UFC announces TUF China

[Alexandergreat3]

Interesting. Looking forward to see the talents they can recruit out of China. Hopefully they get better fighters than Tiequan "one trick pony" Zhang :icon_lol:.

 

[waiguoren]

i think you hit it on the head, huge untapped potential and im sure the ufc wants a piece of china as soon as they can get their hands on it

Yeah, but it really is only potential at this point. Grappling is not a big part of modern Chinese martial arts culture and most young aspiring competitors have no reason to prefer MMA over SanDa. Yes I know that Judo evolved from Chinese wrestling (摔&#36324 and QinNa (擒拿 ), but most young Chinese people are not at all familiar with grappling sports. I used to tell my Chinese friends I trained wrestling---90% of them were confused as they thought wrestling was only for really overweight people (they were thinking of Japanese sumo).

The UFC needs to build a Chinese MMA industry from the ground up. I've not been impressed with what I've seen of the UFC's efforts to this point. It just seems like they are trying to repackage US MMA with Chinese fighters, ring girls and announcers. It might work for Latin America and Europe but it won't work in Asia. They need a new approach.

 

[Laban]

You hit upon a very interesting topic. I'm no expert (there are people who study this stuff for a living), but I will give it a shot. The term "華人" (used on the UFC website) usually refers to ethnically Han Chinese people of any cultural background and of any citizenship. But the PRC government would like it to include the 56 officially designated ethnic groups of the modern PRC (the government actually defines it that way). On the other hand, common people might have a hard time accepting the use of the term "華人" to describe, e.g., ethnically Mongolian people who are born outside of China.

The two big-name Chinese (i.e., PRC citizen) fighters I know of are Zhang Tiequan （張鐵泉） and Jumabieke Tuerxun.

Zhang is officially ethnically Mongolian (the Chinese national ID card includes ethnicity as one of its entries), so under some definitions of 華人 he wouldn't count---but then again he speaks native Mandarin. In my opinion he could also easily pass for a Han Chinese.

The latter is from the western XinJiang province and is ethnically Kazakh. He doesn't look like a Han Chinese. He understands Mandarin but doesn't seem to speak it with much confidence.

Here's what I believe the UFC will do with TUF. Allow all PRC citizens 18 and over to compete. Allow Han-looking people from overseas to compete as long as they speak passable Mandarin. This might include Andy Wang types.

What are Han people?

 

[Romano338]

Interesting. Looking forward to see the talents they can recruit out of China. Hopefully they get better fighters than Tiequan "one trick pony" Zhang :icon_lol:.

I believe that if there was better fighters than Zhang, they would be in the UFC. UFC wouldn't let pass the opportunity to have fighters from such a big market
That's why I'm not interested in that TUF

 

[heavyarms21]

I heard Marcus "The Chinese Hand Grenade" Davis just requested a spot on the show. Apparently his grandfather is 1/8 New Yorker who visited Chinatown.

Has anyone been on two shows before

 

[waiguoren]

What are Han people?

e.g., Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Lucy Liu---what most in the US think of when someone says "Chinese people"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_chinese

 

[waiguoren]

I believe that if there was better fighters than Zhang, they would be in the UFC. UFC wouldn't let pass the opportunity to have fighters from such a big market
That's why I'm not interested in that TUF

Have you seen Jumabieke Tuerxun fight?

 

[Romano338]

Have you seen Jumabieke Tuerxun fight?

Ok
Now 15 more

 

[waiguoren]

Ok
Now 15 more

Yep. Like I said, UFC needs to build MMA from the ground up.

 

[Fork]

Interesting. Looking forward to see the talents they can recruit out of China. Hopefully they get better fighters than Tiequan "one trick pony" Zhang :icon_lol:.

i still don't think zhang is as terrible a fighter as everyone else. he was beating tuck striking, and hit great takedowns on him, he just got reversed on the ground constantly.

 

[Alexandergreat3]

I believe that if there was better fighters than Zhang, they would be in the UFC. UFC wouldn't let pass the opportunity to have fighters from such a big market
That's why I'm not interested in that TUF

Well, not necessarily, and we have seen this before with a number of great fighters who the UFC couldn't or wouldn't sign for various reasons.

 

[The Judas Pig]

I heard Marcus "The Chinese Hand Grenade" Davis just requested a spot on the show. Apparently his grandfather is 1/8 New Yorker who visited Chinatown.

Fucking perfect.

 

[Alexandergreat3]

i still don't think zhang is as terrible a fighter as everyone else. he was beating tuck striking, and hit great takedowns on him, he just got reversed on the ground constantly.

He's not terrible, but he's not good either.

I really don't believe he represents the top level fighting talents that China can offer with its 1 billion something population. I have seen some top Sanshou fighters, and they are way better than Zhang.

 

[Fork]

He's not terrible, but he's not good either.

I really don't believe he represents the top level fighting talents that China can offer with its 1 billion something population. I have seen some top Sanshou fighters, and they are way better than Zhang.

ahhh, yeah i agree on that. i don't think zhang is the top chinese fighter at the moment, i'd say wang guan, zhang meixuan, and liu pingyuan are all ahead of him, and i think there are others that could be argued as well. however i think it's a bit tough to say until we see zhang fighting in china again, or these guys fighting at the level that zhang is fighting at.

 

[Fork]

Well, not necessarily, and we have seen this before with a number of great fighters who the UFC couldn't or wouldn't sign for various reasons.

yeah, a number of china's best fighters are tied up in contracts with the chinese org RUFF. recent UFC signee jumabieke tuerxun was almost trapped by their contract.

 

[Straight G]

Do people actually still watch this show?

 

[Alexandergreat3]

yeah, a number of china's best fighters are tied up in contracts with the chinese org RUFF. recent UFC signee jumabieke tuerxun was almost trapped by their contract.

Yep, this is the problem, unfortunately.

 

[Alexandergreat3]

Do people actually still watch this show?

I never cared to watch it. I only watch some of the big fights and that's it. Don't care for the soap opera, drama bullshit :icon_twis.

 

[fedordestroyall**]

where are the chinese fighters?
i love watching their martial art movies and consider them the first but yeah there aren't many chinese fighters at all.
even Japanese has more MMA fighters than chinese.

 

[Fork]

where are the chinese fighters?
i love watching their martial art movies and consider them the first but yeah there aren't many chinese fighters at all.
even Japanese has more MMA fighters than chinese.

http://www.ruffchina.com/us/fightersprofiles/frontpage.html

http://www.legendfc.com/en/fighters/c/12/China/

and there are others in UFA, or Real Fight Championships.

there are a good number of chinese mma fighters. of course japan has more, but they have more fighters than a lot of countries, thanks to their tradition of MMA.