Art Of War

So I saw Art Of War V on Saturday, took some good pictures, and came away impressed overall. The production is on TV, with a potential broadcast audience in the hundreds of millions, and the production was good overall - reminded me of a lower budget Pride (same aesthetic sensibilities, which makes sense).

The crowd was better than the average UFC crowd. While the Chinese don't go for the Japanese respectful-silence-followed-by-applause-during-grappling-transitions, there were no boos, no cries of "quit dancing you homos", although there was occassional shouting, it was more of the "jia you" (literally 'add oil', but it basically means 'go!') variety.

There must have been fifteen or so fights - it was a lot in any case.

The three guys from the Beijing JiuJitsu Academy absolutely outclassed their opponents, and all three won by strikes - their opponents (all Mongolian Judokas) briefly put Shuang Hai and Tie Quan in a bad position, but they quickly escaped, and once the judokas started getting hit they quickly folded. Ao Hai Lin's fight was even quicker - he was relentless.

Zhao Zi Long, a San Da champ who is starting out in Jiujitsu rapidly took his opponent out with stinging low kicks.

The fights between fighters I didn't know were a mixed bag. On the one hand, there were some really compelling fights, one in particular, in which the two guys landed big shots and, amazingly, didn't go down before running out the time and coming to a draw (no decisions here). On the other hand, there was some truly horrid jiujitsu on display: dropping for a footlock with controlling the leg, throwing the leg over for an armbar while paying no attention to the hips, and even not using hooks properly from the back. It's clear that a lot of these guys have seen MMA on TV, but have never had any proper instruction. I think the market is ripe for some instructional videos in Chinese, of which there are currently none.

Of course, this is only the fifth professional MMA event in China, and there's only one team fielding fighters that can actually grapple - you can't expect the UFC or Pride. But this country is soon to have the largest economy in the world, and it's leisure-loving middle class is growing daily. I don't think it's at all unrealistic to think that in 10 years MMA will have a sizable following in China, and that we will be seeing a few Chinese atheletes having success in the UFC or Pride.

The recent acquisition of Pride by the Fertittas brings new challenges to the Adoria Entertainment, the company putting on Art of War. While it's now the dominant (and only) player in China, it's going to have to work to make sure Zuffa isn't able to steamroll it's way in, buy off the top atheletes, and take the Chinese market for itself. Of course, simply selling out to Zuffa could be a lucrative option as well. . .