Korean Fighters - The good, the bad, and the incredibly mediocre

You know it just occured to me that I haven't really spent the time to break down the Korean fight scene. Granted, it's pretty sparse. Korea's native MMA organization, Spirit MC seems to be in limbo. Occasionally they have K-1 events here (like the one I went to last month). Otherwise, Korean fighters participate in international M-1 fights, frequently competing against their M-1 Russia counterparts. Then there are the more well known internationally based Korean fighters that fight in Japan or the USA, in MMA or K-1 orgs there.

 

Basically, there aren't a ton of Korean fighters worth mentioning. In MMA there is

 

Chu Song-hoon (Akiyama Yoshihiro)

Kim Dong-hyun

Denis Kang (Canadian-Korean fighter)

Yoon Dong-sik

Jung Chan-sung

Choi Mu Bae

Taei Kin (Korean name 김태영) (who interestingly is a bad MMA fighter but was pretty good in K-1)

Joe Son

Lee Tae-hyun

Kim Min-soo

*Choi Hong-Man*

 

Then in K-1 we have

*Choi Hong-man*

Lim Chi-bin

Lee Su-hwan

*Taiei Kin*

 

*** Have participated in MMA as well as straight K-1 (meaning not K-1 Heros)

 

Orginally, I only had about 6-7 fighters in mind when I started to write this. I then realized I now have 13 fighters to write about. This is going to be a bit more work than I thought.

 

I guess I'll start at the top.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.




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.