There have been a few rumours flying around lately of lawsuits involving Buakaw, MAX, and Thai Fight, but as of today the rumours have been confirmed. Yesterday, Buakaw Banchamkek announced that Thai Fight was pressing charges against him in the amount of 50 million baht (Roughly £1.6 million GBP) in contract breaches for his exhibition matches in Cambodia against Harlee Avison and Malik Watson on MAX Muay Thai in Surin.
The trial against Buakaw is scheduled for July 15 in the Ratchada Court.
Buakaw had signed an exclusive contract to Thai Fight which lasted until 2014. He has broken this contract numerous times by fighting “exhibition” bouts on a few shows in Cambodia, Surin, and most recently Koh Samui against Quentin Chong. Thai Fight has issued several warnings to Buakaw and his camp, but it appears they both took little notice. It seems that Buakaw was under the impression that participating in exhibition bouts exonerated him of responsibility to his original contract, but obviously Thai Fight believes that to be untrue.
Thai Fight also announced a 100 million baht suit against MAX Muay Thai for the use of copyrighted images. Thai Fight claims that MAX used Thai Fight photographs of Buakaw without permission, making minor alterations, and then selling the photos to various contributors.
How this will effect the future of MAX cards is currently unknown. Their second show in Jakarta, Indonesia is still scheduled to kick off on June 29.