10 years ago, the sport did not exist in his country. Meet the man who changed all that
A lot can change in 10 years – in the world, in a country, in a sport, in a life.
In 2012, Barack Obama was in his first term as US President. David Cameron was British Prime Minister. There have been eight Australian premiers since then.
TikTok had not yet been launched. Grab had only just been. Smartphones were not yet ubiquitous.
In wrestling, AEW did not exist. Nor did the WWE Network. CM Punk spent the entire year as world champion. Edge was retired. The Undertaker wasn’t.
In Thailand, there was no pro wrestling – and the man who would change that was back then little more than a fan.
But Pumi Boonyatud was no ordinary armchair enthusiast. His drive and ingenuity kickstarted a pro wrestling scene in the kingdom, and then developed it into a rising and respected power in Asia.
Pumi went from being a childhood fan to a young man glued to online wrestling outlets, and used the latter to build contacts and get a foot in the door of the profession.
This led to him co-found Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling a decade ago alongside Japanese icon Emi Sakura, and eventually creating his own brand, SETUP Thailand Pro Wrestling, which boasts a regular event series, a growing and fast-improving stable, and cooperation with some of the biggest promotions in Asia.
To mark the 10th anniversary of his debut event – the very first Thai wrestling promotion – 32-year-old Pumi talks with Front Page Fight Sports about his journey, and SETUP’s future.
Tell me about your childhood and how you got interested in wrestling.
My dad is a university drama teacher and a writer, and he loves music. I grew up with jazz and blues. There are not many Thai kids like that. Our family loved to travel, and to try to find different places each weekend. My dad told me to write a diary and explain what everything is like. He gave me and my brother writing challenges, such as who can make a bottle of water sound more interesting. My childhood was very interesting – it was short in money but rich in experience.
I loved cartoons, but at home we only had one video player. Dad watched movies and my [older] brother watched wrestling. There was no time for cartoons, so I watched wrestling with my brother, mostly WCW Nitro.
I started learning English in school, from Grade 4. Mum sent me to extra classes, but my English came from watching wrestling, mostly. When a wrestler said a word I didn’t know, I’d look it up. I learned different words like “slobberknocker” and “smackdown”!
When I was 16 I started to write articles. Then, when I was 18, there was a TV channel that brought TNA to Thailand. I saw a lot of errors and mistranslations [in the Thai-language commentary]. I wanted to help them, but I didn’t know how to reach them.
The turning point was when I was studying in university in Bangkok and one weekend I got on a minibus to go and visit my parents in Nakhon Phathom. I’d been on the bus for five minutes and I saw on my phone that Kurt Angle was in Bangkok, at a TV studio right nearby. I thought, ‘should I tell the driver to stop and let me off, or just carry on my way?’ And I decided, ‘f*** it, let’s go there’.
Angle was meeting fans and press, but it was weird. Angle was touring and had been in India and the Middle East, but then he came here and the questions were really weird. The journalists didn’t know anything about wrestling. The whole thing felt unprofessional, so I spoke with the TNA team about this and the problems with their TV show in Thailand. They offered me a proper interview with Angle, so I did that and met him and other TNA wrestlers, and off the back of that, the TV channel asked me to be their [wrestling] advisor. I then auditioned to be a commentator and I became the Thai-language commentator for all Japanese wrestling broadcast here. This was how I made my name among the Japanese wrestling community.
That led you to set up Gatoh Move. Tell me how that came about.
I was on Twitter, before it was as big as it is today. It was before everybody had smartphones, even before Blackberry. You could just direct-message famous people. I was on it all the time, messaging wrestlers, saying ‘I want to meet you’. I was very otaku [nerdy]. Sometimes they would reply, sometimes not. Emi Sakura messaged me back, saying she wants to come to Thailand, so let’s meet. I thought ‘that was easy!’.
Emi had left her old company [Ice Ribbon], and in Japan there’s a lot of competition among wrestling companies, so she was thinking about other countries. We spoke a lot and she decided to give Thailand a try.
We didn’t have much budget, and as we were not from Bangkok we didn’t have many contacts. Everything was brand new. I even sold sandwiches on the street [to raise more money for Gatoh Move].
We started a wrestling gym and invited people to come and train for free. For the first two years, it was just a hobby, really, but little by little we started to make more friends, meet more fans, and began to negotiate towards our first event.
And here we are, 10 years later. Tell me about that first event.
It was held on September 6, 2012, in our gym in Bangkok. Masa Takanashi v Golem Thai was the very first match and there were three matches on the show.
We didn’t have a ring, so we decided to wrestle on mats. But we didn’t have any mats either! We’d been training on futons. So, for the show, we had to buy mats from a sports store, but they couldn’t deliver them on time, so EK Baki [pictured, now Terry Diesel] had to drive to the factory on the day of the show. His car was very small, so all the mats had to be folded up and stuffed into his car.
Then we realised we had no ring bell, so we bought a bicycle bell and used that! We didn’t know how to do the music properly, how to fade in and out. And I was the MC, but I was shy and didn’t know how to make it exciting.
Still, I learned a lot and I was very happy. It was a full house – 60 fans!
Why did you leave Gatoh Move and create SETUP [in 2019]?
There’s no hard feelings and we still work together. It’s just that the way we see wrestling is different; we had different ideas about the way we wanted to move forward. Emi didn’t want low blows, chair shots, bad words. I felt we were restricted. We could still make a good show, but I’ve worked with a lot of agencies now and I’ve seen that the most successful wrestling companies change to meet what the audience needs. So, I thought it was better to follow that belief.
My favourite promotion right now is DDT. They do comedy, they do serious stuff, they might try something stupid, but the main thing is if you mix entertainment with wrestling, you can do very good business. They are having fun, and just like us they started out very small.
So I wanted to try different things, but thought it was better to try those ideas outside of the Gatoh Move brand, because Gatoh Move already had a very good and strong image and I didn’t want to risk damaging that. We [Pumi and Gatoh Move] never officially split, more like it slowly faded away during the pandemic [when travel was heavily restricted].
Yeah, SETUP’s first show came just two months before the pandemic hit. How did it affect you?
It f***ed us up, big time! The pandemic forced us to do 30% of [audience] capacity, so we needed to save money. We did shows with no lighting in a virtually empty studio. But without fans is no good. We realised fans want to be proud of wrestling;, they like to take photos and videos. So, once we were allowed to bring fans back, we upped the production, spent on entrances, added idol dancing shows. We learned we can cut the costs in other areas, and ended up making more money.
So, how did SETUP start out?
I talked to a business advisor about what we could do with the resources we had, and I asked media professionals “If I do this, will it work?”, “What would make you want to do news stories about us?” and so on.
I also learned from Gatoh Move what we had been lacking. We needed a regular venue, a lighting team, editors, designers. Finally, we had enough of a concept to run our first show [on January 11, 2020].
How do you find new talent? What are you looking for in a potential wrestler?
We promote a lot through influencers and idols. Lots of fans ask how they can join. But we don’t accept just anyone; they have to have the right attitude, first and foremost. Attitude is very difficult to change. I trust [head coach and co-founder] Paksa and the team; they can train anybody to become good wrestlers. If they have low skill, I’m not so worried. But if they have a bad attitude, even if they are very good, if they are just in it for themselves, then nobody will benefit.
Also, retention is very important. If you have 100 training, maybe one will make it [to compete], so when they do make it, we have to be sure they will stay.
What’s the process from walking through the gym doors for the first time to getting in the ring?
We have three classes – beginners, which is basic gymnastics, how to fall, some simple wrestling moves that we know are safe. The second class is intermediate, where the training is harder, we learn body slams and some more advanced wrestling moves. If they pass this class, they can do an exhibition match. Third, there is the professional class.
How quickly they level up depends on them, their ability, their attitude, and what we need from them.
SETUP has quickly become a player on the Asian wrestling scene and a theme of your shows has been visits by foreign wrestlers. Please list all the promotions you are currently in cooperation with.
Singapore Pro Wrestling, DragonGate, DDT, Gatoh Move, Manila Wrestling Federation, WrestleSquare, Vietnam Pro Wrestling and Hong Kong Wrestling Federation.
Who is the best wrestler you’ve worked with?
Masa Takanashi, in terms of how to be professional, the way he acts, the way he works with younger wrestlers, how he treats his elders, just the way he behaves. We learned a lot from him in these 10 years. He loves to help us. If we do something wrong, he’ll be the first to tell us, and coming from someone like him, we really appreciate that.
He was involved in the first match of my first ever show, and in the best match I’ve ever put on – CDK [Calamari Drunken Kings – Takanashi and Chris Brookes] vs Terry Diesel and Monomoth at SETUP Episode 9. People think that elevated Thai wrestling to the next level.
You’ve wrestled too [as Mr. Pumi vs Blue Lotus at Episode 5]. Was that a one-off, or will you do it again?
It depends… it was just for the ticket sales, but it was fun, that’s all I can say. I want to do it again, but just occasionally.
What are your short-term, medium-term and long-term goals?
Short term, to retain all the trainees we have right now. They’ve been with us for around six to nine months and we’ve started to promote some of them to matches already. I hope to retain most of them.
Medium term, to continue selling out [home venue] Circus Studio, do that maybe five or six more times so we know we can do it consistently, and then move to a bigger venue.
Long term, I want to do a show in front of 1,000 fans. I want this to be my full-time job [Pumi’s day job is in marketing, recruitment and HR]. I’m very serious now, I work very hard. I’ve made myself a better person. I failed a lot in the past, spent all my money, had mental issues, was overweight, but these past 10 years I’ve changed a lot. I want to get married, as I don’t want my girlfriend to be waiting for the guy chasing his dream – and I want to propose to her inside a wrestling ring!
LINKS
SETUP Thailand Pro Wrestling company page
SETUP Episode 10: 10th Anniversary of Thai Wrestling event page
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