At the end of last year I sat down with Colin Moss in Cape Town for a Way of the Warrior interview to find out how the show will work and what viewers will see.
Click on READ MORE below for the fascinating interview and to see what Colin Moss says about having heart, Muay Thai expert Quentin Chong, ''having been there'' as an unhealthy dude and how dangerous Way of the Warrior will really be . . .
It's incredibly hands on and its tough. What we have created is really a traditional Muay Thai boot camp - the kind of boot camp that you would find in downtown Bangkok. It's not the glamorised romantised one where you're surrounded by palm trees. It's urban, its gritty, it's tough. The guys are essentially eating and sleeping Muay Thai. So they're going to be training 6 days a week - but we'll only be filming them 3 days a week. And they have 1 day off. So even when they're not on camera, it's very, very tough. Their living conditions are not comfortable and were going to control their diet completely. They're going to eat a very Eastern diet. Lots of rice. Its all very traditional. Its going to be really, really tough. Theyre going to have to learn the martial art of Muay Thai very quickly.
Is it possible to have fat and overweight guys fight each other and get good at Muay Thai so quickly?
We're setting out to not go and find fighters. We don't want fighters. We want novices. The theme of the show is transformation. We want these guys to fight their bad habits and transform themselves. They're fighting their own bad habits and fighting each other. And we're going to create warriors.
I've been working with DragonPower now for nearly 6 years that I've been training there on and off. When I'm traing for a movie that’s where I go to train to get in shape. When I have to get really cut for a film role that’s where I do it - and because its so easily done through Muay Thai. That’s what first gave me the idea of this, because I've seen the transformative power of Muay Thai first hand. I've known Quentin for a good 6 or 7 yrs.
How does Way of the Warrior play out? What twists can viewers expect?
The first 3 episodes will show us finding our contestants. At the beginning of Way of the Warrior we'll introduce Muay Thai to the contestants, we introduce the gym and the trainers, and we will show our countrywide search for the contestants. Then we bring them all down to Cape Town. The 3rd episode will start the cuts. We start with 16 contestants. Then we cut it down to 12 contestants. Then we cut down 2 more until we have 10 finalists in episode 3 and 4. From episode 5 we have the top 10 finalists. These guys are then going to be fighting.
From episode 5 onwards, at the end of every episode there will be a fight. The winner of the fight will nominate a person to fight next week. So, for the whole week everyone knows the one half of the fight equation. In every episode there is also going to be an activity. These activities are designed around the principles of martial arts - physical and mental stuff. I don’t want to give too much away, but it will all be based on the principles of grace, memory, balance, agility and stamina. The loser of the activity will have to fight the guy who was nominated last week. The penultimate episode will have 3 contestants and then we will have the last 2 guys who will fight in a big public fight night and we will be inviting people to that night.
Do you have advice for contestants to make it through until the end? What is the single quality that the winner will have to have?
Heart. That is what it comes down to. It’s the guy who has the drive, the ambition, the staying power - the tenacity.
Muay Thai is known as the most brutal ringsport in the world. More people get hurt and killed in Muay Thai than in any other martial art. In Muay Thai, unlike other martial arts, you're allowed to use not only the fists, but the elbows, knees, shins and feet. We obviously don't want to kill our contestants, so we'll minimize the risk - but no more so than any other amateur Muay Thai fighter would. The contestants will be fighting with protective gear. They'll be fighting with elbow guards, shins pads, gum guards and head gear. As well as gloves. There will still be a significant amount of risk. There will still be danger, more so than a lot of reality shows.
It's the start of a brand-new year and 2010's second big local reality show - and the first for M-Net Action. What will viewers see in Way of the Warrior that they haven't seen in other reality shows before?
Way of the Warrior is a brand-new, original concept. It will have a great mix of comedy and viewers will be entertained by the guys who are initially untrained and ungainly and unfit. Watching these guys when they're overweight and ungainly is going to be entertaining. Hopefully the viewing audience will empathise with them on this tough journey and will be really impressed with them when they transform themselves. Way of the Warrior will have the triumph over adversity, danger and real action. For any reality TV fan it has every element that they could possibly want.
How is your role as host of Way of the Warrior going to be different from other reality shows we've seen you host before?
It's going to be very different. I'm going to be the motivator. I'm going to be the guy who wants them to carry on. Im going to be the guy trying to stop them from giving up. It's going to be a very hard process. The thing is, I've been there - I've gone from a drunken lout to a healthy fit individual in my own life, and I've done it through marital arts and Muay Thai specifically. I've been on this road. I've been on this journey. And I'm going to be there for these guys. I'm not eliminating anybody. The guy losing the fight is going to be responsible for their own elimination. I'm going to be in the gym with them and be training with them and doing all the stuff that their trainers throw at them.
Which is going to be very sore!
