The inaugural Thailand–Canada Muay Thai Challenge, to be held on 13 September 2026 at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, is a celebration of strong diplomatic ties, cultural exchange, and the enduring friendship between Canada and Thailand through the medium of sporting excellence.
Daniel Zhou is excited about representing Canada at the upcoming Thailand–Canada Muay Thai Challenge on 13 September 2026 at Ottawa’s Canadian War Museum. For the professional Muay Thai Canadian athlete who has competed in over 30 fights across North America and is the recipient of the Silvertooth Kickboxing Champion award (2023), the IFMA Pan American Champion award (2024) and the Professional WBC Muay Thai North American Champion Award (2026), the Thailand–Canada Muay Thai Challenge offers him and other Canadian Muay Thai athletes a chance to showcase their skills against accomplished Muay Thai athletes from Thailand, providing international recognition, as well as a unique learning experience, with an opportunity to measure themselves against the sport’s highest standards.
ABOVE: Daniel Zhou with his Silvertooth Kickboxing Champion Belt. (Photo: Silvertooth Promotions)
Presented by the Royal Thai Embassy in Ottawa, in partnership with Muay Thai Canada, the Sports Authority of Thailand, and promoted by Ottawa Fight & Fitness, the Thailand–Canada Muay Thai Challenge is one of the flagship events celebrating the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Thailand and Canada, bringing together government leaders, diplomats, Olympic stakeholders, athletes and the international sporting community.
The Challenge is expected to feature five Canada-Thailand bouts with elite athletes from both countries competing against each other on the main card, followed by five Championship Title Fights on the undercard sanctioned by the World Muay Thai Council (WMC), Muay Thai Ontario (MTO), and Muay Thai Canada (MTC), in which some of the best Muay Thai athletes across North America will compete against world-class international opponents. While there will be no prize money, athletes will compete for the honour of representing their country, the opportunity to face elite international opponents and a specially commissioned championship belt created exclusively for this inaugural Challenge.
A spokesperson from The Royal Thai Embassy in Ottawa commented, “This inaugural Challenge marks an important milestone in the development of Muay Thai in Canada, which has become one of the fastest-growing Muay Thai communities outside Thailand. Canadian athletes have earned growing international recognition through their technical skill, dedication and professionalism. More importantly, the Challenge will promote mutual learning and help raise the level of Muay Thai in both countries through healthy competition and technical exchange. The Royal Thai Embassy hopes the Challenge will inspire more Canadians—especially young people—to take up Muay Thai and further strengthen Canada’s role as a leading centre for the sport in North America.”
In recent years, the Royal Thai Embassy, together with relevant partners, has organized Muay Thai youth camps for Canadian youth and coaches in cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. While these training activities have helped promote Muay Thai and strengthen exchanges between practitioners from both countries, they have generally been held on a relatively small scale by local instructors.
In response to the growing popularity and maturity of Muay Thai in Canada, the Royal Thai Embassy wanted to create a flagship event to mark 65 years of Thailand-Canada diplomatic relations, culminating in the idea for the first-ever full-scale Muay Thai competition featuring fighters from both Thailand and Canada.
The event is being organized as a friendly competition that provides a platform for elite athletes from both countries to compete, exchange knowledge and strengthen ties between their Muay Thai communities, while simultaneously celebrating sporting excellence, cultural exchange and the enduring friendship between Thailand and Canada, through one of Thailand’s most treasured cultural traditions.
The Royal Thai Embassy spokesperson remarked, “As the birthplace of Muay Thai, Thailand is proud to share a world-class sport that embodies respect, discipline, resilience and mutual respect while bringing people together across cultures. The Royal Thai Embassy hopes the Challenge will become a signature annual event between Thailand and Canada, deepening people-to-people ties, strengthening sporting cooperation, encouraging more Canadians to practise Muay Thai and inspiring Canadians to visit Thailand to discover more about its culture, traditions and the home of Muay Thai,” and explained that Ottawa is home to Canada’s largest and most active Muay Thai community.
With a live global broadcast scheduled for the event, the embassy hopes that the Challenge will not only serve as an international showcase for Muay Thai but also help raise international awareness of the strong ties between Thailand and Canada, founded on shared values, mutual respect, and growing people-to-people connections.
Apart from the Thailand–Canada Muay Thai Challenge, the Royal Thai Embassy, in partnership with Muay Thai Canada and supported by the Sports Authority of Thailand, will also host Muay Thai Master Classes at Maison du Citoyen, Gatineau on 12–13 September, led by three renowned Thai champions— Chalarm Paranchai , Tapaokaew Singhamawynn and Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong, who will in turn be joined by four experienced trainers, who will work closely with participants to provide hands-on guidance of authentic Muay Thai techniques. The Challenge and the master classes jointly represent a weekend-long celebration of Muay Thai, combining elite competition, technical exchange and cultural engagement.
ABOVE: Daniel Zhou poses with his Professional WBC Muay Thai North American Championship Belt. (Photo: Silvertooth Promotions)
Ottawa-based Daniel Zhou started learning Muay Thai at age 21. While he was initially attracted to Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) after watching several fights on Netflix, on realising that there weren’t many gyms in Canada offering MMA training exclusively, he decided to switch to Muay Thai, the ‘Art of Eight Limbs’, incorporating punches, kicks, elbows, and knees – essentially some of the key fundamentals of MMA. He participated in his first fight in 2019 and traded his ‘amateur’ status for a ‘professional’ title last summer, after participating in the Rajadamnern Knockout at Rajadamnern Stadium in Thailand.
Having started at another gym, Zhou switched to Westside Muay Thai in 2019 because it was the only gym in Ottawa he found that was offering exclusive Muay Thai training. Westside Muay Thai also has a strong record of producing competitive-level Muay Thai athletes for national and international events – exactly what Zhou was aiming for. Having honed his skills, Zhou became an instructor, volunteering to train newcomers as a way to pay it forward.
Talking about what it takes to compete in national and international events such as the upcoming Thailand-Canada Muay Thai Challenge, Zhou remarks, “I train roughly 10 times every week. That could be running, pad work, sparring, clinching, boxing, strength or conditioning training. I’ve also benefitted a lot from the coaching at Westside Muay Thai, which practices the fundamentals of Muay Thai very well and has instructors who have trained in Muay Thai techniques in Thailand, who then pass on that expertise to other gym members.”
One major challenge, however, according to Zhou, is that professional Muay Thai is currently legal in only two provinces in Canada – British Columbia and Manitoba. This means that in all other provinces, Canadian Muay Thai athletes remain amateurs for a prolonged period even if they have competed in more fights than their professional counterparts globally, resulting in limited international exposure. “Ontario will be the third province to legalise professional Muay Thai in October this year, after which hopefully there will be more professional events staged, and competitors in these events will be paid for fighting,” says Zhou.
For Zhou, the most rewarding aspect of practicing Muay Thai is the variety of techniques which have a lot of depth to them and which make one a better fighter with consistent training and practice. “Muay Thai involves using multiple limbs to fight, unlike other martial arts, thus training you to defend and attack from any angle, making it ideal for both self-defence and competitive fighting. Besides, it’s a martial art that’s based as much on assertion and dominance as respect and discipline. It also teaches you to persevere towards your goals and face your fears because it can be quite daunting to fight half naked in front of a crowd of people and face someone who’s trained probably as hard as you, trying to knock your head off. Winning against all these odds makes you truly feel alive,” he avers.
Ottawa is becoming a hotbed for Muay Thai, propelled by a massive boom in gyms offering the martial art and by more and more instructors travelling to Thailand to bring back authentic Muay Thai training methods, thereby enhancing Canadian Muay Thai fighters’ skill sets. As a result, the city is seeing a rise in WBC and WMC champions, which in turn attracts more people in the city to take up Muay Thai. Annual Muay Thai competitions such as the ‘Art of War’, one of the most iconic and longest-running Muay Thai events that takes places at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, as well as international events such as the Canadian Muay Thai Open, WBC Muay Thai and the Amazing Muay Thai World Festival have also gained increasing popularity in recent years among Canadian Muay Thai athletes, offering opportunities for them to compete with Muay Thai athletes from other provinces, as well as international athletes.
ABOVE: (L-R) Graeme Stuart, instructor at Westside Muay Thai, Kru Alin, president of Muaythai Canada and founder of House of Champions Kickboxing & Fitness, Bob Carver, prominent Canadian Muay Thai master, Ben Pride, owner, Westside Muay Thai, Daniel Zhou (winner), Thai referee, Daniel’s opponent Cesar Gavilanes and Ajahn Suchart, professional Muay Thai master and founder of Siam No. 1 Thai Boxing Academy at the IFMA Pan-Am Championship 2024. (Photo: Nick Wang)
Following the Thailand–Canada Muay Thai Challenge, Zhou is hopeful to participate in the eight-man Grand Prix Muay Thai tournament to be presented by Freedom Fighter Promotions in New York on December 19, 2026, where some of the best North American Muay Thai athletes in his weight class will be competing for the $10,000 USD prize money up for grabs for the last man standing. His ultimate goal is to win a world title.
Muay Thai, a renowned martial art and self-defence sport originating in Thailand, began to establish itself in Canada in the mid-1970s, with several pioneers founding gyms and teaching the sport across the country. Ajahn Suchart Yodkerepauprai from Thailand opened SIAM No. 1 in Toronto, while Ajahn Songlith Singthong, also from Thailand, moved to Canada in the 1980s and introduced Muay Thai in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. In Alberta, Ajarn Mike Miles played a pioneering role in developing Muay Thai, teaching in Calgary since the 1970s. In Quebec, Master Peter Khambay Sisomphou started instructing at Tristar Gym in Montreal in the early 1990s. Other notable figures include Ajarn Khan Phady, co-founder of the erstwhile Canadian Amateur Muay Thai Association Ontario (CAMTAO) in Cambridge, Ontario and owner of Phady’s Muay Thai, and Kru Alin Hălmăgean, President of Muay Thai Canada, who moved from Romania to Stoney Creek, Ontario, in 2000 and has coached numerous world champions.
Canada boasts over three decades of Muay Thai world champions, with standout professional athletes leaving a global mark on the sport. Additionally, over 100 Canadian fighters have won medals at IFMA World Championships from youth divisions to under 23 and seniors. In 2024, Canada hosted the Pan American Muay Thai Championships in Ottawa.
While Muay Thai is governed internationally by the International Federation of Muay Thai Associations (IFMA), the sole international federation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the sport, Muay Thai Canada is the country’s officially recognised IFMA National Federation. Today, there are an estimated 10,000 Muay Thai practitioners in Canada, with most gyms located in Ontario. Over 200 gyms operate under the supervision of Muay Thai Ontario, the provincial sport organization recognized by the Ontario Ministry of Sport.
According to a spokesperson from Muay Thai Canada, Muay Thai’s growing popularity in Canada stems from the sport’s blend of physical fitness, practical self‑defence, mental discipline, and rich cultural tradition, along with growing Canadian exposure to Thailand through travel. Strong national organization from Muay Thai Canada and sustained support from Thai authorities have further expanded training access, cultural exchange, and overall participation.
The Royal Thai Embassy hopes to further expand cooperation through athlete and coach exchanges, international events and cultural programmes to foster the next generation of talent while strengthening the connection between the global Muay Thai community and Thailand. The September Thailand–Canada Muay Thai Challenge builds on this momentum by creating new opportunities for competition, cultural exchange and international collaboration.
Header image: (L-R) Westside Muay Thai team members Maddox Bowker, Ben Pride (club owner), Daniel Zhou and Nick Wang. (Photo: Westside Muay Thai)
