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Front-row at Rajadamnern Stadium for RWS 162: seven real Muay Thai bouts, a new bantamweight champion, and the energy of Bangkok's legendary fight night.

Four hours of real Muay Thai at the legendary Rajadamnern Stadium, no tourist show, just a serious Rajadamnern World Series fight night with legal betting in the stands and a card streamed worldwide. We were front row for RWS 162, close enough to hear every kick land.

Muay Thai fight night at Rajadamnern Stadium, Bangkok. Watch on YouTube

Rajadamnern is the world’s first purpose-built Muay Thai stadium and still one of the most prestigious places on earth to fight. The modern RWS format mixes that history with big production: open scoring after every round, elite fighters from Thailand and around the world, and a betting crowd that gives the night a completely different energy from the tourist-only shows.

The card

Seven professional bouts, and barely a dull minute. The fight of the night for us was China’s Liao Shixu against New Zealand’s Jason Khun, three wild rounds of heavy hands and brutal kicks that ended in a majority draw. Pure chaos, in the best way.

The biggest fight of the card was also the first female bout: Brazil’s Barbara Aguiar against compatriot Maria Eduarda over five intense rounds for the Rajadamnern Stadium bantamweight title, with Aguiar announced as the new champion. Thai fighters Petchthongchai, Saenphon and Karaked rounded out a card that ran from tactical chess matches to all-out wars.

If Bangkok is on your itinerary and you want to see the national sport as locals see it, RWS runs every Saturday night, seven three-round bouts plus a five-round title fight. Sit close if you can. You don’t just watch Muay Thai at Rajadamnern; you feel it through the floor.

Photos from Bangkok

The fight card is in the video above; here is what the rest of our Bangkok time looked like in stills, plus a couple of frames from an earlier visit in 2019.

Inga giving a thumbs up beside a smiling female Muay Thai fighter with a cut above her eyebrow, ringside at Rajadamnern Stadium
Ringside in October 2025, moments after the final bell. She had just been to war and was still smiling.
Dileep and Inga posing with a Muay Thai fighter under the marquee lights of the Rajadamnern Stadium ticket hall
One more with a fighter on the way out, under the lights of a stadium running since 1945.
Inga crouching to hand-feed two capybaras under a wooden bench while a meerkat trots past on the artificial grass
The next day, a capybara cafe. Bangkok does not do things by halves: capybaras under the table, meerkats at your ankles.
Dileep in a straw trilby crouching on artificial grass to pet meerkats at the capybara cafe
Dileep making friends with middle management.
A small round furry rodent nibbling a piece of fruit on top of a green felt house at the capybara cafe
One of the smaller residents, taking its snack extremely seriously.
Inga at a table set with a green matcha pastry, a coupe cocktail and a bottle of Perrier, gold-framed windows and a carved wall behind
Dessert in a gilded dining room. The matcha pastry looked like a tiny topiary and did not survive long.
Inga and Dileep at a table in a dining room whose walls are covered floor to ceiling in hand-woven rattan reliefs of plants and birds
The same afternoon: walls of hand-woven rattan, every leaf and bird made of straw. We spent half the meal just staring.
Selfie of Dileep and Inga in sun hats on a skywalk above the Asok intersection, Sukhumvit Road traffic and Terminal 21 behind
Above the Asok junction: eight lanes of Sukhumvit doing their thing beneath our feet.
Inga holding up an oyster mushroom over baskets of chillies, limes and vegetables in a covered fresh market
Rewind to November 2019: mushroom inspection among the whirring fans of a covered market.
The two of us with family under the green Welcome to Jatujak Weekend Market sign, crowds of shoppers behind
December 2019, four of us under the Chatuchak gate. Thousands of stalls ahead, four different opinions on where to start.

There’s more from this trip on our YouTube channel, we film the real sights and sounds, no fluff. You’ll also find us on TikTok and Instagram.