Mixed Martial Arts Meets Khmer Boxing

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, in Siem Reap, Cambodia, professional mixed-martial-arts fighter Justin Wong found himself sparring in a boxing ring with his wife, Jaime Higa, at the Angkor Fight Club, where they’re both regulars. The twenty-eight-year-old Wong held the pads as she lunged at him. Last fall, Higa was offered a job in Siem Reap, a tourist town best known as a jumping-off point for the historic temples of Angkor, and the two decided to relocate here from the Bay Area. Wong, a professional mixed-martial-arts fighter since 2008 who came up through amateur kickboxing in the United States, wasn’t sure, when they made the move, how his cage-fighting career would evolve. “Then I got excited,” Wong said, of his early research. “You don’t need to spend all that money to compete and it’s a small, tight-knit community. It’s been great.”