Prison Fighters: 5 Rounds to Freedom is a documentary about the practice in Thailand’s criminal justice system that allows select inmates to fight for their freedom. In a muay thai ring, if the selected inmate wins a fight, he receives a royal pardon and is released from jail. If he loses, he stays in jail. In the Prison Fighters documentary, the inmate Noy Khaopan, convicted of killing a man by stabbing him in the head, faces American muay Thai fighter Cody Moberly of Wichita, Kansas.
The fight between Khaopan and Moberly was supposed to be in the prison but it was moved to a stadium outside of Bangkok. Moberly said of his opponent, “It didn’t matter if he killed someone or not; I just wanted to get in there and win and I actually thought I won that fight, though, but I wasn’t about to protest anything. He was pretty tough but everybody thought I won. Film crews from Showtime and HBO were there and they all thought I won.” Prison Fighters: 5 Rounds to Freedom premieres on Showtime on Friday, February 24 at 8:30pm.
