When people mention the word Lethwei, there is a very good chance it will be followed by the name of the man dubbed the King of Lethwei, Dave Leduc. Therefore, it may come as a surprise that the Myanmar Traditional Lethwei Federation (MTLF) came out recently with an official letter blacklisting and banning the biggest worldwide superstar from their federation.
The ban rooted from Dave Leduc publicly, via social media, trash-talking potential opponent Buakaw and criticizing the Thai celebration of Muay Thai day, the celebration of Nai Khanom Tom.
A Thai folklore story appeared in 1767 at the same time as the victorious Burmese invasion over the old Siam capital. Claiming that a Thai prisoner names Nai Khanomtom beat nine Burmese Lethwei Champions in a row, without any rest period. Leduc pointed that there was no evidence confirming these claims. He stated that in recent years, Thai fighters have difficulty winning bouts under Lethwei rules and that the story is pure fantasy.
Dave Leduc has recently been using his platform to bring awareness and raise money for the people of Myanmar that’s currently suffering during the Myanmar military coup.
We caught up with Dave Leduc to get his thoughts on the situation and he was more than happy to respond.
Dave Leduc Responds
Dave Leduc – Their just a bunch of old dudes from a association and they don’t like me, they just sit on their chairs and do nothing other than asking for money never doing anything to actually help the sport grow worldwide, its just one big money grab.
They never have liked me because I speak my mind, but iv attracted more eyes to Lethwei in 5 years than they have in 25 years if not more.
I attracted economic growth beyond belief to the Myanmar.
People wanted to travel there to learn the art of Lethwei.
Its asinine for me, its incredibly laughable to think they have any power over me or anything that I do. I’ve done world tours all over the world many seminars in over 30 countries, teaching over two thousand students all across the world including Europe and America and the response has been incredibly amazing.
They’re not the World Lethwei Federation (WLF), the WLF is the most powerful,they have affiliated federations all accross the world including Brazil, Denmark, Slovakia, Poland, USA, ect. Nobody in the world tells me anything. The World Lethwei Federation can’t, and especially not the MTLF
I’m my own fighter, I fight wherever I want, I am fighting for the Myanmar people and I have one mission to help Myanmar make Lethwei famous all around the world, and I couldn’t care less about what these old dudes sitting in their chairs writing their official letters say about me.
I have respect for the WLF and right now their sanctioning the World Championships in Poland, their also sanctioning another event in Warsaw aswell as the USA, so this is what I care about, what does the MTLF do? They do nothing their just sitting in a gym talking and pretending their helping the sport.
Who’s actually helping the sport? it’s not their little Federation it’s WLF. As for stopping me from fighting, I’m in talks of getting another fight in the USA this year going into the next.
All this came about because they couldn’t understand a little trash talking I simply stated facts, and what’s really funny is we’re talking about the most brutal sport in the world and they can’t even handle some words between fighters leading up to a fight.
I simply said that their story is a direct insult to the Myanmar power, courage and unequalled strength, by celebrating their fake ludicrous story from the seventeen hundreds, their bringing back old Myanmar memories which is in fact bringing hatred and divide between the two countries, and they don’t even realise it.
The story seems to be invented to make the Thai people feel better about losing the war, they needed a moral booster at the time, but it’s disrespectful to Myanmar’s honor and strength. Burmese people are not celebrating the war victory anymore, in fact they are sad about them. But Thai people are still celebrating them, and inciting hatred between the countries.
The Thai people and Muaythai community are basically doing projection saying I’m being disrespectful. They are the ones being disrespectful. They can celebrate their sport without praising this unbased story.
People are having their attention brought to Lethwei, the respect will happen after the fight, but as for Thai people not respecting the Myanmar people with their stories, then I say respect works both ways and that is this whole story, the letter is not worth my time I’m going to knock Buakaw out and show Lethwei is superior.
There you have it Dave Leduc emphatically responding to his letter from the MTLF, we would like to thank Dave Leduc for his time and for giving us his thoughts on the situation.
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Featured Image Credits to Dave Leduc
