Remy Bonjasky

The Story of a Born Champion. Remy Bonjasky

The story of my life begins in Paramaribo, Surinam were I was born in the year 1976. At the age of five, my family and I crossed the ocean to start a life in an new country, the Netherlands. You would expect that such a major change of circumstances would be unpleasant for me but that wasn’t true. On the contrary, I was very excited. So in 1981, my mother, brother Milton, sister Ivette and I moved to the Netherlands were we were reunited with my father who was already living and working there. He had left Surinam a couple of years before we arrived because of his job. At the age of five I started to play soccer such as every ordinary Dutch boy did. This very popular Dutch sport was the love of my life and I put my heart and soul to it. I was a defender as well as the goalkeepers backup. These days I could not imagine a life without my beloved soccer....

But when I was sixteen, something bad happened, I broke my left leg. This was very disappointing for me because it meant that I couldn’t play soccer for at least two months. It also meant I would lose my condition and routine and that wasn’t a joyful thought at all. After eight weeks the cast from my leg was removed, I was very glad when this happened, especially because the summer was on its way. Off course nobody would want to be stuck with a hard object around there leg in the summertime. That would really be a horrible imprisonment for such a young child. After recovering from this nasty leg injury I did not manage to succeed at the same soccer level as when I had left before the injury. This was caused by the process of my recovery. During the recovery period I wasn’t guided well what caused some pains in my hips. Because of this pain I couldn’t run and sprint as fast as I should and wanted to. I was not willing to give up my desire for soccer so I tried to practice and play at least one more season. But even after this season I could not manage to grow into my old shape and physique. After a while I decided to quit soccer, this was very unpleasant for me. My goal of becoming a successful soccer player at a major league team had been shattered. It was shocking to face a situation that made it impossible to live up to my own dream.

During this time I also was a high school student. Like every teenage boy my friends and I were talking about girls, soccer and partying. One day we were deeply discussing the movie we saw the evening before. This movie was called `Bloodsport` and the leading role was for Jean Claude van Damme. The conversation between my friends and me was about kickboxing and who was capable of imitating van Damme the best. This discussion led to one friend actually telling us about a Thai Boxing Dojo were he used to train. He actually challenged us to join this Dojo the `Mejiro Gym`, so we could prove to each other who was the best. And this was exactly what we did! The first time at Mejirogym was harder than I had imagined. My knowledge about Thai Boxing was really poor, so I could not known to expect such a hard time during training. But after my first training session full of fundamentals skills and conditioning I liked it so much I again fell in love with a sport. So after a period of time searching for a new activity such as basketball, volleyball, badminton and lifting weights I finally again found a sport where I was deeply passionate about.

After a period of time I was the only one left from the group of friends who initially singed up with Mejirogym. Practice is the mother of perfection and after already six months I was ready to fight my first match. The first fight was the most important one. I had to face a great talent, Valentijn Overeem, who later became a very good free fighter. Before the fight my nerves were killing me, mainly because it was my first fight and also because all my friends and family came to see me fight. Despite my nerves I was optimistic about winning the fight. The battle only lasted for one and a half round because I was able to force my opponent to give up by using my knees, which would later be famous and know as the flying knee.

This basically tells the story how I began my Thai Boxing career and how my career continued ,fight after fight and win after win. It was going well for me, not only because I was talented but primarily because of the great support and preparation I experienced at `Mejiro Gym`. Before I knew I was fighting in the professional league , but I only practiced three or four times a week. That was far from enough to be constantly winning from the fighters in the A-league. If I wanted to achieve more, like fighting K-1, and become an all round fighter I needed to expand my training scheme. At this time I turned 25 years old and I was working at a big internet company as a network operator. While my Thai Boxing career was moving upwards It became harder and more unmanageable for me to combine Thai Boxing with my job. It especially became a bit of a problem at the times when I needed to fight abroad. With only a certain number of holidays It was not easy to travel regularly and be productive at work. At a certain moment a very good friend of mine offered me a proposition I couldn’t refuse. His exact words were “Remy, if you choose to do K-1 and give all your 100%, I will sponsor you and I will make sure you will be able to develop your talent by practicing as much as you can”. The choice of fully focusing on Thai Boxing was not that easy, because my working career gave me more certainty for the future. But all I want was to pursuit my dream.

And Finally the moment had come that I could follow my dreams and I decided to fully focus on my passion. The proposition was the extra push I needed to become an all round Thai Boxer .From becoming a full professional Thai Boxer my extend goal was set to win the t K-1 Grand Prix championship one day. Not in my wildest dreams I could have imagined that only a year and a half later after becoming a professional Thai Boxer, I would realize my ultimate dream by winning the K-1 championship in 2003. If this was not enough I was able to successfully defend my title at the K-1 championship in 2004 as well. So this how in a nut shell the career of Remy “The Flying Gentleman” Bonjasky took off ...Nowadays Remy Bonjasky is still a world class Thai Boxer and the Dutch fighter with a Surinamese Heritage managed to reclaim the K-1 Grand Prix Championship in 2008 again.