[chokushi]

A poster in another thread made this remark: "MMA is very popular in korea and japan, but is unheard of in china, which of course is the biggest asian market."

I want to correct this. It is little known, but China has a growing MMA scene. There are a few MMA clubs here in Beijing, and there is a low profile but growing competition format called the Art of War (named aptly after the infamous book of Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu). There have 5 been competitions in China, the last one televised by national channel CCTV 5 - with a national coverage of 1.2b people! Some rising stars include Hai Lin, Tie Quan, and Shuang Hai, all born in China but ethnic Mongolians. See for yourself:

MMMChina.com

Please check your facts before making such statements about "unheard of in China". Of course the art is still young here, where sanda (Chinese kick boxing rules) prevails, but there is a wind of change here and you will see this sport grow here in the years to come, thanks to the efforts of Andy Pi of the Beijing Jujitsu Academy and Adoria Entertainment Group. See also this blog (China Combat, which includes interviews with Andy Pi):

China Combat Blog

[Kforcer]

Awesome! Thanks for this, bro.

[vote4pedro]

China has been a bit of a dissappointment athletically speaking. Over a billion people, and they have produced 1 good NBA player in Yao Ming. I don't think there's a Chinese player in baseball.. perhaps a few in the Minors. I think the only guys in baseball of note are from Taiwan. Obviously there's no chinese in the NFL or the NHL.

Over a billion people but their athletic abilities are nothing to brag about. It will probably be 20 years before there's any good training camps for MMA in China.

[kevincoplen]

Originally Posted by vote4pedro

China has been a bit of a dissappointment athletically speaking. Over a billion people, and they have produced 1 good NBA player in Yao Ming. I don't think there's a Chinese player in baseball.. perhaps a few in the Minors. I think the only guys in baseball of note are from Taiwan. Obviously there's no chinese in the NFL or the NHL.

Over a billion people but their athletic abilities are nothing to brag about. It will probably be 20 years before there's any good training camps for MMA in China.

I'm not sure what to say about this... you make a decent point,but it's awfully racist sounding

[21st centuryJKD]

China produces a high level of gymnastics olympians, but that's about it, in all other sports they are par or below on the world stage. this is a very limited example, but may ring true, I don't know: in the METR-X World's Strongest Man competition there is one chinese strongman named Gu Yan Li, he is obviously smaller than the 6 and a half foot tall vikings, american, and poles that dominate the sport, but his technique in all events is unconventional at best. I can only assume thathe is in reality a power lifter who has rarely trained with most strongman apparatus. Maybe this is going back into stereotyping, but maybe it's because it is not a chinese national sport and that whatever trainers Li works with have their own unproven methods of training and doing these events. Also, the past two WSM competitions have been held in China.
I got on quite a tangent there, but it may ring true for other sports.

[SyuYuKai]

Originally Posted by vote4pedro

China has been a bit of a dissappointment athletically speaking. Over a billion people, and they have produced 1 good NBA player in Yao Ming. I don't think there's a Chinese player in baseball.. perhaps a few in the Minors. I think the only guys in baseball of note are from Taiwan. Obviously there's no chinese in the NFL or the NHL.

Over a billion people but their athletic abilities are nothing to brag about. It will probably be 20 years before there's any good training camps for MMA in China.

In fairness to China, NHL and NFL aren't that big outside of the states and it has only been in the last few years or so that Basketball has had an influence on the Chinese youth.

If anything, athletically, the Chinese are a force to be reckoned with. In the 2004 games they picked up 2nd in the the medal count and the average age of their athletes was 22.

I do find it strange that there isn't more Chinese fighters in MMA bearing in mind what their country has contributed to Martial Arts. But that looks like that will change within a few years time.

[chokushi]

Originally Posted by 21st centuryJKD

China produces a high level of gymnastics olympians, but that's about it, in all other sports they are par or below on the world stage. this is a very limited example, but may ring true, I don't know: in the METR-X World's Strongest Man competition there is one chinese strongman named Gu Yan Li, he is obviously smaller than the 6 and a half foot tall vikings, american, and poles that dominate the sport, but his technique in all events is unconventional at best. I can only assume thathe is in reality a power lifter who has rarely trained with most strongman apparatus. Maybe this is going back into stereotyping, but maybe it's because it is not a chinese national sport and that whatever trainers Li works with have their own unproven methods of training and doing these events. Also, the past two WSM competitions have been held in China.
I got on quite a tangent there, but it may ring true for other sports.

Stop there before you make yourself look even more stupid. The world's strongest man - are you for real? Is this how you judge a whole nation's sporting ability? And even there you get it wrong - in their weight categories, China won eight medals (all silver and gold) in the weightliftiing in the 2004 Olympics. Great gymnasts true, but of China's 63 medals in the 2004 Olympics (which included 32 golds, just behind the USA's 35) only 4 were for gymnastics. Fifteen were for martial arts - including boxing, wrestling, judo, tae kwon do, and fencing (not to mention shooting and archery, also arguably 'martial' but not 'opponent' sports, ok). The USA's medals in these sports equalled thirteen.

Let's not set this up as a USA vs China in all sports. There is no point in comparing the overall best in the world to China since the history and culture of sport, not to mention its funding, is radically difrerent. Most of all - you're point is that the Chinese are poor performers in sport - you say bar gymnastics they are "below par on the world stage". America has nothing to prove, but you made a dangerous and stupid statement. You underestimate the Chinese massively and seem not to have any idea that China has a tiny MMA scene compared to the USA, because people are only just hearing about it - and all in a few large cities. China's relatively recent opening up accounts for almost all of the lack of Chinese participation in MMA to date. I'm n ot saying that the Chinese will dominate but you make yourself sound like an ignorant racist.

[EKyello]

Originally Posted by chokushi

Stop there before you make yourself look even more stupid. The world's strongest man - are you for real? Is this how you judge a whole nation's sporting ability? And even there you get it wrong - in their weight categories, China won eight medals (all silver and gold) in the weightliftiing in the 2004 Olympics. Great gymnasts true, but of China's 63 medals in the 2004 Olympics (which included 32 golds, just behind the USA's 35) only 4 were for gymnastics. Fifteen were for martial arts - including boxing, wrestling, judo, tae kwon do, and fencing (not to mention shooting and archery, also arguably 'martial' but not 'opponent' sports, ok). The USA's medals in these sports equalled thirteen.

Let's not set this up as a USA vs China in all sports. There is no point in comparing the overall best in the world to China since the history and culture of sport, not to mention its funding, is radically difrerent. Most of all - you're point is that the Chinese are poor performers in sport - you say bar gymnastics they are "below par on the world stage". America has nothing to prove, but you made a dangerous and stupid statement. You underestimate the Chinese massively and seem not to have any idea that China has a tiny MMA scene compared to the USA, because people are only just hearing about it - and all in a few large cities. China's relatively recent opening up accounts for almost all of the lack of Chinese participation in MMA to date. I'm n ot saying that the Chinese will dominate but you make yourself sound like an ignorant racist.

Awesome, you totally owned him, xie xie.

[TBA]

This is good news. It will be nice to eventually see some representaves of China at the big shows.

Any more MMA news out of India?

[caliphil007]

Blame the lack of producting world level athletes on the community government. they almost banned martial arts and sports during the cultural revoulituion.