Hero Legends 2007: International K1 Style Fighting Championships

(thanks to Michael for this guest post ! If you want to read about martial arts in China on a blog that's updated more than twice a year, go check out his site Shuaijiao.tv !)

October 13th in Shenzhen Coliseum was a landmark in the development of professional fighting sports in China. Hero Legends, China’s first privately run professional K1-style event was broadcast live on Guangdong Satellite TV to an audience of millions.

Held in Shenzhen Coliseum, Hero Legends started with some sensational choreographed martial arts performances that left the audience feeling as if they had just been digitized and were inside a martial arts video game. The fights proved to be equally entertaining.

The card was a solid line up of talent from all corners of the world.

Saiga Kizaemon (Japan) – Chandi Sarawut (Thailand)

The undercard was equally exciting with Japan’s Karate prodigy Saiga Kizaemon fighting Sarawut in his first professional fight. Six-time world Karate Champion and already identified as one of tomorrows stars by the K1 organization, Saiga fought the more experienced and battle scarred Sarawut with a tremendous amount of heart.

Saiga attempted several rolling kicks in an effort to surprise the Thai. He succeeded in his effort to surprise but was rewarded with a kick in the head as he was landing on the ground. That fueled some heated exchanges between the two that the referee quickly halted. A little bit of anger between the fighters made the following 2 rounds even more exciting with Saiga repeatedly trying to land his rolling kick. Sarawut, in typical Thai-fashion, stayed with what he knew and worked the low kicks and rear hand. Saiga was on the painful end of most of the exchanges but did manage to show the audience his skill in kicking with some wild spinning kicks that missed their mark. In the end, Saiga proved no match for the more experienced Sarawut. Sarawut won by unanimous decision

Joey Pagliuso (USA) vs. Xu Yan (China)

The second bout of the afternoon saw Chinese athlete Xu Yan systematically take apart Joey Pagliuso a Karate fighter out of California. Xu Yan was taller but thinner than Joey and used that reach advantage to keep Joey from implementing his plan to close the gap and work the inside. In what turned out to be an uneventful fight we saw Joey looking weary at points, either frustrated by being unable to implement his strategy or at his conditioning. The fight went the distance and Xu Yan won by unanimous decision.

David Morrow (USA) vs. Han Yang (China)

This bout was a comeback fight for David who was fighting his first pro event in 4 years. Han Yang a last minute replacement for David’s Ukrainian opponent who didn’t make weight was an unknown quantity who proved himself very quickly after the first bell. David’s speedy boxing-based style of fighting proved easy to evade with Han Yang keeping David at a distance with round kicks. We saw David receive a standing 8 count after a vicious exchange against the ropes that dropped him. He came back with some tremendous Navajo spirit to push Han Yang to his limits and give the crowd a great show. Once again it was a lightening round kick to the neck that finished David’s Hero legends experience. Han Yang by KO.

Ayron Howey (Canada) vs. Hou Xu (China)

Howey, a Sanshou fighter from Canada with an impressive record, wowed the crowd with an impromptu Xingyi demonstration on the runway as he walked to the ring. The fight started quickly with Ayron showing his power but not managing to land anything damaging to the well-conditioned Hou Xu of Beijing. Hou Xu nervous in his first appearance on a televised event calmed down in the 2nd round and began picking away at the now tired Ayron. Ayron who’s training leading up to the event was mostly MMA-based was not in the habit of checking the low kick and went down twice due to well-placed low kicks to the inside front thigh. In addition he went down 2 more times with not-so-well placed low kicks that found their way to Ayron’s groin. Visibly tired, Ayron’s rear hand started to drop and Hou Xu in control by that point picked his shot and floored Ayron with a well placed round kick to the neck. Hou Xu by KO

Kang En vs. Tatuya Ishda

Kang En is perhaps the most accomplished international standup fighter in China today. With KO wins in all 4 of his last fights, Kang En was confident that he would win this fight too. His prediction of a KO fell short as Tatuya in only his third pro fight proved to have heavy hands, a stone chin, and a huge heart, well worthy of K1’s strong interest in this young fighters career. Kang En’s usual explosive style was continuously shut down by pressure from Tatuya’s forward moving Karate-style of fighting. Although he consistently had Kang En on his back foot, Kang En was consistently inflicting more damage on Tatuya. Disappointingly for both his fans in China and Kang En himself, he failed to knock out Tatuya and won by unanimous decision.

Dong Jiangtao (China) vs. Wichanrit Trakanchan (Thailand)

This was the main event of Hero Legends and it proved to be a rollercoaster bout between 2 strong fighters. Jiangtao being a young and inexperienced fighter with limited international experience up against Wichanrit who has never been beaten by a non-Thai boxer. Wichanrit, a former Rajadamnoen Champion fighting out of Japan, dominated the rhythm of the fight from the outset and consistently scored damaging blows with his simple and beautiful kicking style. After 2 rounds, which I had scored to Wichanrit, he let his guard down and began putting on a show for the television audience, dropping his hands and smiling at his opponent at times. Jiangtao with some quick boxing and good luck managed to score enough for the judges to give him the third round. The third round was definitely entertaining with Wichanrit thinking he had the fight in the bag, so it was a surprise to see that the judges ruled a draw and a 4th round to decide the bout. In the 4th round Wichanrit perhaps didn’t give his opponent enough respect and once again was not 100% focused on the destroying he has become known for. Jiangtao stole the last round and the fight in what I thought was a controversial call. Kudos to Jiangtao for asking the audience for another round as he felt that Wichanrit had outfought him and he didn’t deserve the win.

Hayden Brooks (USA) vs. Vitali Fedorenko (Ukraine)

Hayden fighting out of Hermosa Beach, California faced off against the challenge he was looking for in Vitali Fedorenko of Ukraine. Vitali seemed in top form as the bout started evading some powerful kicks in dramatic Khaokolai fashion and following up with some heavy hands. His arsenal seemed limited though for someone who had practiced free-fighting since the age of 3 with virtually no round kicks during the first round.

By the second round the more technical Hayden had figured out that Vitali was not going to try to kick let alone knock him out with the devastating round kicks we had seen earlier in the evening.

Hayden found his rhythm and consistently punished Vitali with solid combinations that left him on the back foot with nothing to return. Hayden couldn’t put him away though and the fight went to a unanimous decision for Hayden.

Hero Legend’s promoter Zou Guojun, himself a 7 time national Sanda Champion, credits Hero Legend’s success to the fighters, and teamwork between organizers and promoters inside and outside China.

Hopefully, the success of Hero Legends is a turning point for fighting events in China. Hero Legends received strong support from Japan’s K1 organization, and other prominent promoters in the US and Thailand and many expect this precedent to herald the coming of overseas promotions such as K1 and UFC to 1.5 billion Chinese consumers very very soon.

Can’t wait for that!

[MMA China] Art of War 8

The next Art of War event, titled "Worlds Collide", is scheduled for September 22nd. The theme this time is international battles, as "24 Warriors from China, Russia, Italy, Canada, South Korea, Uzbekistan and Indonesia, will be facing each other". Let's hope the foreign fighters provide competitive match ups this time.

Can you guess the next MMA hotspot ?

Right now, Macao is probably one of the hottest place to invest in on the planet. It's Asia's Las Vegas, and if you've ever been to China or watched Hong Kong movies, you know Chinese like to gamble.

Ever since the Fertitas brought the UFC, MMA and Casinos have gone hand in hand, for better or for worse. Don't forget Bodog is primarily an online betting company. At one point, Pride was also considering holding events in Macao, but in its current state I doubt Pride will ever hold an event in Japan again, much less abroad.

Now Art of War might be entering the battle for Macao too, with this announcement that "guests from Macao" working for Macao Studio City attended the last Art of War event. The announcement doesn't say much more than that, but if MMA events are to be held in Macao, Art of War seems like a good candidate.

[Taiwan MMA] Why you shouldn't hate Andy Wang

You might not know Andy Wang, of TUF fame. And even if you do, well, you might wonder what he has to do with MMA in China apart from his last name.

For those who don't know him, he got famous on The Ultimate Fighter (a reality tv show where upcoming MMA fighters compete for a UFC contract) for apparently disregarding his coach BJ Penn's advice and implementing a very bad game plan in his fight. A lot of people got very angry, as they thought he threw his chances away by refusing to bring the fight to the ground and insisting on a stand-up war.

Well, since then I learnt that he is actually the head instructor of Taiwan BJJ. As you all know, Taiwan is actually a province of China (or is it China who's a province of Taiwan ?) so it stands to reason that I should cover Taiwan's MMA and BJJ scene even if I don't know anything about it.

On top of that he has his own blog, where he comes across as a pretty nice guy. For starters you can check out his post on wrestlers, with which I agree 100%. When he's in Taiwan I'd advise him to go check out Taiwan's Shuai Jiao if he hasn't done so yet.

Edit: I almost forgot what made me think about Andy Wang in the first place, he's interviewed in episode 59 of the excellent Fight Opinion Radio podcast. Go check it out ! (unless you're already coming from FightOpinion like 90% of my readership).

K1 Hong Kong results

results here

Chinese fighter Wang Qiang made it to the finals after beating Randy Kim and Musashi, but lost by KO to Fujimoto.

update: I watched the fights, and here's what happened. During the second semi-final match, Wang Qiang kneed Musashi in the groin, and Musashi's corner threw in the towel because he was unable to go on (he had already been kicked in the groin multiple times in a previous fight this evening). Wang Qiang was declared the winner, but the decision was overturned moments later and they decided to let the match continue after a 3 minutes rest period instead. But apparently no one decided it was important to tell Wang Qiang (who probably doesn't understand either Japanese or English) because he left the ring, leaving Musashi to be declared the de facto winner.

However, since Musashi couldn't recover in time for the final, it was still Wang Qiang who fought Fujimoto. He was actually doing pretty well, and had Fujimoto running away before getting knocked down.
I have to say I wasn't very impressed with the level of the tournament, but then again I'm a MMA fan first, so I don't know much about K1.

[china mma] AoW 7 results

Results here

There were so many draws because if a fight went the distance it was automatically declared a draw.

[shuai jiao] Wrestling King (Jiao Wang)

Thanks to Michael and his great blog Shuaijiao.tv for pointing out this new Chinese show: Wrestling King *. Basically it's about a Chinese wrestler confronting the evil Japanese and using his martial arts skills to defeat the bad guys. So ok, it's the same plot as every other Chinese series ever written, but this time it's about wrestling. Can you imagine a show about a special forces agent using BJJ to fight terrorists ? Or a unit of crime fighting Sambo experts ? Or what about a special squad of MMA fighters that go around fighting demons and solving mysteries ? (mysteries such as "can you choke out a vampire ?")

Here are episodes 1, 2, and 3.

*ps: I don't necesarilly agree on Michael's view on wrestling and its potential influence on Chinese gender perception. In my experience, Chinese female wrestlers don't look that feminine either...

[China MMA]: Art of War 7

You know, when I first had the idea of writing this blog, I figured it would be easy enough. Companies would want free publicity and would send me info about their MMA events, BJJ competitions, or exciting new V1agr@ discount without even having to ask.

But as I found out, things are not that easy. So I actually had to type in "mmachina.com" myself and press enter with my own index finger to bring you this hard-hitting news update: Art of War 7 is taking place on July 28. The event is titled "谁主浮沉", which you could translate as "Sink or Swim".

This time the theme is "Thailand Fighters vs Chinese Experts". I'm a little bit disapointed that the "thailand" fighters are not actually from Thailand, but rather Chinese Muay Thai fighters. But since they have competed (and probably trained) in Thailand too, you can expect their skills in the striking department to be up to par. So it will be a good occasion to test Sanda fighters' standup skills, or, if they are found wanting, to test their takedown and ground skills.
I still see most Sanda fighters winning by double leg + ground and pound, but it should make for interesting match ups.
Another new participant is Ba Te Er (巴特尔) (you can watch him here, black trunks at 0:40), the reigning 80kg Sanda Wang (King of Sanda). Apparently there's another Ba Te Er who plays basketball, so don't get confused.

UFC in China ?

ChinaCombat exclusive: the UFC has plans for an event in China, with the main event being a superfight between action superstars Jackie Chan and Tony Jaa !
Also on the card: Chuck Lidell, Tim Sylvia, Nick Diaz, Diego Sanchez...

At least that's what you might think after seeing the image above, which is actually the cover of a fake DVD for the movie "Long Zhong Shou" (龙中兽, you could translate that as "the beast among dragons"). If you've bought pirated DVDs in China before, you know not to judge a DVD by its cover. So the movie probably doesn't include Chuck Lidell or Tim Sylvia, and it wouldn't surprise me if neither Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa were in it.

But anyway, thanks to chinese pirates we now know that Chuck Lidell and Jorge Rivera are known in China as the "Twin Monsters from Hell".

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.

Art of War update

I just noticed Art of War have posted their schedule for 2007.I'll let you know when there's more info about the upcoming events.

Sanda/Sanshou

Sanshou/Sanda may not be as popular as other forms of kickboxing, but it also has its strong points. Although the rules may vary from one country to another, fights generally permit punches, kicks, knees, short clinch work, and throws, and prohibit elbows and ground work.

Sanda means something like "free fighting", while "sanshou" means "free hand" ("shou" meaning "hand"). In some places people have kept using older names, such as "Shoubo". And sometimes Sanshou and Sanda actually possess two separate sets of rules. I'm not going to explain the history of the sport this time, but I'll introduce you to a few examples of Sanda fighting.

One of the most famous Sanda fighters in China is Liu Hailong. He's taken part in a few "Sanda vs Muay Thai" tournaments. Since these tournaments usually end with the Thai boxer winning, he's famous for actually defeating his Thai oponents. As you can see in this video, Karo Parysian is not the only one who knows how to throw people around.

In the US, the big name in Sanshou is Cung Le. After you watch him destroy Shonie Carter, you can learn how to catch a leg and take someone down, Sanshou style.

With a little more emphasis on boxing, and some ground game, Sanda fighters could become pretty dangerous in MMA.

MMA in Taiwan and Hong Kong

Not everybody thinks that Taiwan is part of China. Some people consider the two countries separate. And other people even say that it's actually China that is part of Taiwan. Anyway, without going deep in geopolitics, I think since Taiwan is close enough to China and has its own MMA activities going on, it's only fair enough to include it in this blog. So here's a short list of places where you can train MMA and BJJ in Taiwan.

Taiwan Brazilian Jiujitsu Club

Evolution Combat Taiwan

Hong Kong has a lot of places to train:

Hong Kong BJJ Association

The One Martial Gym

Gracie Barra Hong Kong

Kylin Martial Arts & Combat Club

HK MMA

HK Jujitsu

Interview with Andy Pi [part 3]

Here is the third and last part of the interview with Andy Pi. You can check out the first and second part if you haven't done so yet.

About China

China Combat: You have hosted seminars by a lot of famous personalities, including Rickson Gracie. How did you get in touch with them ? Was it hard to convince people to come to China ?

Andy Pi: I was introduced to Rickson through a mutual friend. He was able to establish a connection for me, and the rest they say, is history! It is not very difficult to convince people to come to China. China is a very hot topic in world discussion right now. People understand the business and economic potential of China. There is also a certain amount of mystery regarding China, which I think rouses people's curiosity. Most people when they get here, find that it was not at all what they expected it to be. They are pleasantly surprised.

Chinese Martial Arts have a very long history, but MMA practicioner often have a negative view of traditional arts and label them as "innefective". What do you think of the value of traditional Chinese martial arts (such as Shaolin Quan, Xingyi Quan, etc) in MMA competitions ?

It has been proven in MMA competition that what you train is really not as important as how you train it. How you train will dictate how you fight. I think most MMA practitioners and coaches are critical of traditional Chinese martial arts because most traditional Chinese martial arts lack proper training methods FOR COMPETITION.

Most martial artists are not training for COMPETITION. Rather, they are training for the love of the martial arts or self-defense. So the training methods are very different. When you are training for professional competition, your goal is to defeat your opponent, and you leave nothing to chance. Therefore, all aspects of the fight game should be studied, including nutrition, strength, endurance, psychological and mental strength, skills training including standup fighting, wrestling and ground fighting. If you have a martial artist who is training to defend himself, fight against a 24-year old professional athlete, who runs, lifts weights, and spars everyday, it is not a very fair fight. Of course the professional athlete is going to win, because it is his profession. All he does is train, full-time, to kick people's asses. It's not even a fair fight. It's not even a fair comparison. But that doesn't mean the traditional martial arts are crap.
The value of traditional martial arts should not be overlooked, because if there is just one thing that you can learn from a particular style, that will give you just a little bit of an edge, it should be learned and incorporated into your own training. I do not like to use the term traditional martial art, because it labels the art as a "non-progressive" martial art. All martial artists should strive to reinvent and improve upon what they've been taught. If you believe that only the old man in the mountain is the inheritor of real kung fu, then you are perpetuating a dying martial art, and your particular lineage will progressively get weaker and weaker. The key is to forget about the traditional aspect, and work on improving it.... "modernizing" the martial art style for 2007. All this means is to find more efficient ways to improve upon your existing training methods, so that you will fight or defend yourself more effectively.

What was the Chinese viewer's reaction when they were first exposed to MMA ? Was it positive ?

The Chinese viewers couldn't believe what they were seeing. They couldn't believe that they were watching one man sitting on another man's stomach, and beating the crap outta him. The overwhelming response... WHEN IS THE NEXT SHOW???

The Chinese love MMA and we feel that it will become the national sport, especially if we have anything to do with it!

Interview with Andy Pi [part 2]

Here is the second part of my interview with Andy Pi. In it, he answers question about China's young MMA scene.

link to first part

About MMA

China Combat: Can you explain how you created the Art of War organization ?

Andy Pi: At the time, I had already been training BJJ for close to 10 years and I had seen the development and trends of martial arts in China. I knew that the Chinese would enjoy a tournament which was fair and open to all styles of martial arts. My brother has also been training BJJ for just as long. One day we were talking about how China should really have a homegrown MMA tournament, and how great it would be if we could see Chinese fighters competing against world-class fighters. There was a bit of Chinese nationalism speaking from inside our hearts, and rather than waiting for it to happen on its own, we decided to take the initiative and make sure that we were the ones to make that happen. We already had a training center established. It was a logical next step to move into promotion as well.

Does China have any upcoming MMA or BJJ stars ?

China has many upcoming MMA and BJJ stars. We have been working very hard to prepare our stable of fighters, to train them and get them ready for international competition. Some of the outstanding fighters we have now are Zhang Tie Quan, Dai Shuang Hai, Ao Hai Lin, and He Peng.

Have you been approached by bigger organizations (Pride, UFC...) to sendbthem some of your Art of War fighters ?

We have been approached by several international organizations to send Chinese fighters to their events. I feel that these organizations are curious about the MMA situation in China and the technical level of our fighters. From a business standpoint, the major organizations see the revenue potential of having a Chinese fighter appear in their promotion, especially if this Chinese fighter was very skilled and very talented, and could REALLY FIGHT!!! This will also help them carve out a niche in the very large Chinese market, which is currently a huge and untapped source of potential. We have seen almost every country represented inside the MMA ring, with the exception of China. It is our goal to produce a Chinese MMA champion capable of challenging guys like Wanderlei Silva, Emeliananko Fedor, etc...

Have Chinese fighters competed internationally ?
We have brought Chinese fighters to compete internationally. In Dec. 2005, we brought 4 MMA fighters to compete in the Philippines, and all 4 of our athletes won by either KO or TKO. 2 more of our fighters just returned from the USA last week, where they participated in a kickboxing event and defeated their American opponents by KO.

How do you see Chinese MMA's future ? Do you think China will become an important market and talent pool for MMA ?

China will be the largest market for MMA in the world in the next 4-6 years. You can believe that. There will be more fans in just 1 province of China, than all of the entire world MMA market combined. Chinese love martial arts. It is an inseparable part of our culture. China has produced so many great athletes. The fastest hurdler in the world is Chinese. One of the tallest basketball players in the world is Chinese. China holds multiple world records in Olympic power-lifting. China has over 1 billion citizens and I am sure that we will find a Chinese superstar athlete capable of becoming the next big thing! As for MMA, we still have a long way to go, but Chinese martial artists will take to MMA like fish to water. In the not so distant future, some of the best fighters in the world will come from China. You can bet on that!

third part

Interview with Andy Pi [part 1]

Andy Pi was nice enough to answer a few questions. He was the first person to open a BJJ class in mainland China, as well as the creator of China's main MMA venue, Art of War Fighting Championship. Here's what he had to say on topics ranging from MMA's future in China, to Rickson Gracie (ok, I admit that last bit was just a shameless attempt to draw people in).

About BJJ

China Combat: How were you introduced to BJJ ? Did you have any previous martial arts training before that ?

Andy Pi: I was introduced to BJJ by my younger brother. It was 1995. He showed me a tape of UFC4, where Royce Gracie fights Dan Severn. I saw the fight and thought to myself, it was the most incredible performance that I had ever seen from a martial artist. I had to learn it right away. As I child, I studied a variety of martial arts, from kung fu, to karate, to taekwondo. However, BJJ was the one martial art that I truly fell in love with and have been training since 1995.

How did you decide to open a BJJ school in Beijing ? What made you think it would work ?

I opened a BJJ academy simply as a way to continue my own training. I moved to China in 1997 and at the time, I couldn't find any other BJJ practitioners in China. So as a way to maintain my own training, I needed to have training partners. So I started teaching BJJ to my friends, just so that I would have some training partners. My friends would bring there friends to class, and the word started to spread around the Beijing community that BJJ was available in Beijing. I had not considered it to be a money making venture at the time, and I was doing it for the love of the martial arts, and also as a way to introduce BJJ to the Chinese martial arts community. Nobody in China had really seen BJJ in person, except for maybe some downloaded UFCs or some black belt magazines. But there weren't any Chinese martial artists who had gotten on the mat and rolled with any BJJ practitioners before or seen the art up close and personal. I wanted to change that.

Are there any Chinese BJJ championships ?

At the current moment, there are no BJJ tournaments in China. There have been some tournaments organized in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but none in mainland China. I am working closely with the Chinese sports administration to change that. We are currently forming the China Federation of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, and this organization will be fully sanctioned by the Chinese government. Hopefully by the middle or end of 2007, we will see the 1st China Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Open Championship.

Do you have any plans to open BJJ schools in other cities ?

We have plans to open BJJ academies in all of China's major cities, and also in the more impoverished areas of China. Martial arts are a great way to discipline and challenge the human spirit and also educate the youth. There are so many martial artists in China and they are all potential practitioners of BJJ. We hope to give the masses a chance to learn this great martial art. Some will decide to get into professional competition. Others will decide to get into coaching. Regardless of their chosen path, we believe that martial arts has a lot to offer the Chinese public. The knowledge to defend oneself and the confidence gained from learning jiu-jitsu is very empowering. It should be available to everyone in China who wants to learn, and for free if need be. Again, we are closely working with the Chinese government to make sure that instructors are properly trained and that the spirit of both Chinese martial arts and the Brazilian martial arts are well-preserved and passed on to successive generations.

second part