He’s snagged the ISKA, IKF and the Thai Boxing Association tournament belts and in 2013 he took the Florida State Golden Gloves, the prestigious boxing tournament. He walked away from his amateur career with a healthy record of 41 wins and 10 losses.
His journey began while he was young. He began competing in Sanshou, a Chinese martial art that combines Kung Fu, kickboxing and wrestling. But at 16 years old he’d reached his limit in the sport.
“Sanshou is not that big. There is not much to do with it besides one tournament a year. I wanted to continue doing more. I didn’t want to do old school kickboxing. I saw Buakaw and so I went into Muay Thai.”
That plan took Tenpow to the international stage. Tenpow competed in the biggest Muay Thai tournament in the world, IFMA in 2015. He went to the contest on short notice. He jumped in the deep end. As one of the early IFMA fighters he was unaware of the caliber of what he signed up for with the A Class Bracket.
“Later I found out that boxers like Andre Kubelin and Superbon Banchamek were in the same bracket,”
He drew an opponent from Kazakhstan with well over 200 bouts. In the first round Tenpow was downed with a spinning back kick to the liver but he kept going.
“I pushed through that for the last two rounds but I came up short on it. Lost two rounds to one. It built me up a lot. I’d never seen anyone with that level of experience. Being at that level of a tournament and being around those high level guys. I got to check where I was,” Tenpow said.
Since then he has trained extensively in Thailand and has won several victories there, including on Buakaw Banchamek’s own promotion. He’s also continued to compete with success on the US circuit after turning professional in 2015.
United States of America
