Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong

The son of a poor family from Buriram in Thailand's northeastern Isaan region, Sittichai is a poster child for the Muay Thai dream: sacrificing a high school education in pursuit of fighting, he now earns thousands of dollars per fight and can send money home to support his family.

His parents, who worked as laborers and small-scale farmers when Sittichai was growing up, bought a new rice plow and pickup truck with their son's fight money during his early years in Bangkok. Now following Sittichai's success abroad, they've invested in land near their home and are almost finished constructing a new house.

A champion of Thailand's iconic Lumpini Stadium (basically the premier league in Thailand), Sittichai dropped out of high school after ninth grade to focus on fighting. Leaving school was a lucrative decision - he’s one of Thailand's top-grossing fighters. He was headhunted by Bangkok gym Sitsongpeenong in 2009 at age 17. By 2010 he was fighting abroad and starting to earn real money.

Fighting internationally became a better financial opportunity for him than in Thailand, and his gym began coaching him on how to fight specifically for an international audience.

“People come for entertainment, to see people get knocked out. If you want to be popular overseas, that's what you have to do. We told him, 'You have to finish them. No mercy. If you don't kill them, they'll kill you,” the Sitsongpeenong owner Tim Dharmavija (Australian) told Vice magazine’s Fightland blog in 2015.

Tim sees Sittichai as an unexpected contender, finding great success as a fighter even without the mental inclination. "He's naturally a very placid person. I don't believe it was in his true nature to be a fighter. But he took this path through necessity more than anything else. If he hadn't grown up poor, he never would have come to fighting on his own accord."

In Thailand, fighters are given a ringname which they will fight under. These names are conferred during a Buddhist ceremony and are loaded with meaning. Sittichai was born as Anulak Jansuk on September 23, 1991. He had his first fight at the age of 11.

Sittichai's GLORY career started with a bang: he stopped former champion Davit Kiria at GLORY 22, the only fighter to ever stop Kiria under kickboxing rules. He went on to win the lightweight title at GLORY 31 AMSTERDAM to become GLORY's first ever Thai champion.