MMA in Indonesia and Malaysia

Everybody hates this kind of post. You know, the kind where the blog hasn't been updated for months, and then suddenly your RSS reader lights up. You go check it out, thinking that your favorite blog has finally been updated with new content.

But instead you find a lame series of excuses where the blogger explains how his cat died and he was so sad that he couldn't find the strength to write a word for half a year.

Well, this is not this kind of post. Well, not quite. The truth is that since I'm not in China for the time being, it's harder for me to come up with fresh info. However, I'm not giving up just yet. I've decided to give the blog a second chance with a fresh new redesign. But first I want to recruit some new writers. So if you're interested in writing for this site, drop me a line in the comments.

Second, I'm thinking about extending the reach of the blog to cover other asian countries (just not Japan, which is already covered well enough by other blogs). I've set up a poll in the right column for you to tell me if you're interested or not.

To give you an idea of what's happening in those regions, and if it's worth reading about, here is a blog about Indonesian MMA (in indonesian, but you can check out the vids):

Position first, then submission

A BJJ school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: (under John Wil and the Machado brothers)

KDT Academy

And one in Jakarta: (under Helio Soneca)

Synergy Jiu Jitsu

And a jiu jitsu blog (with techniques vids, in english)

Niko's Blog

[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).

MMA Beijing Trailer

Here is a cool trailer for the MMA Beijing academy that I talked about some times ago. As you can see they use a lot of catch/japanese-style submission wrestling moves.

[mma tv] Art of War on GoFish

I just noticed that some Art of War videos are avaible on GoFish, in their MMA fights section. Those are the same videos avaible on chinese sites like Tudou.com, but hopefully they'll reach a wider audience here.

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.