Interview with promoter and coach Vinnie McWilliams

As I have mentioned before, Scottish Muay Thai shows tend to be pretty busy, one reason for this is the consistently good production and running by the promoters involved. Inevitably, the individuals involved in promoting the multitude of shows are very busy people, typically working full time jobs while also running clubs of their own on top of all the work that goes into organising a show. Vinnie McWilliams is one such individual, and as you will read, he knows better than most how demanding this can be. I spoke to him about his gyms and shows, Extreme Stand Up Fighting (ESU) as well as the role of amateur shows in the development of the Scottish Muay Thai scene.

Muay Thai Scotland: Hi Vinnie, how's business? How is the gym doing?

Vinnie McWilliams: Yeah the gyms are doing great just now, Paisley really seems to have kicked off now so I'm really pleased with it! Within the two gyms we are around the 40 fighters mark so we are developing quite a strong squad. Hopefully before the end of the year we will have opened our Renfrew and Linwood gyms so as it stands things are on the up!! It has always been my dream to have a full time Muay Thai Gym in every borough of Renfrewshire and the progress is on schedule.

MTS: Promoting fights is often a tough task, what led to the decision to promote your own shows in Scotland?

V.M.: I promoted my first show when i was 18. It was a co-promotion with Mr John O'Brien at the Glasgow Central Hotel. At that time I was an instructor for John and had 6 clubs on the go! It was John's decision to allow me to run my first show but to be honest it was inevitable that I would be running shows at one stage. By the age of 19 I had set up on my own and at one stage was running 13 clubs!

This however led to my demise. Too big too soon I'm afraid, ended up in me suffering from severe exhaustion. Was too many clubs to run along with a full time job, unfortunately I didn't realise that until it was too late! However I am a great believer in learning from your mistakes. so after a short time out I came back with a clearer mind in what I wanted to achieve and so the rise of BadBoy gym. I also felt that there was a severe lack of amateur Muay Thai and so all of my shows have always been based around that development method: Amateur - Pro-Am - Pro. Apart from all that, I simply love promoting shows!

MTS: What do you see as the short and long term goals of your ESU shows?

V.M.: Obviously I am looking to build on the quality of the show and the brand; the feedback that I have been getting already is awesome and I really just want to build on that. In the short term I'm just hoping to spread the word of amateur Muay Thai through the ESU brand, then hopefully make the ESU belts the ones to have in Scottish Muay Thai, and then in world Muay Thai. K-1 eat your heart out lol :)

MTS: As far as I know, you are the only promoter who puts on amateur Muay Thai shows. Why do you think other promoters have been hesitant to pick up amateur Muay Thai?

V.M.: Personally I don't think that other promoters have realised the potential in a nation wide amateur scene. For some reason I think promoters don't want to be seen to be running amateur shows. Why? I'll let you try and find that out lol.

 For me, amateur shows opens up a whole new window for the sport, people who couldn't fight due to work commitments now want to give it a go because of the padding, fighters are able to have more fights in a shorter space of time which drastically improves and speeds up there progression in the sport, and they are fighting full Thai rules right from the start, giving them a better understanding of the sport for when they do start competing professionally. I also think that promoters don't think that they can run big shows with amateur fights, however ESU seems to be proving them wrong!

 I think from a sports council recognition point of view. If you were a councillor, watching Muay Thai for the first time, would you rather see two C class fighters go hell for leather getting bashed up with no protective equipment on (remember these are two first timers! )? Or, watch two amateur fighters with full protective equipment on? What would be more appealing to you?

MTS: I totally agree with you there Vinnie. Do you see a big demand from fighters and/or audiences for amateur Muay Thai?

V.M.: As I said before, it opens a whole new window for people to compete in our sport, which in turn could potentially result in finding the next Buakaw or Anderson Silva! And there is a definite demand from fighters to have a go at amateur level. Each show that I put on could easily have 30 fights on if I wished, and I'm not kidding!

MTS: What is your opinion of the Muay Thai scene in Scotland at the minute? What do you see or hope for in the future?

V.M.: The scene at the minute is really good, not enough amateur shows for me but we do really seem to have a lot of hot prospects coming through: Stevo Lochhead (GTBA), Jordan Calder (Griphouse), Chris Shaw (OB's), Stevo McCulloch and JR Morrison (Badboy), Alan Weaver and Dale Murray (NAMT)... The list goes on. The only downside in our scene is the small minded instructors/gyms who say they don't work with other gyms for whatever reason. It's these people that are holding Scotland back from a true Muay Thai scene.

MTS: Of the fights already matched on your shows this year, which excite you the most?

V.M.: ESU 3 has a cracking line up, Stevo Lochhead Vs Ali Dimirci will be a cracking fight, probably two of Europe's youngest hot prospects. Another fight on that card, Aldo McDonald Vs Sean McLaughlin will be a cracker. Again, two young guys with explosive power and very aggressive styles. The ESU 4 fight card is nearly finished with two awesome top of the bill fights: Keith McLachlin Vs Chris Shaw will be good fight between two very talented fighters, and the European fight between John Dick and superstar Ilias el Hajuoi (Team Gunyar, Holland) will be fight of the year I think.

Huge thanks to Vinnie for being the first ever SMT interviewee.

ESU 3 will feature a main card consisting of seven title fights as well as a full under-card. ESU 4 is a bit further away, on the 27th of November. Ticket info and fight previews will come soon.