hahahahahahaha

hahahahahahahahaha

Choi Mu Bae KO'd by cornerman

This is a little old, but I still laugh every time I see it.

Sengoku: Mu Bae Choi vs. Dave Herman
Uploaded by mmajunky

Choi Mu-bae TKOs Dave Herman, and in his excitement, his cornerman pounces on him. Start at 9:10 of the video. I didn't notice this the first time I saw the fight, but reviewing it again, the cornerman's tackle KOs CHOI MU-BAE. Hilarious.

K-1 MAX 2009 Final 16 - Lim Chi-bin vs. Yamamoto Yuya

Lim Chi-bin vs. Yamamoto Yuya

Let's see if Lim can fare any better than Lee Su-hwan. Both Kido and now Yuya came out to some whack-ass japanese (???) reggae, wonder if that's a sign of things to come. By the way, I'm doing this pretty much stream of consciousness so bear with me. Like six people clapped for Lim (including one dude in his corner who clapped AS HARD AS HE FUCKING COULD). They are talking about Cro Cop and Fedor in Korean I hope they aren't comparing them to Lim. Alright, let's see what the K-1 Max Korea champ has got.

Round 1 - 

Early clinch, then lots of leg kicks so far. Lim is using the clinch well early on. He needs to check these leg kicks if he wants this to go differently than Lee's fight. Woops Lim slipped on a high kick haha. Gets up and trips Yuya. Low kick battle so far, damn man.  Yuya is scoring with the leg kicks, but Lim has been more effective so far this round. Another leg catch -> trip. Ten seconds left, more leg kicks and clinch work. Now we look into Sato's locker room for...some reason.

Round 2 - 

Both come out with a nice body kick. Lim showing good hand combos,  Yuya's nose just got busted open. Giving him a minute to get cleaned up by his corner. Back to the fight, they both come out with more kicks, Lim lands a good straight. Spinning back fist out of no where floors Lim. Lim is back up. Yuya ccomes out with a flying knee but misses. Lim needs to step it up because that knockdown is gonna put him down in this round. The korean announcers are calling it a "flashidown" haha. Lim is getting warned for holding in the clinch. Lim teeing off on yuya's face, Yuya returning. Spinning back fist attempt by Lim, not much tho. Now they're just brawling to finish out round 2. Lim was winning hte first half but that knockdown won it for Yuya.

Round 3 - 

Lim keeps getting warned for over clinch use (which is a dumb rule in the first place) Lim missed HUGE with a giant spinning Taekowndo kick hahahaha that was embarassing. I'm gonna find a gif of that. Yuya does some spinning kick shit of his own. They're kinda getting silly now in the third. Cool clinch knee by Lim. Both are working in close, Lim just got busted open above the eye. Corner is taking a second to clean him up. Oh shit, looks like it was an accidental headbutt that cut him open. Both comin out pretty fierce, little over a minute left. Haha holy shit, Yuya does some flipping rolling thunder shit that barely misses. More spinning kicks that miss. Lim pounding on Yuya, almost overcommits to the clinch again. This is a war man, neither fighter is backing down. Good fight, gonna go to the cards. Hahaha Lim does another Taekwondo flying spin kick shit at the bell in desperation.

Close fight, probably going to go for Yamamoto because of the knockdown in round 2.

result: Close fight, the knockdown in round 2 definitely won it for Yuya. This fight was rad as hell, they both threw some wacky ass kicks out there.

K-1 MAX 2009 Final 16 - Lee Su-hwan vs. Kido Yasuhiro

Lee Su-hwan vs. Kido Yasuhiro

Two early spinning back fists busted Lee up in the first round. Since then he just got punished with low kicks to the left leg, greatly impairing Lee's best weapon (in my estimation anyways), his left kicks. He's got some powerful kicks but he kept getting busted in the legs and it slowed him and took some of the power away. Round 2 ended with a pretty demoralizing front kick that knocked Lee on his ass. He hung tough, never backing down but his legs were getting roughed up. Good strategy employed by Kido. Nice body shots by Lee in the third round, mounting  some good offense backed with a front kick and more body shots. Body shot fell a bit low when Kido lifted his leg for a knee and Lee punched Kido in the nuts hahahaha.

Lee is doing a lot better in the third but unfortunately it's too little too late. They haven't announced it yet but I'd easily give Kido the decision, despite Lee mounting a good late offense in the third.

Yep, got leg kicked into oblivion and Kido wins the decision. Bummer Lee! I'll still root for ya.

Upcoming fights

K-1 Max Final 16 - April 21, 2009

Lim Chi-bin vs. Yamamoto Yuya

Lee Su-hwan vs. Kido Yasuhiro

Sengoku - Eighth Battle - May 2, 2009

Jung Chan-sung vs. Masanori Kanehara

UFC 100 - July 11, 2009

Chu Sung-hoon vs. Alan Belcher

Kim Dong-hyun vs. Jonathan Goulet

Fighter Mania Championship (FMA) - New South Korea MMA organization

Huge, huge news broken over at http://nightmareofbattle.wordpress.com/, it looks like there is talk of a new MMA organization in South Korea. The currently defunct Spirit MC left a hole in the South Korean MMA scene, leaving a lot of fighters to go abroad to find fights.

Fighter Mania Championship (FMA), an appropriately Konglish-ey name for the new organization, hopes to begin September, and a press conference will be held in July. Aleksander Emelianenko, Choi Mu Bae are both verbally linked to the project, and there is word that Jerome Le Banner and Mark Hunt may be as well (ha not likely). There is also talk with Fedor Emelianenko (believe it when I see it), and a third Emelianenko brother that I was not aware was even a fighter (???)

Expect to see a lot of co-promotion with M-1 Global, we're going to see a lot of South Korea vs. Russia fights like we do in other M-1 shows. Some of the bigger Korean names not already tied up should make appearances, wouldn't be surprised if we see Choi Mu-bae, Choi Hong-man or even Yoon Dong-sik headline events to help out the budding organization to help out their home country. Unfortunately with Chu Sung-hoon, Kim Dong-hyun and Denis Kang tied up in exclusive UFC contracts, don't expect to see them any time soon.

Honestly this is fantastic news for me. When I arrived Spirit MC had just recently died, and there is no MMA scene here right now. We had one K-1 fight last month, but other than that it's been pretty dry. Can't wait to hear more about this.

Chu Sung-hoon (추성훈) in UFC press photo

Rockin' the black UFC gloves

Denis Kang wins at UFC 97

Denis Kang was victorious over UFC newcomer Xavier "Professor X" Foupa-Pokam. Kang improves his UFC record to 1-1 and stays afloat, after his disappointing loss to Alan Belcher in his debut. Kang used a very takedown/GNP oriented strategy to best the acclaimed striker in Foupa. Kang took the fight to the scorecards and won easily scored a 30-27 unanimous decision over Professor X.

KangPoka 97
Uploaded by creedinfo

Kang really needed this win, for his UFC career and for himself. As of late, the UFC has been employing an unofficial 2-3 strikes and your out policy in the UFC. They have been recently expanding into South Korea lately, and also desire a lot of star power to headline shows in Canada which would normally give Kang a little leeway. However with Chu Sung-hoon's upcoming debut, Kang might not be as necessary to keep the Korean fans tuned in. Good solid win, hopefully Kang can use this momentum to find further success in the UFC

4/14 UPDATE!

First update! Added fighter profiles to the blog, with pictures with more. Still need to reformat the pictures in a number of them and add pictures in the rest. To come later:

- More extensive profiles (some of my profiles are literally just sherdog fightfinder links haha)
- More pictures
- videos, highlights, fights, etc
- upcoming events featuring S Korean fighters
- links to useful MMA or K-1 websites
- blog picture
- then I'll find more features and streamline this shit. I'm excited!

and here's a rad picture for you

Song Un-sik

Song "Tornado" Un-sik, 7-0-0, K-1 Hero's debut and the rest in MARS (japanese fight league i've never heard of)
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Un-Sik-Song-14296

Lee Kwang-hee

Lee "Crazy" Kwang-hee, 5-1-0, Fights in Spirit MC and recently made his Sengoku debut
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Kwang-Hee-Lee-21680

Ham Seo-hee

Ham Seo-hee, 3-3, 108 lbs, fights in DEEP and Smackgirl, record is literally win-loss-win-loss-win-loss so her next fight should be a win
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Seo-Hee-Ham-21246

Jung Bu-kyung

Jung Bu-kyung, 0-4-0, Lightweight, fights at Yarennoka!, Dream and DEEP, but lost to good guys (Aoki Shinya, Ishida Mitsuhiro, Nakamura Daisuke)
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Bu-Kyung-Jung-27180

Choi Mu-bae

Choi Mu-bae, 8-3-0, Heavyweight, fought in Pride, K-1 Hero's, Pancrase and Sengoku, beat Gary Goodridge and Dave Herman :/
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Mu-Bae-Choi-9684

Kim Yoon-young

Kim "Snake Eater" Yoon-young, 10-4-0, 176 lbs, Spirit MC and DEEP fighter, badass nickname
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Yoon-Young-Kim-23766

Lee Chi-sung

Lee Chi-sung, 5-1-0, Spirit MC guy
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Chi-Sung-Lee-28333

Kim Chang-hyeon

Kim Chang-Hyeon, 8-3-0, Spirit MC fights, 6 sub wins
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Chang-Hyeon-Kim-15997

Lim Jae-suk

Lim "The Korean Icepick" Jae-suk, 15-4-0, 176 lbs, Spirit MC fighter, one EliteXC fight, lots of sub wins
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Jae-Suk-Lim-8538

Kim Min-soo

Kim Min-Soo is a p. terrible fighter, 4 wins and one loss in K-1 and 2 wins, 7 losses in MMA. I'm only including him because he has had the pleasure of losing to both Bob Sapp and Brock Lesnar. And yet, he still beat Minowaman.

My analysis: Uh..he's terrible. Lost to Bob Sapp and was Brock Lesnar's first opponent. I just get a kick out of that for some reason. Interestingly, he replaced Choi Hong-man to fight Brock Lesnar in Lesnar's MMA debut when Choi failed to meet medical requirements (due to his pituitary tumor).

Kim Se-ki

Kim Se-ki holds a record of 1-1 with 1 KO. Apparently when I saw him fight at k-1 Max Seoul, it was his K-1 debut (I didn't realize that until just now). He made it to the second round until he lost to Lim Chi-bin (who went on to win the tourney). Tough fighter, can really take a beating and keep going.

My analysis: Again, not much to say. Pretty good performance for a novice, definitely a tough guy. The other thing to say is this guy is hilarious. For the first fight, he comes out to traditional Korean music looking like some sort of Korean hobo. His second fight he comes out thugged out to Ace Hood - Gutta (which is a rad song btw). I was dying laughing, that guy has a lot of character. Like him a lot.

Noh Jae-gil

Noh Jae-gil holds a record of 4 wins, 3 losses with 1 KO. I don't know much about the guy, other than he made it to the second round at K-1 Max Seoul. He was the guy that got KOd via body kick by Lee Su-hwan.

My analysis: Don't know much about the guy as a fighter, but he's a really nice guy. Despite having a disappointing night (and probably in a bit of pain), he still took the time to pose with me for a picture while I was marking out like a jackass over everything K-1. Really cool guy, wish him a lot of luck.

Lim Su-jeong

Lim Su-jeong is a female K-1 fighter who made her debut at the K-1 Max Seoul show against a Japanese female K-1 fighter, Reina. This fight was, to my knowledge, the first female fight that K-1 has ever held. This is a pretty big deal and could open a whole new division for K-1. It was a great fight too, tits to the wall slugfest between these two tough women. The fight went all three rounds and one extra round. When it was all said and done Su-jeong came out the victor (though props to Reina for a tough fight).

My analysis: Not sure what else to say. Tough, tough fighter that really impressed with her victory over Reina. It wasn't the most technical fight, but neither fighter gave an inch and showed a ton of heart. Also she's a total babe.

Lee Su-hwan

Lee Su-hwan has a record of 8 wins, 7 losses in his K-1 career. Record doesn't look that great, but of his 8 wins, 6 have been by KO. He also was a finalist in the aforementioned K-1 Max Seoul tournament, reaching the finals by beating his first two opponents by extremely impressive KOs. Because of his impressive tournament performance, he has been added in a reserve match for the Final 16 tournament against Yuya Yamamoto.

My analysis: I really think this guy has promise. I was more impressed with him than any other fighter I saw at the K-1 Max Seoul tournament. He won his first two matches in extremely impressive fashion. He finished mongolian fighter Munguntsooj Nandin-Erdine (jesus what a name) by brutal headkick KO. Seriously the guy did not get up for a scary long time, and finally got dragged out on a stretcher. He then finished his next opponent, Noh Jae-gil by KO via BODY KICK. He KOd a guy with a BODY KICK. This guy has amazingly powerful kicks, and is just amazingly strong. He also had Lim Chi-bin on the ropes in the final, scoring two knockdowns in the first round until finally being KOd himself via punches. I really like this guy, he made a fan out of me at that event and I'll be rooting for him from now on.

Lim Chi-bin

Lim Chi-bin is a K-1 fighter boasting a record of 9 wins, 6 losses in his K-1 career. Despite his not so great record, he's still probably the best Korea has to offer in his weight class. Notable wins include erm...other Koreans. I did have the pleasure of seeing him fight at the K-1 Max Seoul 2009 tournament which he ended up winning after beating three opponents in one night (hey improving your record from 6-6 to 9-6 in one night, not bad!) Pretty exciting fighter, and the dude can take a hit like a champ. His match against Lee Su-hwan in the final was exciting as hell, despite being knocked down twice he was able to win by KO in the first round. With that regional tournament victory, he gets seeded into the Final 16 for the K-1 2009 Grand Prix. His first opponent will be Taishin Kohiruimaki (who has beaten Lim Chi-bin previously). We'll see how the fight goes this time.

Me shaking hands with Lim Chi-bin after he won the tournament. Nice guy.

My analysis: Honestly I don't have a ton to say about him other than he was exciting as hell to watch fight at the K-1 Max Seoul event. Seems like a good guy, and I like him as a fighter. Hope the guy improves and finds some success.

Choi Hong-man

Choi Hong-man aka "The Techno Goliath" (named for his affinity for dancing to techno after a victory haaa) also dubbed "The Korean Monster" (by Japanese media) is a professional K-1 fighter that has dabbled in MMA as well. Here in Korea we know him, we love him, we literally look up to him. The man is 7'2, hovering between 327-360 lbs. This man is absolutely enormous. Choi posesses a tumor near his pituitary gland, which caused him to continue growing and accounts for his giant stature and build, though if I recall correctly it has recently been removed. Choi possesses a K-1 record of 12 wins and 5 losses, and an MMA record of 1 win and 2 losses. His most notable win is over Semmy Schilt whom he beat by split decision in K-1 Seoul GP 2006. He also beat Bob Sapp and Akebono 3 times (loollll). Recently, he dropped three fights in a row to Jerome LeBanner, Ray Sefo and Badr Hari. His foray into MMA hasn't gone so well. He beat the shit out of a 215 lb Bobby Ologun in a huge mismatch, then matched up with Fedor Emelianenko at Yarennoka! 2007. Emelianenko looked to be in trouble early, but managed to armbar the giant for the win. Choi's next MMA bout was against Mirco "Crocop" Flipovic, a fighter seemingly past his prime, but still able to finish Choi by TKO due to leg kicks (he literally kicked the fuck out of Choi's legs so bad that he couldn't continue).

Choi also, hilariously enough, has started a musical career with South Korean model Kang So-hee under the moniker "Beauty and the Beast". The music is terrible and watching Choi rap before one of his fights was just the goofiest shit I've ever seen.

Beauty and the Beast - Everything about this picture is awkward as fuck

My analysis - Choi Hong-Ma

n is physically imposing enough to bully his opponents around, he's got good reach and he's got decent skill. Thing is, he's awkward and pretty slow, and people are figuring him out. I mean Badr Hari literally jumped and punched Choi in the face. He gets picked apart with leg kicks a lot because he isn't terribly mobile, despite his reach advantage, and if you can stay away from his knees (which are already pretty much at your face level) you can beat him pretty soundly. He's only been KO'd once and has thrown in the towel recently against Badr Hari. I think we might be seeing the beginning of the end for Choi, he literally lost every one of his fights last year and two the previous year (that's five in a row between K-1 and MMA). Basically 1) dude needs to stay the fuck out of MMA because that is not working. 2) He needs some tune up fights. Losing to Badr Hari, Ray Sefo and Jerome LeBanner is nothing to be ashamed of, but if they just toss him in against a tough guy right away it won't be too great for morale.

Jung Chan-sung (정찬성)

Jung Chan-sung aka "The Korean Zombie" is a featherweight fighter (145 lbs) currently fighting in the Sengoku featherweight Grand Prix. Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about the guy (I had never heard of him prior to the GP). I can't seem to get a record on the guy that doesn't conflict so he is either 5-0 or 8-0, I guess depending on if you count certain bouts or not. He had a few fights in Pancrase before moving to Deep, and finally making his Sengoku debut at Sengoku 7. He beat Ishiwatari Shintaro in the first round via rear naked choke, advancing him into the tournament.


My analysis: Thus far, he looks like a pretty good featherweight prospect. This kid is young too, he's a year younger than I am and has had some pretty decent experience for his age. I expect him to make a pretty big splash in this GP. I haven't seen enough of him to make a huge call, but I like him so far.

Yoon Dong-sik (윤동식)

Yoon Dong-Sik. Oh Donger, the most depressing of all Korean fighters. Yoon is another Korean Judoka that made the switch to MMA. He holds a record of 4 wins and 6 losses, but believe me when I tell you he's much better than his record. He's pretty much just depressing to watch fight because he's just got shit luck. He made his debut against Sakuraba Kazushi, which is just fucking mean. He dropped four in a row to the aforementioned Sakuraba, then took Makoto Takimoto, Murilo Bustamante and former UFC Light-Heavyweight champ Quinton "Rampage" Jackson to decisions. He lost all three by unanimous decision, but that is one tough motherfucker. If you don't know much about MMA, those are horribly stilted, difficult fights for an MMA amateur. He then racked up four wins in a row against Melvin Manhoef, Zelg Galesic, Shungo Oyama and Fabio Silva, three of which came by armbar (which MMA fans have lovingly dubbed the Dongbar). Things were starting to look up for our depressing little friend until he ran into Gegard Mousasi during the Dream Middleweight GP. Donger put up a great fight, but ended up losing by unanimous decision in the end. He was also the only person to take Mousasi to a decision during Mousasi's impressive MWGP run. Most recently he dropped another fight to Andrews Nakahara. He was scheduled to fight Murilo "Ninja" Rua at Dream 8 last weekend, but dropped out last minute due to injury. And the way that Ninja fought last weekend (shitty) he would have won, too.

My analysis: This guy can't catch a break, and at 36 years old, i don't know if he ever will. It's a shame too because he is a tough, tough motherfucker. Fighting tough veterans like Sakuraba, Bustamante and Rampage your first 4 fights is just plain mean. He racked up some good wins there before hitting Mousasi, but to be fair Mousasi has been on a ridiculous win streak lately. Nakahara proved to be more than just a fluke last weekend too. I hope he can come back because I really do like the Donger, but I don't know how much more he'll be able to do in his short career. I mean he's literally lost to only good fighters (Takimoto being the exception, and Nakahara being a bit untested at this point). Hopefully he can finish with a winning record, at least.

Denis Kang

Denis Kang is a Canadian raised French-Korean fighter based out of Vancouver. He has fought for Spirit MC in Korea, Pride FC in Japan and most recently made his debut in the UFC. Kang fought a bunch of shows in various places until he signed a contract with Spirit MC in South Korea. He went 5-0 and was picked up by Pride FC. He made his debut at Pride Bushido 6, defeating some Japanese guy by armbar. He racked together an impressive series of wins against Murilo "Ninja" Rua (back when that meant something), Akihiro Gono before losing to Misaki Kazuo in the Welterweight Grand Prix final. He won one then dropped two straight to Chu Sung-hoon and Gegard Mousasi. He beat some guy and Marvin Eastman (lol) before making his debut in the UFC against Alan Belcher. Kang decided it was a great idea to dive into a guillotine and was choked out in round 2. Not the best start for Kang. Kang's next opponent is Xavier Foupa-Pokam at UFC 97 in 2 weeks. If he doesn't fight like a big dummy he should win that pretty easily.

My analysis: Kang had a great run in that WWGP but his some pretty serious competition and has faded a lot since. Misaki, Akiyama and Mousasi are all good competition, but he seems to have just lost focus. If I recall correctly, his wife died not too long ago and I'm sure that's seriously added to his lack of focus. Kang has become somewhat of a middling fighter, I mean he just lost to Alan fucking Belcher. I'm not sure if he's ever going to crack the upper half of the UFC middleweight division, but he's much more suited for a middling UFC run than busting cans in Spirit MC.

Kim Dong-hyun (김동현)

Kim Dong-hyun. "Stun Gun" Kim is a 24 year old fighter with a Judo background that started his career in small Korean orgs until he gained more prominence in Deep in Japan. He fights at welterweight (and is a huge welterweight too). He currently fights in the UFC and holds a record of 11 wins, 1 draw and 1 No Contest. He's interesting for a few reasons. When he entered the UFC, he immediately drew a huge salary for a debut fighter, $40,000 to show. Why? He basically secured a big Korean tv deal for the UFC along with his signing. Koreans love to watch other Koreans compete internationally. Great deal for Kim, interesting little factoid for everyone else. He's also a big part of the reason why I get to watch UFC for free all the time here in Korea (so basically I love you Stun Gun). Kim made his waves in his UFC debut when he beat the ass out of Jason Tan, but has since failed to live up to the hype. He won a close split-decision fight over Matt Brown (but in Kim's defense, Brown has become a much, much better fighter than his days on The Ultimate Fighter reality show) and dropped a decision to Karo "PANIC ATTACKS BRO" Parisyan. Parisyan, however, was drug tested post fight and three banned substances (Hydrocodone, Hydromorphone and Oxymorphone) were found in his system. The result was overturned to a No Contest. Records are records, but let's be real - Kim still lost. And it was a shit fight. His next opponent is Jonathon Goulet, who he'll clash with at UFC 100, which is a fight he SHOULD win. We will see.

My analysis: Another good fighter, but he just completely lacks cardio. He's a wrecking ball in the first, but every subsequent round he just gets shittier and shittier. Great elbows, awesome judo and he's pretty physically imposing for a welterweight at 6'1. He's been successful in the UFC on paper, but if you watch his fights you can definitely tell he's lacking in some very important areas. Hope he can improve those things because I like watching him fight.

Chu Sung-hoon (추성훈)

Chu Sung-hoon (Akiyama Yoshihiro) is a Japan born, 4th generation ethnic Korean that started his career as a Judoka in Japan. He is really only known by his Korean name in Korea, everywhere else he is known by Akiyama Yoshihiro, his Japanese name. I'll refer to him by his Korean name for the purposes of this post though. Sung-hoon is probably the most famous Korean fighter out there, as well as the most controversial. While he's definitely a talented fighter, he's been accused of cheating numerous times, stemming as far back as his Judo days. Three seperate opponents at the 2003 World Judo Championships complained that Chu's judo-gi was slippery, and cried foul. He switched to a reserve gi and promptly lost his next two matches, only appearing to incriminate himself worse.

He boasts an MMA record of 12-1 with 2 no contests. His one loss was also to a much, much larger Jerome LeBanner (seriously LeBanner is huge). Notable wins include over Melvin Manhoef, and two other Korean fighters I'll talk about later, Denis Kang and Taiei Kin. His two most high profile fights are also his most controversial, against legendary fighter Sakuraba Kazushi and later against Misaki Kazuo. He was caught greasing against Sakuraba and the fight was turned No Contest. Later against Misaki, Misaki beat his ass pretty thoroughly in a really exciting fight and ended up getting finished with a huge soccer kick to the face. The kick was deemed illegal later, and the fight result was overturned to a No Contest (in the new rules, soccer kicks to a downed opponent were illegal. Sung-hoon was in the process of getting up when kicked in the face, and in reality it was illegal by mere inches). Since that fight, he beat professional punching bag Shibata Katsuyori and some other dude. Recently, he signed with the UFC and will debut at UFC 100 against Alan Belcher (who just beat Denis Kang by guillotine).

Chu Sung-hoon - Fashion ico-hahahahahahaha

My analysis: Good fighter but a dirty cheater. He's really talented, he doesn't NEED to cheat and I hope he puts that shit behind him. Misaki gave him a pretty good talking to after he kicked his face off so hopefully he took his advice. Seriously, you can't cheat against Sakuraba. It's SAKURABA.

Korean Fighters - The good, the bad and the incredibly mediocre pt. 3

So it looks like I made quite a few omissions. I forgot Choi Mu Bae, Ham Seo-Hee (female mma fighter), a bunch of dudes from Spirit MC (which to be fair, is now defunct) and a lot of dudes from DEEP. Still debating if adding Taiei Kin is worth it, he's part ethnically Korean but it seems like he has even less connection to Korea than Chu Sung-hoon does (though I guess Taiei Kin trains Choi Hong-man apparently. I'm gonna throw it out right now - I've never heard of any of these people in this post (Choi Mu-bae excluded) before I started researching this project. I'm obviously no expert on Korean MMA/K-1, but I'm discovering a lot of dudes really fast. DEEP seems to be just overflowing with Korean talent,and I haven't even cracked into M-1 which has a ton of Korean fighters going for it. Obviously it'd be impossible to include all the Korean fighters out there so I'll just do what I can.

 

I gotta say, I'm having a lot of fun with this. I'm toying with the idea of expanding this into a bigger project. I may start a seperate blog dedicated to the Korean fight scene, update with the fighters i've profiled so far, add videos, pictures, news, shit like that. I mean once the ground work is laid down it'll be much easier to update here and there. And all the work I've done so far, I literally did in a bit over one day. The Korean fight scene is a lot deeper than I once thought, though I can't imagine every attempting something like this with Japanese, Brazilian or American guys. It'd take all fucking year to do.

 

for my own reference

 

Lim "The Korean Icepick Jae-suk, 15-4-0, 176 lbs, Spirit MC fighter, one EliteXC fight, lots of sub wins

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Jae-Suk-Lim-8538

 

Kim Chang-Hyeon, 8-3-0, Spirit MC fights, 6 sub wins

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Chang-Hyeon-Kim-15997

 

Kim "Snake Eater" Yoon-young, 10-4-0, 176 lbs, Spirit MC and DEEP fighter, badass nickname

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Yoon-Young-Kim-23766

 

Lee Chi-sung, 5-1-0, Spirit MC guy

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Chi-Sung-Lee-28333

 

Choi Mu-bae, 8-3-0, Heavyweight, fought in Pride, K-1 Hero's, Pancrase and Sengoku, beat Gary Goodridge and Dave Herman :/

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Mu-Bae-Choi-9684

 

Ham Seo-hee, 3-3, 108 lbs, fights in DEEP and Smackgirl, record is literally win-loss-win-loss-win-loss so her next fight should be a win

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Seo-Hee-Ham-21246

 

Jung Bu-kyung, 0-4-0, Lightweight, fights at Yarennoka!, Dream and DEEP, but lost to good guys (Aoki Shinya, Ishida Mitsuhiro, Nakamura Daisuke)

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Bu-Kyung-Jung-27180

 

Lee "Crazy" Kwang-hee, 5-1-0, Fights in Spirit MC and recently made his Sengoku debut

 http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Kwang-Hee-Lee-21680

 

Song "Tornado" Un-sik, 7-0-0, K-1 Hero's debut and the rest in MARS (japanese fight league i've never heard of)

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Un-Sik-Song-14296

 

http://www.spiritmc.org/eng/

http://www.letswrestling.net/

Korean Fighters - The good, the bad, and the incredibly mediocre pt. 2 - K-1 edition

Last post I began my overview of the South Korean fighter scene, starting with the most prominent and promising Korean MMA guys; Chu Sung-hoon, Kim Dong-hyun, Denis Kang, Yoon Dong Sik and Jung Chan-sung. Admittedly, I may be missing a few people in the Korean fight scene, but so far I got the big Korean players in international MMA and a pretty good run down of K-1.

**Note to self** - add Ham Seo-hee, more female MMA fighters and look more into Spirit MC guys.

This time, I'm coming at you with some K-1 love. Unfortunately, Korean K-1 ain't that pretty. Thus far I'm going to talk about

Choi Hong-man

Lim Chi-bin

Lee Su-hwan

Lim Su-jeong (notable for being a female Korean K-1 fighter)

Also I'll talk briefly about Noh Jae-gil and Kim Se-ki (because I saw both of them fight live, and met Noh)

Otherwise, Kim Min-soo

There are more but they are all literally not worth mentioning in any way.

Choi Hong-man aka "The Techno Goliath" (named for his affinity for dancing to techno after a victory haaa) also dubbed "The Korean Monster" (by Japanese media) is a professional K-1 fighter that has dabbled in MMA as well. Here in Korea we know him, we love him, we literally look up to him. The man is 7'2, hovering between 327-360 lbs. This man is absolutely enormous. Choi posesses a tumor near his pituitary gland, which caused him to continue growing and accounts for his giant stature and build, though if I recall correctly it has recently been removed. Choi possesses a K-1 record of 12 wins and 5 losses, and an MMA record of 1 win and 2 losses. His most notable win is over Semmy Schilt whom he beat by split decision in K-1 Seoul GP 2006. He also beat Bob Sapp and Akebono 3 times (loollll). Recently, he dropped three fights in a row to Jerome LeBanner, Ray Sefo and Badr Hari. His foray into MMA hasn't gone so well. He beat the shit out of a 215 lb Bobby Ologun in a huge mismatch, then matched up with Fedor Emelianenko at Yarennoka! 2007. Emelianenko looked to be in trouble early, but managed to armbar the giant for the win. Choi's next MMA bout was against Mirco "Crocop" Flipovic, a fighter seemingly past his prime, but still able to finish Choi by TKO due to leg kicks (he literally kicked the fuck out of Choi's legs so bad that he couldn't continue).

Choi also, hilariously enough, has started a musical career with South Korean model Kang So-hee under the moniker "Beauty and the Beast". The music is terrible and watching Choi rap before one of his fights was just the goofiest shit I've ever seen. 

Beauty and the Beast - Everything about this picture is awkward as fuck

My analysis - Choi Hong-Ma

n is physically imposing enough to bully his opponents around, he's got good reach and he's got decent skill. Thing is, he's awkward and pretty slow, and people are figuring him out. I mean Badr Hari literally jumped and punched Choi in the face. He gets picked apart with leg kicks a lot because he isn't terribly mobile, despite his reach advantage, and if you can stay away from his knees (which are already pretty much at your face level) you can beat him pretty soundly. He's only been KO'd once and has thrown in the towel recently against Badr Hari. I think we might be seeing the beginning of the end for Choi, he literally lost every one of his fights last year and two the previous year (that's five in a row between K-1 and MMA). Basically 1) dude needs to stay the fuck out of MMA because that is not working. 2) He needs some tune up fights. Losing to Badr Hari, Ray Sefo and Jerome LeBanner is nothing to be ashamed of, but if they just toss him in against a tough guy right away it won't be too great for morale.

Lim Chi-bin is a K-1 fighter boasting a record of 9 wins, 6 losses in his K-1 career. Despite his not so great record, he's still probably the best Korea has to offer in his weight class. Notable wins include erm...other Koreans. I did have the pleasure of seeing him fight at the K-1 Max Seoul 2009 tournament which he ended up winning after beating three opponents in one night (hey improving your record from 6-6 to 9-6 in one night, not bad!) Pretty exciting fighter, and the dude can take a hit like a champ. His match against Lee Su-hwan in the final was exciting as hell, despite being knocked down twice he was able to win by KO in the first round. With that regional tournament victory, he gets seeded into the Final 16 for the K-1 2009 Grand Prix. His first opponent will be Taishin Kohiruimaki (who has beaten Lim Chi-bin previously). We'll see how the fight goes this time.

Me shaking hands with Lim Chi-bin after he won the tournament. Nice guy.

My analysis: Honestly I don't have a ton to say about him other than he was exciting as hell to watch fight at the K-1 Max Seoul event. Seems like a good guy, and I like him as a fighter. Hope the guy improves and finds some success.

Lee Su-hwan has a record of 8 wins, 7 losses in his K-1 career. Record doesn't look that great, but of his 8 wins, 6 have been by KO. He also was a finalist in the aforementioned K-1 Max Seoul tournament, reaching the finals by beating his first two opponents by extremely impressive KOs. Because of his impressive tournament performance, he has been added in a reserve match for the Final 16 tournament against Yuya Yamamoto.

My analysis: I really think this guy has promise. I was more impressed with him than any other fighter I saw at the K-1 Max Seoul tournament. He won his first two matches in extremely impressive fashion. He finished mongolian fighter Munguntsooj Nandin-Erdine (jesus what a name) by brutal headkick KO. Seriously the guy did not get up for a scary long time, and finally got dragged out on a stretcher. He then finished his next opponent, Noh Jae-gil by KO via BODY KICK. He KOd a guy with a BODY KICK. This guy has amazingly powerful kicks, and is just amazingly strong. He also had Lim Chi-bin on the ropes in the final, scoring two knockdowns in the first round until finally being KOd himself via punches. I really like this guy, he made a fan out of me at that event and I'll be rooting for him from now on.

Lim Su-jeong is a female K-1 fighter who made her debut at the K-1 Max Seoul show against a Japanese female K-1 fighter, Reina. This fight was, to my knowledge, the first female fight that K-1 has ever held. This is a pretty big deal and could open a whole new division for K-1. It was a great fight too, tits to the wall slugfest between these two tough women. The fight went all three rounds and one extra round. When it was all said and done Su-jeong came out the victor (though props to Reina for a tough fight).

My analysis: Not sure what else to say. Tough, tough fighter that really impressed with her victory over Reina. It wasn't the most technical fight, but neither fighter gave an inch and showed a ton of heart. Also she's a total babe.

Noh Jae-gil holds a record of 4 wins, 3 losses with 1 KO. I don't know much about the guy, other than he made it to the second round at K-1 Max Seoul. He was the guy that got KOd via body kick by Lee Su-hwan.

My analysis: Don't know much about the guy as a fighter, but he's a really nice guy. Despite having a disappointing night (and probably in a bit of pain), he still took the time to pose with me for a picture while I was marking out like a jackass over everything K-1. Really cool guy, wish him a lot of luck.

Kim Se-ki holds a record of 1-1 with 1 KO. Apparently when I saw him fight at k-1 Max Seoul, it was his K-1 debut (I didn't realize that until just now). He made it to the second round until he lost to Lim Chi-bin (who went on to win the tourney). Tough fighter, can really take a beating and keep going.

My analysis: Again, not much to say. Pretty good performance for a novice, definitely a tough guy. The other thing to say is this guy is hilarious. For the first fight, he comes out to traditional Korean music looking like some sort of Korean hobo. His second fight he comes out thugged out to Ace Hood - Gutta (which is a rad song btw). I was dying laughing, that guy has a lot of character. Like him a lot.

Kim Min-Soo is a p. terrible fighter, 4 wins and one loss in K-1 and 2 wins, 7 losses in MMA. I'm only including him because he has had the pleasure of losing to both Bob Sapp and Brock Lesnar. And yet, he still beat Minowaman.

My analysis: Uh..he's terrible. Lost to Bob Sapp and was Brock Lesnar's first opponent. I just get a kick out of that for some reason. Interestingly, he replaced Choi Hong-man to fight Brock Lesnar in Lesnar's MMA debut when Choi failed to meet medical requirements (due to his pituitary tumor).