PHNOM PENH – Driving your motorcycle through an entrance on the southeastern part of Mohor Srap theatre’s fence in the Dei Krahorm community of around 50 meters, you will see a small cottage on the right hand side, backing the theater’s fence and facing to the south with a cement floor. That is E Phouthorng’s kickboxing training center, called E Phouthorng Tonle Bassac Club. The club has been training students for more than three years. All of the students were taught by Cambodia’s most famous kick boxer, E Phouthorng, and has been given the nickname of “Atitep Chongkong Chhes.”

E Phouthorng said he started learning Khmer traditional kickboxing since he was 12 years old with Mr. Yuth Phouthorng in the 1980s, while Yuth Phouthorng held the position of Prey Veng provincial governor. After a time, E Phouthorng appeared in the ring to partake in a Khmer traditional kickboxing contest at the age of 17. After that he learned kickboxing for another five years and continued his participation in gradual Khmer traditional kickboxing fight contests. Since then he has defeated his opponents in a wide range of contests, which at last made him Cambodia’s most prominent kick boxer.

E Phouthorng told of his family’s poor living conditions. He said that he was born in Mondoul Sema district, Koh Kong province. Because of his family’s miserable standard of living, E Phouthorng had no access to education. The reasons he had not started school there are that, on the one hand, he was busy doing backbreaking jobs in exchange for income to support his family and, on the other hand, he had an aptitude and appetite for traditional Khmer kickboxing. His keen interest in, or appetite for, the traditional Khmer kickboxing had encouraged him to make his mind up to learn Khmer kickboxing from Mr. Yuth Phouthorng in Prey Veng province, while he was governor of Prey Veng province and presently governor of Koh Kong province. E Phouthorng has a father, named Yem Lim, and a mother, named At Uth, both of whom are aging now. He has two siblings, Ot Phouthorng and his youngest sister, who, for the time being, live in Koh Kong province.

E Phouthorng has been married to Sang Somaly for more than 10 years and has three children – one girl and two boys.

E Phouthorng has been in Phnom Penh and continued his traditional Khmer kickboxing training with Mr. Chhit Sarim after starting his career as traditional Khmer kick boxer at the age of 17. He first fought in the 48 kg weight class and continued to fight until he reached the 63 kg weight class, at which time he always won the contests and received an annual reward. Presently, E Phuothorng is in the 85 kg kick boxer weight class and has fought with famous foreign kick boxers, showing both wins and losses. During his career as a kick boxer, he has receive a lot of awards: Cambodia Traditional Khmer Traditional Kick Boxing Champions, Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen champions two consecutive times, and several medals for overseas kickboxing.

With regard to the club’s establishment, E Phouthorng said that it offers free-of-charge training to the next generation in order for them to protect themselves so that they will be able to make money towards daily life once they are invited to attend each fight match in the ring.

E Phouthorng further stated that in each previous contest, he could receive a prize of around US$100, and that his fight prize could reach up to US$400 and include other incentives at the present time.

E Phouthorng complained that the money he earns from present boxing matches was not enough to support his family. Besides fighting in the ring, he has acted in films, trained students in the club and worked as bodyguard to earn extra money for his family.
E Phouthorng has starred in six of the following films: Cheung Run Teah E Phouthorng, Buffalo Hiding Baby, Angkulimea, At Bei (Three Aces), Small Dragon, and Derichhan Village, all of which required him to showcase his ability in boxing martial arts.

He also stated that the Cambodian people didn’t really value kick boxers, which is very different from other countries around the world, particularly developed countries. People in those countries pay a lot of attention to kick boxers and hold them in high regard. In Cambodia, people give value to kick boxers only during the course of their fight in the ring, he said. People in Cambodia have got the idea that kickboxing is a risky career or that boxers would rather risk their lives, due to the small amount of money that is earned.
Chhit Sarim, 60 years old and a traditional Khmer kickboxing instructor at the National Defense Council Center and E Phoutorng’s instructor, said that most foreign kick boxers do not dare to go into a fight with E Phouthorng as E Phouthorng has defeated them by greatly injuring them, such as giving them a broken arm or leg.

Chhit went on to state that because E Phouthorng had centered much of his effort on training himself, and had been highly committed to becoming successful in competitions, as well as becoming both physically and emotionally involved in the course of the fight, he had become well-known and has become the talk of most Cambodian people for his talent in traditional Khmer kickboxing.

Chhit has great satisfaction in having seen his student (E Phouthorng) become the most prominent traditional Khmer kick boxer and he now could open his own kickboxing club, named E Phouthorng Tonle Bassac. At the present time, Chhit is training 25 students and he hopes all of his students try hard so that they can become as famous as E Phouthorng. Chhit mentioned some other famous kick boxers, namely E Phouthorng, Oth Phouthorng, Meas Chhan, Prum Sothear, Pech Sophan, Chhay Kosal, Noun Sorya, and Kong Sarran, all of whom were his students.

E Phouthorng continued to state that now that he has grown old and was not energetic enough to participate in kickboxing competitions, he would pick up a career as traditional Khmer kickboxing instructor for children of the next generation. He said, “Thanks to both my keen interest in the career and my willingness to keep up traditional Khmer kickboxing, I have determined to teach students from now on and, more interestingly, this is a free-of-charge course.”

As for Mrs. Sung Sary, E Phouthorng’s wife and 26 years old, said that she was very proud that her husband had become a well-known kick boxer and had contributed to the conservation of Khmer culture in spite of the fact that kick boxers value was not seen as much in Cambodia as in other countries. She added that, while she had never supported her husband’s initiative to open the kickboxing training club, since she had seen his great love for kickboxing and that this would contribute greatly to the conservation of Khmer culture, she decided to approve and lend her support to her husband’s idea.

She had the idea that traditional Khmer kickboxing gets very exposed to extinction. Consequently, she has always tried to hearten her husband to preserve traditional Khmer kickboxing with the view to provide a great opportunity to Khmer children of future generations to see and recognize it. She has always encouraged and emotionally supported her husband every time he appears in the ring. Any time her husband is defeated, she is shocked but always keeps this emotion in the dark simply by bearing it internally.

By Meun Sothy