Wow.

SENGOKU, DEEP, DREAM;  It's been a Crazy Ride

For the last three and a half weeks I've been sitting on the knowledge that I would soon be fighting in one of the biggest MMA organizations in the world and competing in their bantamweight Grand Prix.  I had been accepted as one of the participants in the tournament and was set to compete in SENGOKU on July 4th.  I almost spilled the beans last week, but decided to hold off because SENGOKU hadn't officially announced the participant list.  It's a good thing I did hold off because when I got to the club today for training I found out that I was out of the tournament.  Someone somewhere along the line had complained that even though I trained and fought out of a Korean gym I didn't meet the criteria to compete in the Asian Grand Prix.  That thought had crossed my mind but I was reassured that it would be no problem when I brought it up.  Apparently it was a problem.

All is not lost however.  I've been offered a fight with a very good fighter later in the summer. The fight offer is against Daiki Hata, a very good kickboxer with a 11-6-3 MMA record.  He has beaten some big name fighters, but his last two losses came to opponents who were 7-7 and 3-4 at the time of their fights.  He has much more experience than I do, but style wise, the match up is good.  He seems to have trouble with grinding type wrestlers.  He also looks like an anime character from some kind of Japanese neo-samurai cartoon.  The fight will be in late August for the DEEP organization. The bonus is that the winner of the fight earns a spot on the nest DREAM event.  DREAM is arguably the second largest MMA organization in the world.  It's where the big dogs live.  Some people spend their whole careers waiting for an opportunity like this.  It's pretty crazy now that it's here.  TopMMAnews posted a story about the fight on their main page. Go check it out.

Submission of the year?

Some people have been talking about this submission by Dan Hornbuckle at a recent Bellator event as a potential submission of the year. It's a nice Kimura into a modified armbar. Go to the 45 second mark of the video and then...

... look at this picture.

This was one of my matches at the Korea Machado Open. Look familiar? I know, I know, I didn't do it to  professional fighter in a major event... I'm just saying.  What am I saying?  I don't know, probably something about me being awesome.

Un Sik Song
Un Sik lost his fight at DEEP: Cage Impact last night.  He lost what sounds like a boring decision to someone who mostly pressed him against the cage.  I knew that cage skills might be an issue for Un Sik.  His wrestling is getting much better, but there is absolutely nowhere to practice anything against a cage or wall.  We don't even have any padded walls right now.  People have been saying for quite a while but Asian fighters who want to fight in a cage have to practice in a cage.  I think it makes a much bigger impact than people think.  So many techniques change next to the cage, and learning to use it and get off of it is a skill you have to practice, it does happen magically.

New Ho Shin Sool Website
Ray started a new Ho Shin Sool website and it's pretty awesome.  It has lots of cool stuff on it, go check it out.

Korea vs. Japan(MMA), Korea vs. Europe (Christmas Trees)

Here's the Un Sik Song's first fight after coming back from active military service.  There's a short video profile of him before the fight starts. If anyone out there speaks Japanese let me know what it says. The guy he fights here (Atushi Ueda, 8-3-3) is no bum, although he is obviously not on Un Sik's level.  
As for the fight, Un Sik was really embarrassed about it. He really didn't want me to see the fight on video. It was his first fight in over 2 years and he fought only 2 weeks after being discharged from the Army, so I think everyone would understand the ring rust. Even still he was really mad at himself for gassing and not being able to finish a few of the submission opportunities he had. The fight was probably perfect for what he wanted; shake off some ring rust against an opponent that was game, but didn't pose a major threat.  I think his next fight, in DEEP: Cage Impact, will be much crisper and cleaner.

 Intro and Round 1

Round 2

How the Grinchy Europeans Stole Christmas (Trees)
Koreans are a very proud people. And they should be.  They have managed to accomplish a lot of amazing things without outside help.  There are a lot of things that Korea just does better than the rest of the world (or at least the parts I've been to).  Sometimes though, Korean pride and nationalism can get a little carried away.
Exhibit A:  A few weeks ago I went on a tour of the area surrounding Yeongcheon.  The tour included a hike up a mountain guided by a university biology/horticulture student.  The mountain had some pretty unique flora, but to say it was mildly interesting would be flattering.  The only interesting part was when our guide showed us a tree (looked like a white pine) and told us that 150 years ago Europeans came to Korea and stole this tree.  They took it back to europe where it flourished and eventually led to the creation of the Christmas tree, a symbol which spread around the world, thanks to Korea. 
Think about it for a second.  This guy is saying that there were no pine trees in Europe before 150 years ago and that the Christmas tree is younger than that.  I think these guys would disagree.
Like I said, Koreans have a huge amount of stuff to be proud of, but sometimes they lack a little perspective.  If you move to Korea you may be shocked to discover that Korea created the I Phone and cloned the first human, among other things.  I don't know if it's comforting or scary to know that blind nationalism is a worldwide phenomenon.

The Tornado is Back... Big Time
Un Sik "Tornado" Song (8-0) finished his mandatory military service about a month ago.  It didn't take him long to get back in the action. Un Sik fought two weeks ago in DEEP: Grachan against Atsushi Ueda (8-3) and won via unanimous decision.  He said he had his opponent in a deep triangle and an armbar and had the guy fully mounted but couldn't finish him.  He seemed a bit embarassed that he gassed towards the end of the fight, but give the guy a break, he hadn't fought in two years.  Now that he's back to training full time his conditioning shouldn't be a factor for long.  Un Sik isn't working a part time job, and is instead focusing on fighting.  He has set himself a pretty tough schedule for his first months back.  After his last fight he has a pro kickboxing match next month and then another fight in DEEP the month after that.  If he wins that fight it looks like he'll be getting a title shot against Katsunori Kikuno (13-2), who also fights in DREAM.  The return of 'Tornado San" has been getting some decent attention on the interwebs, with articles and people commenting about his fight here, here and here.

Un Sik has really been working on his wrestling a lot lately.  I haven't been able to scrimmage with him lately but we work technique together and then I run him through drills and situational scrimmaging with other guys.  the speed that he picks up techniques is mind blowing.  His kinesthetic memory is probably the best I've ever seen.  He can see a complicated technique once and use it in a live situation almost immediately. Scary.  he's really jacked about the improvement in his wrestling.  Yesterday he told me that in 20 amateur and professional fights he has never scored a takedown on a leg attack and that is going to do it in his next fight.  We've also been doing a lot of pummeling and clinch work, especially against the wall.  His last fight and his next one are in a cage and it's an area of MMA he's never really worked on before.  It seems like more and more Japanese organizations are starting to use cages and Asian fighters definitely need to learn that part of the game.

Here's a video of me, Heung Kol and Un Sik in between matches at a tournament.

Un Sik and John warming up before some kickboxing sparring.

In other Daegu MMA news "Little GSP" as he's known, has his first kcikboxing match coming up next month.  he's been working pretty hard with a lot of the older guys.  It's kind of fun to watch a 16 year old kid go from total goofball to focused fighter training for a fight.  This kid has really stepped up his training in the last while and I'll be keeping my eye on him when I leave Korea.

Engrishee!
I spotted a good piece of Konglish on my drink the other day. Koreans love their vitamin drinks. I don't even know what kind of vitamins are in these drinks but they must be good right?  Even if there's nothing in it at least I'll feel more confident, at least according to the copy on the can.

Ho Shin Sool, KING OF THE CAGE and XCC


The boys are ready to rock again.  Jeff, Ray, Trevor and Johnny are going to represent Ho Shin Sool at King of the Cage on May 8th at the Dreamakes Theater.  Everything I heard about the last event was great, here's hoping this one is just as good and better.  My brother, Mitch, and Adrian Vilaca are also going to be fighting soon in Birch Run, under the MUTT MMA banner.  Here's the poster for the KOTC event, with Trevor and Jeff on it.  I heard that there are some renovations coming up at Ho Shin Sool.  After seeing that poster I hope they put a tanning bed in the basement.





Genki Sudo Appreciation

Living in Asia I've really learned a lot about the Asian MMA scene.  I've learned a lot about a lot of differnt fighters and seen a lot of awesome fights that have never been broadcasted in North America.  One fighterthat I've become a huge fan of is Genki Sudo.  I always knew who he was, but never knew much about him until  recently.  The guy is a phenomenal fighter, carries a positive message with him all the time and is very interesting to listen to in his inerviews.  Sudo started as a wrestler, but developed all around MMA skills so quickly that he was soon taking on and beating World Class kickboxers in Striking only K1 matches.  His fighting style is impossible to pin down.  He might switch from a pure grappling style into drunken boxing before throwing in "the robot" and using his Muay Thai to finish a fight.  That's to say nothing of his ring entrances that make Mayhem Miller look like he's walking in off the street in jeans and a T Shirt. Genki Sudo fought in the UFC three times, going 2-1 but fought most of his fights in Asia, which is too bad for North American fans.  Do yourself a favour and watch the documentary that I posted at the top right.  It's about 40 minutes long and split into 5 parts.  I posted the first two.  It's a cool documentary with good fight highlights and interviews and it's well produced.  I have a tough time imagining that any MMA fan could watch the documentary and not be a fan of the guy.  As a matter of fact I think everyone, fight fan or not, would appreciate a lot of the interview sections.  After all, Sudo mentions that to him MMA was a in many ways just the medium to get his message across to as large an audience as possible.

Daegu, Daegu, FIGHTING!

Daegu MMA in Action
The last week has been pretty empty inside Daegu MMA.  There have still been lots of people training but the studs have either been away fighting or helping to corner the fighters.  The intensity of training has been a little lower this week, but to be honest, I feel like my body needed the rest.  I feel refreshed and ready to get back at it full tilt.

Un Sik "The Tornado" Song won his kickboxing fight at "W" by second round KO.  He scored two knockdowns before putting his guy away for good.  Un Sik's fight was the main event, getting top billing over a fighter who has competed in K1.  It sounds like he was all over his opponent from start to finish.  After watching him train and spar (and getting punched around by him a lot) I'm glad to know that his Kickboxing is as good as I thought.

Un Sik re-aranging some facial features

Across the sea, Heung Gull lost a very tough split decision to Akihiko Mori in Tokyo, Japan.  I haven't talked to him yet but it sounds like he dominated the first round with striking and almost finished the fight from the bottom when he got taken down at the end of the round.  The second round was a toss up and in the third Heung Gull got taken down and couldn't get anything going from the bottom.  He didn't take any real damage but he was down there for the whole round.  Sounds like the fight could have gone either way, but I wish I could have seen it since the only info I have is second hand from some biased sources.  As mainly a Jiu Jitsu practitioner, Heung Gull has different ideas about cutting weight than I do.   His Jiu Jitsu competition weight is 62 kg.  while the fight against Mori was at 70 kg.  I was worried that a weight disadvantage might hurt him in the later rounds if the fight went long... I don't know if this was the case or not but I personally wouldn't fight at 70 kg and I'm a bit bigger than Heung Gull.  The cool thing is that I think Heung Gull fights for fun.  He is first and foremost a Jiu Jitsu player and is now busy preparing for the Asian Abhu Dhabi trials, having already won the Korean trials.

The best thing about Un Sik and Heung Gull is that neither guy missed a single day of training after their fights.  They were both right back at it the day they got back to Daegu.  Tough dudes.


Competition on the Horizon
There's a little more than three weeks until  I compete in my first Jiu Jitsu tournament in Korea.  I don't know if it's a big tournament or a small one, if the divisions are separated by belt or if they lump everyone together.  I do know that the weight class is 68 kg.   This is pretty much my natural weight right now, so that's where I'll compete.. there's no way I'm cutting to 62 kg.  I've picked up the amount of weight training that I've been doing and would like to get back up to a solid 70 kg and cut to 68 for grappling and 66/65 for MMA.  There is also the off chance that I might end up fighting an amateur Kickboxing fight at some point.  When Jae Hoon (The owner and coach at Daegu MMA) talked to me about fighting he said "Amateur Kickboxing, no probrem". I trust him, but I'd still rather fight MMA where I can take I guy down if need be. And get paid.
Over the next few weeks I'll be doing the regular jiu jitsu classes as well as splitting time with Un Sik and Jae Hoon, working on my kickboxing and Un Sik's wrestling.


Unrelated...
Last week I went into my regular coffee shop, the one I stop in at just about every morning on my way to work.  There were some guys there putting in a new, bigger front window.  As I was leaving one of the guys was blocking my way.  I couldn't help but think "Hey buddy, you make a better window than a door...".   Gold!