The “Dream Job” That Lasted Six Months: My Time at Thai Fight, Six Years Later

From the outside, Thai Fight looked like a dream.

If you were even remotely interested in Muay Thai, you knew the name. The production, the fighters, the branding—it had presence. It felt big. Established. Like something that had already made it.

And for me, it felt personal.

This wasn’t just another job. It was tied to something I actually cared about. Something I understood. Something I wanted to be part of.

So when the opportunity came, I took it without hesitation.

I lasted six months.

Looking back, what stands out the most isn’t just what the company was—it’s the gap between what it looked like and what it actually was.

Because from the outside, Thai Fight looked like a machine.

From the inside, it felt like something barely held together.

The office should’ve been the first sign.

It was a small three-story townhouse. Only two floors were used as working space. It didn’t feel like the headquarters of a company trying to position itself as a global brand. It felt cramped. Improvised. Temporary.

But the physical space wasn’t even the main issue.

It was what that space represented.

There were goals—big ones.

Talk of becoming “world-class.”
Talk of expanding internationally.
Talk of reaching audiences far beyond Thailand.

The kind of vision that sounds impressive in meetings.

But behind all that talk, there was very little to support it.

No real tools.
No structured systems.
No clear pathway to get from where we were to where they said we were going.

Just expectations.

And expectations, when they’re not backed by support, don’t motivate people.

They exhaust them.

The internal culture didn’t help.

The older employees—the ones who had been there the longest—didn’t really lead. They delegated. Or more accurately, they offloaded.

Work flowed downward.

Responsibility flowed downward.

But guidance didn’t.

For younger staff like myself, it felt like being thrown into something without a map. You were expected to deliver, but not necessarily equipped to succeed.

It wasn’t mentorship.

It was survival.

Then COVID hit.

Or rather, it had already started unfolding when I was there—but the early stages were chaotic everywhere.

No vaccines.
No widespread testing.
Uncertainty across every industry.

Companies were adapting quickly. Work-from-home policies. Reduced schedules. At the very least, some acknowledgment that things were not normal.

At Thai Fight, it was business as usual.

Six days a week.
9 to 6.
In-office.

As if the world outside hadn’t changed.

And the irony was impossible to ignore.

We were an event company… during a time when events couldn’t happen.

If there was one department that captured the dysfunction perfectly, it was HR.

There was only one person handling it.

He had the role because of a family connection—the owner had married his sister.

And it showed.

Half the time, he wasn’t present in any meaningful way.

He’d fall asleep in his office.
Leave early.
Or not show up at all.

But the moment someone else took a day off?

Everything changed.

Suddenly, there were lectures.
Complaints.
A tone of authority that didn’t match his own behavior.

It was the kind of hypocrisy that doesn’t need to be explained.

You just see it.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Then there was the owner.

This is where something clicked for me—something I still carry with me.

He kept saying the company was “world-class.”

Repeatedly.

In meetings. In conversations. As a defining identity.

And it reminded me of something I’ve always believed:

If you have to constantly tell people what you are, there’s a good chance you’re not that thing yet.

At the time, the company’s main platform had around 400,000 followers.

My supervisor was confident—almost certain—that by the end of the year, it would reach one million.

It didn’t.

By the start of the following year, it was around 600,000.

Growth, yes.

But nowhere near what was promised.

And more importantly, there was no real system driving that growth.

No strategy that matched the ambition.

The vision was always there.

“Global.”
“International.”
“Next level.”

But every time someone younger tried to contribute ideas—new approaches, new directions—it went nowhere.

Ignored.
Dismissed.
Or rejected without consideration.

There was no openness to change.

Just repetition of the same approach.

Over and over again.

And that’s the thing about companies that rely on identity over execution.

They don’t evolve.

They maintain.

They repeat what has worked before, even when it stops working.

And eventually, they plateau.

To this day, Thai Fight is still doing what it has always done.

Same audience.
Same positioning.
Same ceiling.

And after seeing how things operated from the inside, that makes perfect sense to me.

I don’t regret those six months.

If anything, they were necessary.

Because they taught me something I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

They taught me to pay attention—not to what a company says, but to how it actually operates.

To look at:

• how people are treated

• how ideas are handled

• how leadership behaves when no one is watching

Because a company can look impressive from the outside.

It can carry a strong name.
A recognizable brand.
A reputation that makes it seem like a “dream job.”

But once you’re inside, the illusion fades quickly.

And what you’re left with is the truth.

Sometimes, it’s exactly what you hoped for.

And sometimes, it’s not.

Thai Fight, for me, was the latter.

And six months was enough to know that.