Brett Dalton’s Story
I’m Brett Dalton (Right), the head trainer at OPNG Muay Thai.
My fighting career
I started Muay Thai Kickboxing in 1993 and fought in the ring for a decade.
Throughout my fighting career, I won:
The WA WKA Title (1995)
The WMC Australian (1997)
The King’s Cup Bangkok (1998)
The WKA Title (1998) + defended the WMC Title (1998)
The WMC Oceana Title (1999)
The WMTA South Pacific (2000).
I was the first Australian to win the King’s Cup Bangkok for Australia.
How I got started:
When I first started fighting, I trained in Perth for 2 years, until I wanted to take my training to the next level. I decided to travel to the heart and soul of Muay Thai, Thailand. My first trip was in ‘95. A local Perth promoter, who was Thai, put me through to a friend who had a Muay Thai camp in Bangkok. It was one of the best moves of my life because it turned out to be one of the best training camps in Thailand.
The owner, Jar-Tui, was a famous trainer and promoter of Muay Thai in Thailand. We got along really well and we are still best friends today. Me and 3 others were the first Westerners to train at his camp. It was hard at the start because we didn’t speak Thai and they didn’t speak English. But, we worked it out.
Training in Thailand
I used to fly to Thailand before I had a big fight coming up, mainly title fights. Cause, there are no distractions and the training is vigorous. I’d train 3-4 weeks before a fight. In total, I travelled to Thailand to train about 4 or 5 times a year for about 10 years.
This was our daily routine.
Wake up at 4:30 am
Run for 12km around the King’s Palace
Then we’d start our 2 and a half-hour morning session.
Start with 30 minutes of skipping
Shadowboxing
Bag work
300 push kicks
300 knees
We would eat at the end. Then, go back to our apartment and rest till about 10 am and come back to the camp.
The afternoon session was 3 and a half hours long and was harder.
Start with 30 minutes of skipping on concrete, barefooted
5 x 5-minute rounds of shadow boxing
5 x 5-minute rounds of technique sparring
5 x 5-minute rounds of bag work
5 x 5-minute rounds of pad work
Grapple for 45 minutes, no break
300 push kicks on the bag
500 knees of the bag
200 sit-ups
Then, the whole camp would sit down and eat together. Then, go back to the apartment, shower, sleep and do it again. We’d get Sunday off.
Biting the bullet
At this point, I had 5 fights under my belt, including winning my first title (WKA State Title), with my first trainer, Zen do Kai. I found myself without a car and a 2 and a half-hour train ride from the gym. All I would get was the group classes and maybe 15 minutes of pad work. I had won a state title in my 5th fight and that’s all the attention I was getting. Looking back, that’s where I learned about the levels of fighting.
So, there was this dilemma. Whether to stay with a trainer that wasn’t going to take me where I wanted to go or to bite the bullet and do what’s best for me. So, I bit the bullet. I started training at another gym with a guy that had a few fights in the ring. His gym was close enough to walk to. I had 2 fights training with him. So I had 7 fights with 3 wins and 4 losses. My fight record at this point had me with more losses than wins.
I had a break from fighting for a few years and went fishing on prawn and scallop trawlers. I always had fighting on my mind when I was out at sea. One day, when we came to town for the full moon, I was sitting next to my good mate, Andy Walton. I looked at him and said “F*ck this sh*t. I quit. I’m going back to Perth to win an Australian title.”
When I was at sea, I got a call from a promoter, Brian Langwell, asking me if I would fight a guy for an Australian Title. I said “What an Aussie Title? Of course.” An Australian Title was everything to me. I looked at my skipper and said “I quit, mate.” And that was that.
Where my luck began to turn around
I moved back to Perth and started training with a guy named Brian Kingwell at his gym called Open Palm Nakortang Gym (Aka OPNG Muay Thai).
It was hard to get a fight back in the day, so I said yes to anything that was going. And my luck had turned around. I was beating guys I shouldn’t have beat and it just continued like that till the end. I kept learning and winning till I got all the way to the top. I found myself competing for gold in a competition that was attended by around 3000 people, The King’s Cup Bangkok. I fought a Moldavian bloke in the first round, winning by unanimous decision. Then, faced a New Zealander, who I knocked out. Then I defeated an Uzbekistani in the 3rd, earning myself the chance to fight the Swedish champion. I knew I had a tough fight ahead of me. He was in great shape and had won all his contests by knockout. He was supposed to have over 100 fights, 2 world titles and 4 European championships. But I went in there feeling relaxed, knowing that if worse comes to worse, I’ll still have a silver medal, which was an achievement I was really proud of. Against odds, I ended up winning gold. Representing Australia was the biggest thrill. At first I didn’t believe it really happened, it was all a bit too much. It took a while for the enormity of my achievement to sink in.
Brian Kingwell later asked if I’d like to go partners with him in OPNG. Obviously, I said yes.
After I knew I was going to be a trainer, I wanted to have as many fights as I can to get as much experience as possible. So, when I’m talking to my fighters in the corner, I can say “It’s alright mate. I know how you feel. You’re going to be okay. Have a deep breath.”
I went on to win 3 more titles and defend another.
My outcome
And the thing I mentioned before about levels. If I didn’t bite the bullet and leave my first trainer, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere but locally. So there are levels of knowledge and experience in coaching and you need to find what accommodates you at your level or where you want to go. I was training in Perth at my gym. But to get the edge, I had to go to Thailand to gain more knowledge that was available in Perth at the time. So, I used to travel to Thailand, get knowledge there, come back and practice it. It was good for me. I got paid money and got flown around the country and the world doing what I loved to do. It doesn’t get any better.
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