By Anthony Evans: Last week SecondsOut spoke to Gary Shaw while the promoter was in an airport waiting to fly to Thailand. Shaw, alongside boxing lawyer Jim Wilkes, was heading to the scene of the recent tsunami disaster to personally donate $100,000 to the relief effort.
Shaw has friends in Thailand and here he speaks about what he saw while he was over there.
"We took a police helicopter in and the destruction from the air is every bit as bad as it looks on TV," Shaw said sombrely. "I went to Chiang Mai, the Golden Triangle, all over the affected parts of Thailand and it and eerie experience. Totally unbelievable.
"I can’t speak for Sri Lanka or Indonesia because I haven’t been there. I’m sure it is just as bad there if not worse in places but what I saw over there in Thailand...
"I went to a village where only 40 people survived and the Temple where all the bodies are been kept. What affected me perhaps the most was walking along the beach where all this happened, it looks almost normal now apart from the rubble, and you can see sneakers or flip-flops and you know all these things belong to people who are not here anymore.
"I saw a ’Finding Nemo’ DVD on the beach and I knew that it used to be some kid’s DVD. It was a very eerie feeling, that’s all I can say. Absolutely dreadful...
"Standing in town, I couldn’t understand the energy of a wave that could take out buildings like that. These weren’t houses on sticks or mud huts, they were offices, concrete, steel, and they’d just been swept away - demolished.
"It looked like Berlin after the Second World War - if someone told you it’d been bombed out you’d believe it.
"I spoke with people and one gentleman said that you’d think that amount of energy, that size of a wave would come in with a roar but he said it came in so quietly. He said there was barely a sound until it hit the buildings...
"They told me to come back and explain while they are grateful, what they need more than donations is for people to actually come to Thailand with their money. They need tourism to come back as soon as possible. I know a lot of people think the whole place is destroyed but that’s not the case.
"I stayed in as nice a resort as any place I’ve ever stayed in in my life. It has a great swimming pool, golf course - everything was completely intact. The county is not destroyed but it needs tourism; you don’t not go to California because of something bad that happened in New York.
"Is there devastation in Thailand? Yes. Are a people dead and are they going to find a lot more bodies? Yes. I was told they expect to find 1000s of bodies yet.
"I’m starting back work (today, Wednesday) and am still trying to take what I saw in. I still have to earn a living, fighters still need fights and life has to go on. Live is going on in Thailand, too, but one thing is for sure: I’ll never again put as much importance on a win or a loss in boxing as I did last year."
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