Ban Oumry and his trainees in their club, Long Beach, CaliforniaOriginal report from California
05 October 2009
A former well-known Cambodian kickboxer is promoting the Cambodian sport in the US in an effort to safeguard its uniqueness. Oumry Ban, 65, who was known along with other Khmer kickboxers in and out of Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s is now transferring his skills to martial arts students in Long Beach, Calif.
At the age of 14, Oumry Ban came across a group of fighters training; they told him he was “too small” to fight, but he insisted, and they began training him. He trained for three days before he was put in the ring, where he was walloped, but the fighters saw in him a tough kid.
By 16, he’d won his first bout, by knockout. By 20, he’d won his first national title. He fought 309 times between 1962 and 1975, winning 278 times, 200 by knockout.
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