Muay Thai Fighter Suspended For Illegal Titanium Shin Implants

Muay Thai Fighter With Titanium Shins

Chiang Mai, May 22 – Muay Thai fighter Bandasak Chaiyasan was suspended by the World Muay Thai Council today when X-Ray images surfaced showing that he had fought with a titanium shin implant without disclosing it to the athletic commission during a bout on May 16th in Chiang Mai, Thailand. These x-rays emerged just days after his recent victory via headkick KO.

Supposed X-Ray showing the controversial titanium in Bandasak Chaiyasan’s shin.

Upon waking up, Chaiyasan’s opponent said the following:

“I have never felt anything like that. I have been fighting for 7 years and I have never felt anything like that kick.” – Noppadon Chalor

(translation by Fightstate.)

An unnamed contact at Bandasak Chaiyasan’s training camp told Fightstate that the fighter snapped his leg when his sparring partner checked a kick during training, and the titanium implant was part of his recovery. However, our research shows that keeping the implant in place after the leg is healed was in violation of the Int’l Muay Thai Federation’s Rules and Guidelines.

Also, there is doubt as to whether or not he was even injured in the first place, since an injury like this typically takes upwards of a year to fully heal and Chaiyasan has fought as recently as two months ago.

A representative of Noppadon Chalor, who was upset about the loss, doesn’t believe that there was an injury at all, and that “the titanium stick was added to gain an unfair advantage”. He says that Bandasak Chaiyasan was never injured, and just put the rod in place to cheat. He says the story about Bandasak being injured in training is fake because they saw him competing just two months ago.

“There are no signs of pre-existing injury, nobody saw him get hurt, and how did he recover so fast if he snapped his shin? Ask yourself these questions.” – A trainer from the camp of Chalor.

The most famous example of this injury and recovery is Anderson Silva. He choose to keep the rod in place, which is allowed under the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.

We were unable to get a statement from the doctor who inserted the rod into Chaiyasan’s shin, but here’s a statement from the Doctor who performed the operation for Anderson Silva:

“The minute I saw it and recognized it, I knew it was fixable. We are not even 48 hours from the surgery, and tibia fractures, though we can get them to heal, can have slower healing. So in general, my prognosis would be a fracture healing somewhere in the nature of three to six months. But there’s also soft tissue components that have to heal, and then of course a rehabilitative process as well.”