Article about China's MMA in Fightsport !

For those of you living in France, Fightsport (the number one MMA magazine here) has a great article on Art of War. I had the pleasure to contribute to it, too !

Here is a translation from my small interview:

Sacha Greif: "it's very hard to get permission [to hold an MMA event] in China "

He trains jujitsu at the Sankuno when he's in France, but he's been living in China for almost one year. Over there, he discovered fresh and almost unexplored grounds for MMA and grappling. He follows the local scene through his blog, ChinaCombat.

Why did you come to China ?
I originally studied Computer Science, but I also studied Chinese for 4 years. I graduated last year, and I decided to spend this year living in China to put my language skills to use. I spent 4 months in Guangzhou before coming back home and then coming to Beijing to work as a web designer.

What's martial arts and MMA like in China ?

MMA and combat sports are not that developed in China, so it's easy to quickly meet a lot of the scene's main figures .

How do you see MMA's chances of developing in China ?

Frankly speaking, a lot of people are doubting that MMA will explode here anytime soon, because it's hard to change the mentalities. Add to that the fact that in order to hold any kind of event in China, you need to go through a long (and costly) process to obtain the necessary authorisations.

How woud you describe the current MMA scene ?

Andy Pi is probably the only one who really got his name out. The Sanda fighters that he trained in jujitsu are starting to have a pretty decent understanding of MMA. And Art of War events may not possess a very high level of competition, but they're still fun to watch.