I can only speak on behalf of the Friday Night Fights however – we consistently seek balance between outside and local talent on each card. So, yes, you do see some of the same fighters competing on our shows but I don’t think you would find any mid-size show that doesn’t depend on fighters from the region to generate local interest.

As far as the local fighters being what Chaz says are “a joke” I don’t get it. As far as our shows are concerned, our regulars have achieved success at internationally recognized levels.  Chris Kwiatkowski won the amateur WKA World Title as well as various other titles, Chris Romulo has also won several titles, competed in the kings cup in Thailand where he got a bronze and was also in the running for fighter of the year on this very website. Max Chen represented the US in the Bejing Olympics, Simon Camaj won the WKA nationals, Dwight Grant won the WKA Worlds, Sean Hinds has competed around the world, Florina Petcu has won numerous titles and the list of fighters goes on.

Further more, many of fighters from New York often compete on the West coast and win. If the talent pool is so poor in New York compared to the west coast how is that our fighters are able to compete when they fight out there? Additionally, Chaz Mulkey might want to do a little homework as he would see that we consistently bring fighters from the west coast to fight in New York. If Chaz has any interest in truly understanding how New York compares to California fighters he might want to start by contacting Anthony Lin of Fairtex, Rudi Ott, Derek Yuen or Edge Brown – all west coast based people in the business that are deeply involved in Muay Thai in the west coast as well as the East coast.

Regarding the lack of outside talent on New York shows - I think that our track record speaks for itself. Peter Crook back when he was active (United Kingdom) has fought for us on several occasions (remember him from the Super League?), Khun Pon and Kung Napa have fought on our shows, both are Thai Nationals that were very competitive when living in Thailand. Roli Delgado (former UFC fighter) took the trip up from Alabama to compete on our last show, Oleg Ivanov also fought on our last card and he took the trip all the way from Russia, Gabe Varga, Shane Campbell, and Joe Valtellini are just a few on the long list of Canadian fighters that have fought on our show in New York. Not only do we bring in fighters from outside – we are constantly approached by fighters from around the world wishing to compete on our show – is it because the Muay Thai scene in New York is a joke?

I can appreciate Chaz’s passion and his competitive nature….. and as mentioned above, the elbows are a valid point however his comments are so far off base –he is clearly not speaking from a position of knowledge or getting accurate information so I strongly disagree with his position. Who knows, perhaps Chaz would like to come to New York sometime to see how things are done first hand as he clearly hasn’t been before.

As always, thank you to the Muay Thai Authority for providing a forum to debate, discuss and promote our beloved sport.

As always we are glad to have Justin Blair contribute his knowledge to Muay Thai Authority. We will be posting fighter responses from New York, California, Las Vegas, and other locations soon. Keep checking back here at Muay Thai Authority for more.