When Muay Thai fighter Clifton Brown* kicks, he lets out a loud, breathy, guttural sound that is more like a “heeeee” than the “hi-yah” you hear in Kung-Fu movies. A microsecond later, the echo of that grunt coming back off the wall is met by a louder thwack as his shin strikes the leather of a 250-pound heavy bag, which jumps and swings out four feet on its chain like a pendulum. He does this again and again, maybe three dozen times in a matter of two minutes — heeeeee-thwack! Heeeeee-thwack! Heeeee-thwack! — before mixing in a jumping knee to the bag that lands maybe five feet high. Then another. And another.
He’s not actually working out or anything; though he is in training for a fight in Tampa, Florida on Aug. 9 against Crafton Wallace that will air on Viewer’s Choice Pay-Per-View in Toronto sometime in September, today he’s just casually striking some blows for the benefit of the EYE WEEKLY camera. But the wild swinging of the heavy bag with each thwack puts some perspective on the YouTube videos of his fights, in which apparently unassuming shin kicks to the knee or side are a common occurrence. The knees are common too, thrown up under the ribs from inside “the clinch,” those times in the fight when the two fighters are hugging each other and nothing much appears to be happening. Now I know: something is happening, and that something is pain.
If any of them had ever heard of him, the core observation that every drunken jackass on every barstool would make about Clifton Brown is that he could kick your ass. Probably true, though Brown, who hasn’t been in a fight outside the ring since grade six, doesn’t much care about those tough-guy bragging rights. He is a four-time world champion Muay Thai** kickboxer, currently recognized as the reigning Super Light Heavyweight Champion of the World by the World Muaythai Council, the official world governing body of Muay Thai “under the directive of the Royal Thai Council.”
He is, by a significant margin, pound-for-pound the best kickboxer in Canada — and, in fact, the best such fighter Canada has ever produced — and arguably, in the apples-and-oranges way of such comparisons, the most accomplished active Torontonian professional athlete in any sport (although racecar driver Paul Tracy and tennis doubles No. 1 Daniel Nestor would be prominent in that argument). And for all that, what you and the jackasses on the barstools almost certainly have in common is that this is the first time you’ve ever heard of him.
I’m going to go ahead and ask you to picture what it would be like to be the world champion of anything — kickboxing, accounting, carpentry, whatever. Imagine the hours and days and years of total dedication to one thing; the combination of talent and timing and sun-up-to-sundown focus it takes to become the best — or among the best — of the world’s 6.6 billion people at what you do. In sports, unlike most other professions, relative success is fairly easy to gauge — you’ve got wins and losses and title belts and standings to let you know objectively when you’ve reached the top.
Now whatever it is you’re picturing, this is what Clifton Brown can tell you: if what you do is Muay Thai and you live in Toronto, then when you’re the world champion, in order to make a living, you must serve as a personal trainer to people who work on Bay Street, and you walk in a society that places very little value on what you do or what you’ve achieved. Not that Clifton Brown is complaining about any of this. He is a man at peace with himself in the way that only those who have found their calling can be. But he is entirely cognizant of just how little-respected his calling is in the time and place in which he lives, and he’s decided not to worry about that. And that’s a story that many Olympians and artists and “content providers,” world championship-calibre and otherwise, might recognize.
CHALK ONE UP for the people who say videogames are a good influence on kids. Brown says that, originally, he was attracted to Muay Thai because “I was just a kid who wanted to live the life of a videogame character.”
Born in Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto to Jamaican immigrant parents, Brown has what he says was a fairly standard upbringing — “there was no trouble or anything,” he says, dismissing the standard narrative of a kid saved from the streets by the boxing ring. He grew up in Rexdale, and then Brampton, and then Riverdale, attending Riverdale Collegiate Institute in the east end of Toronto, playing basketball and chasing girls and playing a lot of Street Fighter at the local arcade. “In the final stage of that game, you go to Thailand to fight two Muay Thai fighters. I could never beat the last one, though I tried and tried. And as corny as it sounds, somehow that stayed with me.”
At age 18, he realized he was never going to be a professional basketball player. He’d heard about Ajahn Suchart Yodkeripauprai — the former Northern Thailand Champion who first brought Muay Thai to Canada — and went to train seriously with him.
After a year — and his first amateur fight, in Michigan, which he lost — he was starting classes for a BA at York University, thinking about maybe pursuing a career in journalism. But his intensive training with Suchart had given him other ideas. Crazy ideas. “I had been talking about going to Thailand, but only talking about it,” he says. But suddenly things started to coalesce — there were some complications with his tuition payments at university that gave him a choice to continue; a friend who was encouraging him to pursue Muay Thai seriously came into a sum of money and offered to share it with him; and he ran into a Buddhist monk in the street and spent three weeks shepherding him around the city, though they had no common language. “I can’t describe the experience without sounding ridiculous,” he says, “but it’s like this is what I was meant to do.”
He dropped out of school, sold his motorcycle, quit his job at HMV and got on a plane. His parents were not impressed.
“I arrived in Thailand with three letters of introduction from Suchart,” he says, one for a guide, one for a guest house and one for a trainer. Navigating a foreign country with no language, he still wound up finding his destination. And his calling.
“I thought I was good when I went to Thailand. I found out I wasn’t shit. There were guys who were 100 pounds throwing me around.” He slept on the floor for the nine months he was there. There was no hot water, no refrigerator, no TV, not even a proper toilet. And he also felt a lot of pain. After his first fight he got beaten so badly that he couldn’t walk for three weeks. But there was also discipline and tradition.
At a coliseum, watching the fights, he experienced a transcendent moment. “I had this really weird experience, it felt like the ring was rising up and I was being pulled into it. It was really crazy. It was one of those moments where the place was full and everyone was screaming and you don’t hear a thing. All you see is what’s happening in the ring. So I got pulled out of it for a second and I looked beside me to this old dude and he’s nodding his head, like he’s seeing what I’m seeing. And I looked back and I was drawn into it again. That was the first time I really felt like I needed to be there.”
When he returned after nine months (he’s been back five times since — he’s spent a total of three and a half years training in Thailand) he was 50 pounds lighter, a different fighter and a different person.
IN THAILAND, Buddhism is a central part of the culture, and Muay Thai is intertwined with the religion in its philosophy and traditions. Brown is not a practicing Buddhist, but when he discusses Muay Thai, he often describes what he does in spiritual terms — at one point saying that the closest comparison for how he views the sport is to the life of a monk.
He says Muay Thai is not a sport or a job for him, but an all-encompassing lifestyle, and one that has made him a better person, a better father to his two young daughters, a better husband and a better man.
“It’s the commitment,” he says. “Facing the injuries, the cuts, you have to continue.” There’s the 300 to 500 push-ups, sit-ups, squats, chin-ups every day; the 10 to 12 kilometres of running; the time working the heavy bag — six hours of training in all per day, six days a week. There’s no drinking, no smoking, no partying and, notably, no “cutting the grass” for two weeks before a fight, “which affects your relationship with your wife.”
But there’s something more, something specific to the fighting arts. “Most of us, in our lives, have things we aren’t proud of that we hide away, elements of our character — you may have issues with addiction, with alcohol, with porn.… Most of us find ways to hide the things we’re ashamed of. But in Muay Thai, when you fight, all your shit is exposed. Your character comes out in the ring, everyone can see your weaknesses and your flaws. And you need to face yourself.”
When one of Clifton Brown’s clients has a bad day at the office, he may get yelled at by his boss, maybe he comes home to his wife, complains about it, forgets it and moves on. “When I have a bad day at the office, everyone knows. The first time I got knocked out in a big fight, in 2003, it was on the cover of a magazine — me lying on the mat.”
That fight (seen above), in which Nathan “Carnage” Corbett hit him with an elbow that put him out on his feet — so hard that the referee tried to break his fall so he wouldn’t hit his head on the mat — is often cited on martial-arts message boards as among the greatest knockouts of all time. “It was the most devastating moment of my life. It was like having the carpet pulled out from under me — in a split second, everything that you thought you had was gone.” He says it caused him a bout of hopelessness, but the rebuilding of his career and motivation made him stronger.
“Loss is something that we all go through,” he says. “After that moment in the ring, I really didn’t have a lot of hope. I felt very despondent. But I don’t know if I would go to that same place again if I were to suffer a loss in the same way. I’ve been through it.” And coming out the other side, he says, means he doesn’t fear it, which only makes him stronger.
HIS MUAY THAI CAREER has taken Brown to over 40 countries, including Jamaica, where he fought last month on a card that’s been called the biggest Muay Thai fight ever held outside of Thailand. He was received as a native son by the Jamaican media, profiled and greeted by politicians. He lost that fight — and the IKKC World Cruiserweight Championship — in a contentious split decision that he and his trainer are officially appealing.
And in addition to seeing the world, he’s become a partner in Siam No. 1, his gym, and set himself up on the career as a personal trainer and Muay Thai instructor that pays his bills. And most importantly, as he points out, it has brought him inner peace. But that doesn’t mean he’s at peace with the society he lives in.
One way to see this is to look at the legal situation of Muay Thai in Ontario***, which prevents Brown from practicing his profession by fighting at home. Another way would be to look at a recent incident that took place in a class he was conducting in a downtown gym for affluent professionals. One of the women in his class interrupted the lesson to loudly object to his teaching methods. He dismissed the class, and attempted to explain to her that disrupting the lesson was unacceptable. She lectured him on how she could choose to take Muay Thai at any number of gyms. Never mind his years of discipline, his years studying abroad, his undisputed mastery of the ancient traditions of Muay Thai. She viewed him not as a master sharing sacred knowledge with her, but as a customer service representative with whom she was dissatisfied.
In discussing this, Brown points to the Buddhist principle of the eight-fold path — the merchant class, those who make money, he says, are the dominant class in North America.
Other roles — scholar, artist, warrior, priest — have been dominant at other times and in other societies, but are now devalued. But while his role as a warrior is not seen as being valuable through that lens, it is the only way he could be at peace with himself. Although that statement may sound flakey, Brown —who intends to go back to university at some point to major in physical education and philosophy —is not shy about making it. And that’s why, he says, he’s not overly concerned about the lack of fame and fortune that have come with his achievements.
“People talk about enlightenment, about what they’re looking for, but even if you find that, it doesn’t mean your problems go away. Even if you reach the top of your profession, even if you become ‘champion’ of whatever it is you do — everyone thinks happiness will come when you get there. But I’ve been blessed or lucky enough, call it whatever you want, maybe cursed enough, to achieve something. And when you achieve it, it doesn’t mean everything falls into place.
“I still have problems. The difference now is that I know that happiness isn’t out there to be found. Happiness is what I am and what I choose to be. If I make up my mind to be happy regardless of my situation, I can be happy…. For me it’s about knowing more and more about myself, being a better person each day. That’s what makes me happy.”
NOTES
* CLIFTON BROWN
Hometown: Toronto, Canada
Date of Birth: Aug. 29, 1976
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 185 lbs
Pro Record: 40 - 10 - 25KO
Titles: 1998 Canadian Amateur Super Middleweight Champion, CMTA
1999 North American Light Heavyweight Champion, CMTA
2001 World Super Middleweight Champion, IMF
2003 World Super Light Heavyweight Intercontinental Champion WMC
2004 World Cruiserweight Champion, IKKC
2007 World Super Light Heavyweight Champion, WMC
** MUAY THAI: “Thai Boxing” in English, it is a martial art in which strikes are allowed using fists, elbows, knees, shins and feet. It is the national sport of Thailand, with a history that stretches back hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, long cultivated and preserved in Buddhist temples where children living communally have traditionally started training to be professional fighters at around age three. It became popular in North America in the late 1980s and early 1990s after it was the subject of the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Kickboxer and featured prominently in the videogames Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. According to the CBC, it is “often called the most lethal martial art in the world.”
*** MUAY THAI IN ONTARIO: Since 2003, Amateur Muay Thai has been sanctioned in Ontario under the Canadian Amateur Muay Thai Association of Ontario. Professional fights, however, are still not allowed in the province, due to the fact that elbow strikes and kicking below the belt are allowed in the sport, something deemed too dangerous by the authorities — including a 2000 court decision in which a judge said it was “inherently dangerous.”