Issue Date: 
Jan 17 2013 - 11:00pm
Author: 
Page3
Topics: 
city living

Oh yeah, baby. The governor election is ready to rumble! Draw near as political heavyweights Sukhumbhand “The Prince” Paribatra and Pongsapat “The Good Cop” Pongcharoen lather up and wrestle down for the title. In the blue corner, The Prince, weighing in at 305 pounds, can positively crush The Good Cop with the weight of his experience. But The Good Cop’s fresh face and media savvy should allow him to side-step the kind of bone-crushing allegations currently being leveled at The Prince. For those new to the sport, here are three key moves you’ll want to be on the lookout for:

The Futsal Flop: In a bid to stun your opponent, leap from a massive 1.2-billion-baht unfinished arena. Warning: if done wrong can lead to massive self-inflicted injury to reputation.

The BTS Lease Lock: One holds firmly onto the rights to the BTS lease and then extends them by another 17 years. Another risky move as even the slightest error in execution can see serious loss of face resulting from the Department of Special Investigation refs.

The Traffic Pile-up Nightmare Throw. Just pick up nearby cars and throw them at your opponent, Hulk-style. A specialty of The Good Cop who uses the power of his brown uniform to control traffic, so The Prince will have to rely on his ability to turn cars into bikes instead. With 1,000 new cars coming into Bangkok every day, traffic tactics could prove crucial to winning this match.

The Good Cop has one major advantage, his tag team. So even if he finds The Prince sitting on his face, one quick tap and into the ring comes Khunying Sudarat to invoke her special mystical powers, Thaksin, Yingluck or even the entire police force. The Prince definitely has more experience, though, making this just too close to call. Here’s what we do know: both The Prince and The Good Cop will play dirty. Expect low blows. Expect no mercy. Expect everyone to groan that you can’t get a drink. And expect less than half of Bangkokians to actually bother to vote on Mar 3.

More Page 3.