KOTC and Fighting in Japan.

The last few days have been filled with all kinds of MMA related news for me.  I've been keeping in touch with the boys from Ho Shin Sool about their fights at King of the Cage: Title Defense, I watched UFC 107 and had some exciting MMA news of my own.

Ho Shin Sool MMA Rips it up at "King of the Cage: Title Defense:

Dominant.
What else is there to say?
Ho Shin Sool fighters went 5-0 at King of the Cage for the second time this year. Two KO's, one submission and two unanimous decisions.  That's good fishing. Ray, Adrian, Jeff, Trevor and Dalton all came to fight and showed why we're the first and best MMA club in the area.  Big props to Jeff for ending his pro-debut in under 30 seconds.  Here's a highlight video of the event featuring most of the Ho Shin Sool crew.  You can also read some good newspaper articles about the fights here and here.

Watch live streaming video from soonews at livestream.com

Who's Fighting in Japan? I am.

I've accepted a fight in Japan for January 9th.  I was a little apprehensive about taking the fight because there are lots of things I still don't know about the fight and some things I probably won't find out until I get there.  When you're dealing with two language barriers (Japanese to Korean and Korean to English) it's tough to get accurate info. Here's what I do know.

• The fight will be at 70 kgs.  This is a weight class higher than I normally fight at but weigh ins are the same day and I know that most Japanese fighters don't really cut weight.
• I will fly from Busan to Tokyo with 4 other Korean fighters on Friday January 8th, fight on January 9th just outside of Tokyo and fly home on Sunday the 10th.
• The rules of the fight are slightly modified.  Full MMA rules on the feet, full ground and pound on the ground but no submissions.  I'm not sure if this is good for me or not.  On one hand being able to take someone down without worrying about submissions is awesome, on the other hand my submission game is a lot more dangerous now than it was three months ago.
• The organization does not pay travel.  It's really expensive to fly to and stay in Japan, especially Tokyo.  Luckily I've had a few sponsors step up and it looks like I'll be able to swing the cost of travel. More about that later.
  

Other than that I'm pretty much flying blind.   I don't know much about the guy I'm fighting, but the owner of Daegu MMA seems convinced that this is a fight I should win.  I don't know who will be cornering me.  I'm not sure if anyone from the club will be going.  I know there is a fighter from another Daegu MMA location that is also fighting. Maybe we will corner each other.  Maybe I'll put some feelers out to see if there are any mutual acquaintances in the fight scene in Japan that would be up for it.  I don't know the name of the organization I'm fighting for; it might be an organization I know or it might be a fly-by-night one time promoter tat will never be heard from again.  I don't know how big of an event this is.  I'm prepared for the venue to be a local gym with 30 people watching and I'm also prepared to walk into a big venue with a few thousand spectators.

There were a number of legitimate reasons for me to not take this fight. Wrong weight class, lots of unknowns, bad money etc.. but in the end one of the main reasons I came here was to fight and fighting in Japan is an opportunity that a lot of fighters would kill to have.  I don't want to leave Korea and say, "man, I wish I would have fought in Japan while I was here."

So, as they say, Game On.