Asian MMA Podcast

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Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

Jan 09, 2020

00:53:50

Shinya Aoki Pipe Bomb Article Trashing ONE Championship

Last week Shinya Aoki published an article that was a pipe bomb that trashed ONE Championship saying they would go out of business in 2020. It was then edited and republished as a much more ONE FC Friendly article. I discuss this and more with MMA Journalist Ant Walker

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntWalkerMMA

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCISghFUJelA6mcxfEQ7Wp5A

Dec 30, 2019

01:59:01

On this episode of the Asian MMA Podcast I team up with JHK of Kumite Radio to go over everything that went down in Asian MMA this past year, and oh what a year it's been. We talk about RIZIN, ONE Championship, ROAD FC, Full Metal Dojo, TFC, OWS, Tiger Muay Thai, Battlefield FC, Korean MMA, Japan MMA and oh so much more.

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Oct 12, 2019

00:09:29

ONE Championship Century Paywalled Typhoon Hagibis and a Shiny New ONE Grand Prix Belt

First things first, ONE Century isn’t just a stacked card, it’s two stacked cards back to back! That is just nuts! There are so many belts on the line! If you are not planning to watch these events just punch yourself in the face! Man! This is gonna be crazy.

But from an MMA business perspective, the big news about this event is that ONE Will be moving the second card behind a paywall in the US for the first time. Of course, they have their broadcast deal with Turner so the first card will air on TNT. So if you have cable you should be able to watch that.

The more interesting part of this is that the second part of ONE Century will move behind the B/R Live paywall, which requires a $9.99 monthly subscription to view.

If you don’t have cable or want to shell out the $9.99 you might want to google what a VPN is and give that a shot.

I’m going to link to a report on The Body Lock if you guys want to take a deeper dive into this it’s a great piece of work for you to check out.

Personally, I think it’s a good time and the right market for ONE to give this a try. The US market is used to paying for premium MMA content, which this very much is. Though I think it is going to be a hard sell given the timing of the show in the states.

Despite ONEs consistently claims of billions of potential viewers for each show and the self hype of their unprecedented social media views they are still a fairly unknown commodity to all but the most hardcore of the US fans. So it will be interesting to see if they are actually able to move the needle being behind a paywall.

We can really only speculate about the motivation for the move behind the paywall, but it’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to think that ONE is likely needing to generate some real revenue at some point. There have been more than a few sites that have jumped into the finances of the MMA promotion over the past few years showing that they are hemorrhaging cash every chance they get.

While the markets in SE Asia where ONE is the most established would not really support a PPV model, hell, even the UFC is on free TV here in Thailand, the US and Europe is another story.

If ONE Can create the expectation in those markets that consumers will have to pay for their live events then it could give them a path at least part of the way to profitability.

There live shows are on another level when compared to the UFC and I think that comes across well when watching it on TV. However, their approach to production, storytelling and to hyping up their own views on how great they are might turn off some casual western viewers.

If they do well in the market and drive subscriptions to B/R Live then we know the other big promotions like the UFC and Bellator have to keep an eye on ONE.

If they don’t, does it stall their advance to the US? Does it make their investors take a second look and question their bet on ONE?

We will have to wait and see.

Before I wrap up this episode I just want to touch on that new ONE Grand Prix belt. This belt is sweet, the style, lines, everything about it is this perfect blend between classic and modern. The one minor thing I can say about it is that the two side plates look a bit busy, but that is so minor. I am glad ONE came out with a new design for the Grand Prix winners and honestly they hit it out of the park.

The Pancrase belt is probably still my overall favorite design for an MMA belt, but this new ONE Grand Prix belt is a very close second.

Right as I was able to start recording this I saw that there was an earthquake in Japan, it feels like Mother Nature is throwing everything she’s got at ONE Championship this weekend, the typhoon and now an earthquake, but hopefully ONE Century goes on as planned.

You can find Bangkok Strange here: https://open.spotify.com/show/12sROHP7dvuXDoTrejZlOb?si=E39ke2W1R1qlVylBH_SQXw

Check out the article I reference at The BodyLock MMA here: https://thebodylockmma.com/one-championship/one-century-will-be-behind-a-paywall-in-the-us-is-it-the-right-call/

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

Follow Asian MMA Podcast Everywhere:

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https://www.facebook.com/JaviTrujillo.mma/

Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

Aug 29, 2019

00:21:49

Malaysia Based Fighter Mostafa Ibrahim Radi - Asian MMA Podcast

In this episode, I chat with Malaysia based fighter Mostafa Ibrahim Radi about his upcoming fight in Full Metal Dojo against Javier Trujillo.

Mostafa trains out of Monarchy MMA in Kuala Lumpur

Follow Mostafa:https://www.instagram.com/mostafaradi/ https://www.facebook.com/MustafaRadiMMA/

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

Follow Asian MMA Podcast Everywhere:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AsianMMAPodcast YouTube: http://bit.ly/AsianMMA_YouTube Twitter: https://twitter.com/AsianMMAPodcast iTunes: http://bit.ly/AsianMMAPodcast_iTunesGooglePlay: http://bit.ly/AsianMMAPodcast_GooglePlay Spotify: http://bit.ly/AsianMMAPodcast_Spotify Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/asian-mma-podcast Website: http://www.AsianMMAPodcast.com

Aug 21, 2019

00:39:49

Thailand Based fighter Javier Trujillo discusses his upcoming fight at full metal dojo against Mostafa Ibrahim Radi from Monarchy MMA

Follow Javier here:

https://www.instagram.com/javitrujillo.mma/

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube, and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

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Aug 19, 2019

00:06:56

We had two massive shows go down. ONE Championship Dreams of Gold in Bangkok and Rizin 18 in Japan. And of course, we have to talk about ONEs first open weigh-in and hydration test since switching to their no cutting policy.

Let’s start things off here in Bangkok with ONE: Dreams of Gold. This was a kickboxing and muay thai heavy card, which ONE tends to do with their shows in Bangkok because that is what the local fans want to see.

This was a great card from start to finish, But for me, the fight of the night, the one that blew away any and all expectations was Stamp Fairtex vs Asha Roka. This was only Stamps second MMA fight, but keep in mind she is already the ONE woman's atomweight Muay Thai and Kickboxing champion, so she is no stranger to the fight game.

Stamp looked phenomenal in this fight. She took it to Roka and never stopped. She dominated everywhere this fight went. On the ground, where I had expected her to struggle she looked amazing.

At one point Michael Schiavello on commentary had one of his best lines of the night, “Roka is being mounted more than a pummel horse” because Stamp was just dominating on the ground.

Stamp ended up putting Roka away with an RNC in the 3rd. And from what I saw the rest of her division needs to be on notice.

I’m not sure if she is ready for the top of the division just yet, but it won’t be long.

Another fun and entertaining fight on the card was a clash between Cambodian Chan Rothana against Cuban olympian Gustavo Balart.

Despite having a massive size disadvantage Balart dominated most of the fight with his wrestling. other than the closing minute or so of the final round where Chan had a strong rally and came very close to finishing Balart, he controlled the majority of the fight.

Somehow, Chan took the decision victory. Decisions like this are just another reason I dislike ONEs methods of scoring the fight as a whole. There will be an in-depth episode about this in the future, but I think Balart got robbed in this fight.

Sticking with ONE Championship they live-streamed their first weight-ins and hydration test since switching to a no-cutting policy after the death of fighter Yang Jian Bing in 2015 while he was attempting to make weight.

ONE has taken a lot of criticism for their lack of transparency in a number of areas, weight cutting being one of the.

Michael Fiedel over at The Body Lock has a fantastic piece up about this and the whole history so I will link to that in the show notes, I highly recommend you give that a read, it’s very strong work by Michael.

I will say though, that I was very impressed with ONEs step towards transparency in this matter. Though I think it doesn’t go far enough.

For starters, the weigh-in and hydration tests were conducted by ONE itself. There was someone who was opening and checking the specific gravity of the urine, which is a step in the right direction after photos surfaced on twitter last week of Former UFC Champ and ONE VP Rich Franklin and another ONE employee and former fighter Bashir Ahmed handling urine samples without gloves.

After the test, the specific gravity and the weight were read off by and recorded by another ONE executive Ric Auty.

Ideally ONE should hire a third party to conduct these weigh-ins, much like a commission would be the third party in a country with a commission.

There is also the matter of this being just one of three weigh-ins and hydration tests that are supposedly done.

So there is still lots of room to improve, but I think ONE got off to a good start. I hope they continue to improve this and truely move towards transparency.

UFC 241 was also this weekend, and while it didn’t take place in Asia, ROAD FC and Deep veteran Kyung Ho Kang took a split decision win over Brandon Davis.

Moving over to Japan We closed out the weekend with Rizin 18.

This was a really great card that even had a kickboxing match with John Wayne Parr, who dropped a split decision to Zanolini

In other action on the main card

Manel Kape got a fantastic second-round KO over Mizugaki

Victor Henry pulled out a 3rd round finish over Trent Girdham with a slick inverted triangle despite taking one of the worst cup shots I’ve seen in a very long time.

Ayaka Hamasaki extended her win streak to 5 with a first-round submission win over Amp Boonsorn in a fight that was full of some very technical grappling. Amp spent most of the time in control on the ground until Hamasaki was able to get a reversal and secured an armbar.

In the main event, we had an amazing display of striking when Kai Asakura earned a beautifully violent first round knock out over Kyoji Horiguchi.

Asakura used his reach to his advantage and played it cool early on with Horiguchi being the aggressor. But about a minute in he hurt Horiguchi and the aggression came out, he chased him down landing everything in his arsenal before putting Horiguchi out cold.

It was a fantastic main event to cap off a great card.

That's all I have for you guys today

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube, and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

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https://thebodylockmma.com/one-championship/one-championship-live-streams-weigh-ins-following-criticism-of-closed-door-policies/

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Michael Fiedels Piece about ONE weight cutting at The Body Lock:

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Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

Aug 15, 2019

00:08:22

ONE Championship goes to Inda, SFC 8, UGB Rebirth, FMD, Fighters Give Back

Singapore Fighting Championship has announced their next show which will be September 28th at the FooChow building in Singapore.

That have not announced the full fight card yet, but when they do I will be sure to update everyone on the MMA matches.

SFC generally does cards with a mix of combat sports on them, MMA, Boxing, and Muay Thai. I watched the last event on their Facebook live stream and there were some really good fights. I would highly recommend checking them out. Link to their FB page will be in the show notes.

It’s been a year since we have seen a Full Metal Dojo show in Bangkok, but now it looks as though they will be putting on their next event on August 31st. There still isn’t much known, but friend of the show Javier Trujillo will be in the main event against Ibrahim Radi from Monarchy MMA in Kuala Lumpur.

Javier recently made the move from Bangkok to Chaing Mai so he could focus more on his training. Last time I spoke to him he said things couldn’t be going any better. Hopefully, I will have him on the show soon so discuss his upcoming fight.

Over to Manila where Underground Battle MMA has announced their next card coming up August 23rd. No details on the card yet.

But what I love about UGB is that they have fights that are also a blend of MMA and stick fighting. They are absolutely wild. I’ll put a link in the show notes to one of their trailers that gives you a little taste of what that looks like. But definitely get excited about this.

In Malaysia Octagon Asia MMA has announced the Season 2 finalist for their tournaments at Bantamweight, Lightweight and Heavyweight That kick off on September 14th.

There are some well-known names in the local scene in the tournament. At Bantamweight, you’ve got Effendey Kalai and Aaron Lo

At lightweight, you’ve got Joseph Yap

And at Heavyweight we’ve got Niker Tan

WIth 8 men per division, this could be anyone's game. Tournament style changes the dynamics, anything can happen.

In ONE Championship news, Chatri Sityodtong posted on his Facebook on August 8th that ONE Championship will 100% be going to India in 2020.

Of course they have a number of Indian fighters signed to the promotion and that being the second biggest market in Asia, it would make sense they want to begin to establish a base there.

ONE has also been making claims that they will hold a show in the US in 2020, that one I am far more skeptical about and will be interesting to see how ONE does they have to work within the confines of a regulating body like a commission.

Lastly, but surely not least. I was in Manila over the weekend for a charity event called Black Tie Black Eye Affair. I went there to watch my friend Bev, the Deisel Diva compete in a white-collar boxing match.

But what I want to bring some light to is how involved the local MMA scene was in supporting the event.

Both Brandon Very and Mitch Chilson were in attendance to support the cause, and from talking with others involved in the event they did a lot more than just show up, they gave a lot of their time and resources to help out.

This is one of the things I love about MMA, so many of the stars in the sport are generous with their time and resources, a lot of it we just don’t know about as well. Had I not been to this event I would have had no idea that Mitch or Brandon were there, and if other people had not told me how involved they were and how much they did to help out I would not have known because they weren’t advertising that.

I can think of countless other examples from other fighters as well. Enson Inoue comes to mind and his efforts to raise awareness help those people in Northern Japan after the earthquake and tsunami devastated that area.

Another fighter that comes to mind is AJ Pyro who is probably one of the most giving fighters I have ever met. When you meet AJ you can tell that giving back is just something that is hard-wired into him. AJ does everything from helping disaster victims to rescuing stray animals.

And there are countless more fighters who go out of their way and give their time to support great causes, I can’t name them all. In a sport that has it’s ups and downs this is always a bright spot for me.

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube, and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

Follow Asian MMA Podcast Everywhere:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40-E1nGltM8

Chatries post about India:

gb.facebook.com/yodchatri/posts/2494059867322826">https://en-gb.facebook.com/yodchatri/posts/2494059867322826

UGB MMA fighting with sticks:

Singapore Fighting Championship:

https://www.facebook.com/singaporefightingchampionships

Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

Aug 07, 2019

00:10:02

ONE Championship Dawn of Heroes recap, Pancrase 305 bouts added and Battlefield FC Update - Asian MMA Podcast

Over the weekend we had ONE Championship back in action in Manila.

But before we get into that we have an update on the Battlefield FC event I talked about last week. Several outlets are reporting that all fighters have been paid.

That’s a move in the right direction, but it’s still going to be difficult for anyone to trust them going forward, two events and two PR nightmares.

Good sirs, might I suggest you move onto a different venture at this time?

There are two interesting matchups added to Pancrase 308 in September. Edna Oliveira will be stepping in to replace Nori Date against Emi Fujino in the strawweight Grand Prix semifinal.

We will also see UFC vet Issei Tamura try to get back in the win column against Katshshi Sugiyama who is on a two-fight win streak.

Both interesting fights I am excited to see. I am an old, old school Pancrase fan so I always get excited for their events

Moving on to ONE Championships Dawn of Heros that went down in Manila over the weekend.

This was a good event, the card was stacked and it was headlined by two title fights.

The very first fight on the card was one I was excited for because we had Muhammad Aiman taking on Sunoto. I’ve been following Aiman since his amateur days in MIMMA.

Aiman looked fantastic against Sunoto, I had him winning every round easily and he just looked fantastically dominate.

Aiman is just 24 years old, he’s got 9 pro fights under his belt and he keeps looking better and better. I am excited to see how he develops over the next few years.

My only criticism against Aiman at this point is that since he turned pro he hasn’t been finishing a lot of his opponents as he did as an amateur. I would like to see him get back to the high finish rate he had in MIMMA where all but one of his wins was a finish.

On this card we also saw Yushin Okami in his second outing with ONE Championship, unfortunately for him, it was another unsuccessful attempt as he dropped a decision to a very game, very tough James Nakashima.

This was pretty much a one-sided fight, Nakashima controlled it from start to finish.

Here’s one of those little quirks you see in ONE Championship. In the first round, Nakashima had Okami in a choke, that definitely wasn’t the best position, but he didn’t look like he was close to taping, but a lot of times in ONE when fighters are in bad positions similar to this, This particular ref will stand over the fighter and yell at him to give up.

It’s strange to me because I can’t remember any other ref doing that and to me, it seems like the most inappropriate way to give instructions to a fighter during a fight. Especially when they're in a bad position.

Moving up to the main card we had Demetrious Johnson take home a decision win over Tatsumitsu Wada. To me, this fight was a lot closer than it probably should have been.

Hats off to Wada for putting up a great fight, and arguably winning the first round and putting DJ in some precarious situations.

DJ was able to fight through it and come back for the win. He will be moving on to the finals of the Grand Prix to face Danny Kingad who punched his ticket earlier on the card with a split decision win over Reece McLaren.

I think this matchup in the finals is going to be a difficult one for DJ. Danny is the type of fighter that might be able to give him trouble. He’s Durable and has won every time he’s gone the distance.

We also saw Eddie Alverez get back into the win column with a submission win over Edward Folayang.

I’ve got to give it to Eddie, he got dropped with a leg kick early in the round and then Folayang jumped on top, but Eddie was able to get a sweep to land in top position.

After applying a bit of ground and pound of his own Folayang gave up his back before tapping to a rear-naked choke.

In the main event, Martin Nguyen took the second-round stoppage to defend his title against Koyomi Matsushima.

Matsushima looked really good in the first round, hitting takedowns and controlling Martin for a bit each time, but it was Martin that was doing more damage, even from the bottom and getting the better of the exchanges on the feet.

One interesting thing of note, and I think I’ll do a longer episode on just this topic, maybe next week was that this fight was in a ring, and twice in the first round Matsushima was going for a takedown and Martin went partially out of the ring, one time between the ropes and another over them.

Each time the ref warned Martin that he had to stay in the ring, despite it being Matsushima who was driving him out. It wasn’t like Martin was trying to get out of the ring to avoid Matsushima.

I have no clue what the ref was looking at or thinking other than it made no sense. And honestly, I am perplexed by the fact that ONE has started holding MMA fights in a ring. But, I’ll get to this later on, Ring vs Cage really deserves its own episode.

Anyway, when they came out for the second it was all Martin. He just turned it up to 11, he was able to shut down every single takedown Matsushima attempted in the second round and just picked him apart until he was able to force the ref to step in and stop it.

Great win for Martin, and a really good showing for Matsushima.

Overall not a bad show for ONE, a fairly good card, I will be interested to see the conclusion of the two grand prix tournaments in Japan later this year.

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

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https://www.facebook.com/Lanky.Madness/

Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

Aug 02, 2019

00:37:50

Will Chope Interview - The Most Active Fighter in Asian MMA

Will recently had a dust-up on social media with the CEO of ONE Championship, Chatri Sityodtong over a post WIll penned about the lack of drug testing in Asian MMA and his opinions on ONEs policies. Chatri would go on to say he agreed with most of what Will said in his post right before sending his staff out to get wills contact info and having ONEs corporate lawyer send a letter threating to sue him if he didn’t take the post down.

You can follow Will Chope here:

https://www.instagram.com/asiawillthekill/

https://twitter.com/AsiaWillTheKill

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

Follow Asian MMA Podcast Everywhere:

GooglePlay: http://bit.ly/AsianMMAPodcast_GooglePlay

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Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

Jul 30, 2019

00:13:30

RIZIN 17 Results, Battlefield FC 2, ONE Championship and WADA

Before I get into Battlefield FC, and believe me that is going to be a big part of what we talk about today.

Before that, though I want to talk about RIZIN 17! Oh man was that a hell of a card. I love what RIZIN is doing and the approach they take to the sport. Some great Asian MMA matchups going on over there,

This was a big card, I want to talk about a few of the fights. One of the womens fights early in the card which all of a sudden has implications for the regional scene was ROAD FC Champ Seo Hee Ham in her debut absolutely destroying Tomo Maesawa with brutal knees in the first round.

After the win she called out Miyuu Yamamoto, they had a little moment in the ring and that fight looks to be official for RIZIN 19 as a title eliminator.

In other woman's action on the card, Stephanie Egger came away with a Unanimous Decision win over King Reina.

We also saw Jake Huen get the win over Vitaly Shemetov due to a cut in the 3rd round.

Undefeated Russian Ivan Shtyrkov put everyone in his division on notice with a brutal second-round TKO finish of Hook Kim

And in the main event, we had an absolute war between Mikuru Asakura and Yusuke Yachi that saw Asakura walk away with a unanimous decision.

Before I get into the absolute shit show that was Battleground FC 2. Just a quick update on the whole ONE Championship and WADA testing situation. I know a lot of you might be aware of the defamation letter that ONE sent to Thailand based UFC vet Will Chope after he posted about ONEs testing policies and even after the ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong replied to his post saying he agreed with a lot of what he said.

I’ll actually be interviewing Will soon, that should be the next episode that drops later this week. So we will dive into all of that.

But one of the interesting things that came out of all of this was that WADA pretty much came out and said they are not working with ONE in any way, and just using WADA labs does not mean you are doing WADA testing.

It’s another really interesting development in the whole Asian MMA drug testing saga.

Personally, in my opinion, I think ONE should have never brought it up. It was pretty much a well-known secret that a lot of fighters in Asia, in just about every promotion are on some type of PED and promoters don’t test for it.

It’s not a ONE issues, it’s a sport issue. But if you don’t talk about it then no one really cares.

Look, I’m not sure I’m on the right side of this argument, I know a lot of people disagree with me, but that’s where I stand.

Ok, Let’s get into Battleground FC 2 and the absolute shitshow that it was. Or is turning out to be. The story is still developing.

I am also going to be linking in the show notes to articles from Bodylock MMA because they have done a fantastic job of covering it.

So some of you guys might remember Battleground FC 1 that took place in Korea back in 2017. It had a pretty good lineup, much like Battleground FC 2 did, but was plagued by poor refereeing and the promoters inability to pay the fighters, they actually issued them IOUs after the fight and then took over a year to make any payments.

So two years go by, the same promoter decides that he has recovered, he learned his lesson and that he was going to hold another show, this time in Macau. And for those of you who don’t know, Macau is like the Vegas of Asia, but with better food.

Anyway, long story short, everyone knows about the payment and officials issues from the first event, but I think a lot of people wanted to give the promoter the benefit of the doubt. And apparently, he was telling people that he had the money to front for the fighters and the show.

He the promoter pulled together a great card, he had fighters like Will Brooks and Gleison Tibau in the main event and fighters Shannon Ritch, Brayn Caraway and Jan Finney all on the card.

This was a strong card.

The real issues started early when the head official that Battlefield hired to bring a professional officials team together, Steven Perceval pulled his whole team from the event before they boarded the flight as the promoter had not paid. Obviously, he didn’t want to fly to Macau and not get paid.

So the promoter pulled in a team of rank amateurs on a days notice to fill in as refs and judges. There is a video in one of the body lock posts I am going to link in the show notes that actually shows the fighters explaining the rules to the officials at the rules meeting.

Not the way that's supposed to go

Not only did this put the safety of the fighters at risk, but it also ended up impacting the outcome of the main event.

In the final contest of the night Will Brooks was caught in a tight guillotine choke, but working to get out. He relaxes his arms for a second, but they don’t go limp. The ref doesn’t check his arm to see if he's out, he doesn’t go in for a closer look, he just jumps in and stops the fight, Will pops right back up in protest, even his opponent gives the ref some side-eye before acknowledging the win. Even the commentary team were blown away by the horrible stoppage.

If you remember the first Battlefield FC this same exact thing happened to Youssef Whebe in the first round of his fight. He was caught in a kimura from the mount but wasn’t in that horrible of a position.

He didn’t look like he was about to tap, his opponent leaned over the arm but didn’t really seem to put it in any worse of an angel and the ref jumped in and stopped the fight despite Youssef having never tapped.

It might be two years later but it seems that Battlefield has not learned their lesson, but we all should. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Look, I feel bad for the fighters, they were put in the worst position of all, they fought on a card with inexperienced officials that put their safety at risk and then they were not compensated the agreed amount by the promoter.

No one wants to see the fighters put in those positions, ever. Promoters, stop this shit. There are a lot of good promoters out there. Do your research before taking a fight. Don’t risk your health for someone who has no intention of taking care of you.

I hope all the fighters get paid, but if history is any indicator, that might take a while.

That is all I have for you guys today.

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

Follow Asian MMA Podcast Everywhere:

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Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/asian-mma-podcast

https://thebodylockmma.com/battlefield-fc/battlefield-fc-reportedly-fails-to-pay-fighters-again/

Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

Steve Percevals FB post about Battlefield: https://www.facebook.com/1020290324/posts/10216974667091804/

Bodylock MMA coverage on Battlefield FC 2

https://thebodylockmma.com/battlefield-fc/referees-judges-no-show-for-battlefield-fc-2/

Jul 02, 2019

00:10:12

A few weeks back ONE Championship announced that they have appointed Plai Asdamongkol as the President of ONE Championship Thailand.

While on the surface this might seem like a fairly run of the mill appointment in the industry, this could actually have a fairly significant impact on MMA across Asia.

Now, first off, I have to say I know Plai, I like Plai, he’s been on the show before. If there was a single person who has done more for MMA in Thailand I can’t think of them. He’s also a super nice, honest and upfront guy, which I’ll get into why that makes this situation more confusing in a bit.

You guys might remember a few episodes back I talked about that very strange deal between ONE Championship and a new organization called GAMMA where Chatri was claiming he was going to work with GAMMA to bring MMA to the Olympics.

In that episode, I talked about the important role that IMMAF has actually played in amateur MMA.

Well before joining ONE Championship, Plai was the president of TMMAF the Thai chapter of that organization and was a key player in bringing the IMMAF Asian Open to Bangkok.

Plai had done a lot of work with the sports authority of Thailand to help sanction and regulate MMA in the kingdom and he had worked with his counterparts in the neighboring countries.

He’s sort of good like that.

Under Plais leadership of TMMAF, MMA, especially at the grassroots level came a long way in Thailand.

We haven’t seen anything change just yet in Thai MMA, but I am sure it is just a matter of time before ONE starts trying to force out IMMAF, which again, is a legitimate organization in MMA and force in GAMMA to further their own agenda.

But getting back to Plai actually being a nice guy and why that is worrying.

I have heard from a number of ONE employee about how alpha the company culture and I have a very hard time seeing someone like Plai fitting into a culture like that.

I would hate to see someone who has been so good for the sport to become a casualty of it.

The flip side to that coin and the one I am really hoping for is that Play becomes a catalyst for positive change within ONE and is able to push ideas like a partnership with IMMAF or being more transparent, or perhaps even getting away from the conflicts of interest I’ve covered before.

I think that is unlikely, but let’s see what happens.

This is a smart move by Chatri, he was able to negate a strong player in the ecosystem and get them under his control.

From a business perspective, I can’t argue with it. But as a fan of the sport, it hurts.

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube, and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes. Check it out.

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May 28, 2019

00:07:08

We start this recap in Japan which will be the same place we finish it with Pancrase 305, and then we have some interesting news bits to cover from Rizin and Deep Jewels.

Pancrase 305 was a really good card, I’ve been watching Pancrase since back in the day so I really enjoy their shows on a nostalgia level.

I’m going to put the full results up at AsianMMAPodcast.com so you can check that out there.

First I want to talk about the main event where we saw Isao Kobayashi unify the featherweight strap against a game intern champ Nazareno Malegarie. This was a 5 round banger that had me on the edge of my seat.

I had both men winning two rounds going into the 5th This is where Kobayashi turned it up and put on a pressure to win the round and secure the victory to unify the belts.

Talk about a fight to cap off a great card, this was it, this was the fight you wanted to have.

The back and forth, the drama, the story that emerged. This is what fighting should be.

The other fight on this card that really stood out to me was between two legends of the game, Yuki Kondo and Akihiro Gono.

Both have careers spanning back to the 1990s and have fought in the biggest organizations in the world, UFC, Pride, Shooto, Deep, K1 and of course Pancrase. Just what an epic match to have on the card.

This one went all three rounds and saw Kondo take the unanimous decision win.

And it was the pressure and work rate from Kondo that made the difference in this fight.

Fantastic fight, if you haven’t seen it, go watch it.

Moving on

This coming weekend we have RIZIN 16, which looks to be an awesome card. For sure I’ll be covering that in next weeks weekend update.

But they also announced that RIZIN fighter Rena Kubota will be facing Lindsey VanZandt at Bellator 222 June 14th at MSG.

This will be Rena’s first time fighting outside of Japan, so it will be interesting to see how she does. That time shift can be difficult going in both directions. But hopefully, that won’t be a factor.

In other news from Japan, we now know that UFC, Rizin and Pancrase veteran Rin Nakai will return after more than a year away from the sport at Deep Jewels 24 on June 9th.

Her opponent will be 0-2 Thai fighter Kaew Prachumwong. Both of her previous fights have been in Bangkok based promotion Full Metal Dojo,

Here’s and odd fact, I reffed her last fight back in 2017 which was a losing bid against Cambodian fighter Tharoth Sam.

I hate to say she’s just being fed to Rin as a tune-up, but that’s sort of how it seems.

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube, and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes.

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Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

May 24, 2019

00:10:58

Today we are talking about the odd occurrence of so many fighters from big gyms outside of Asia are repping Evolve MMA when they fight in ONE Championship.

For those of you who don’t know Evolve MMA is a Singapore based gym founded and owned by Chatri Sityodtong.

Just in case you don’t know, that happens to be the same Chatri Sityodtong that is the founder, chairman, and CEO of ONE Championship.

Blaring conflict of interest aside,

given the size of Evolve and its location in Singapore giving it proximity to ONEs HQ, it would make sense that we would see a lot of fighters from their stable in the promotion.

Then we take into account that the promotion and the gym have the same owner, again, conflict of interest aside, and of course, we realize it becomes more commonplace to see Evolve fighters on the roster.

And surely we are not surprised if we see many of them moved up the ranks and getting title shots or favorable matchmaking.

All of that, under the veil of Asian MMA you can sort of understand.

But what really gets me, what really makes me scratch my head is why so many fighters who come over from prominent gyms outside Asia come into ONE Championship and rep Evolve alongside their own gym.

Just in recent history, we have seen this with Ben Askren who repped Rufusport and Evolve, We saw this with Demtrious Johnson who repped AMC Pankration and Evolve, Garry Tonon repped Renzo Gracie and Evolve and most recently Sage Northcut who repped Alpha Male and Evolve, and even walked out in an Evolve T-Shirt.

And of course, two of the fighter the promotion pushes more than anyone else Angela Lee and Christian Lee, both of whom fight out of United MMA and Evolve MMA.

All of this really raises some questions for me, I have to wonder what the motivating factors are for a fighter to come out repping a gym that is not theirs.

Is this more of a sponsorship that is giving some fighters extra money to just toss the name of the gym out there, sort of like how it worked with Gary Goodridge being paid to rep “Kuk Sool Won” at UFC 8

It’s all such a shmooze, A lot of this comes back to that full blown lack of transparency that ONE is so famous for.

To anyone who has followed the sport for any amount of time, this whole dual gym thing would be strange, and even more so when you realize that the gym and promotion have the same owner.

Of course, any reasoning I come up with is pure speculation, but I’m a speculating man so I’ll have a theoretical go at it.

At first, I thought it might be part of the cost of entry for well-known fighters looking for another run in a big organization. But the numbers for that don’t add up as there are some notable names who have not done the whole dual gym thing, Yushin Okami and Eddie Alveraze to name a few.

That leads me to think that it’s much closer to the whole sponsorship idea, that Evolve MMA wants to have high caliber fighters under their banner and if they can leverage contracts with ONE Championship to make that more possible then it’s certainly an easier way to go about it than developing championship fighters from the beginning.

I reached out to several former members of the Evolve Fight Team and they all confirmed that none above mentioned fighters spend considerable time at Evolve other than dropping in to do seminars or for the last week or two before their fight to finish their camps there.

But they generally come with their own team and will only occasionally take part in the pro team training.

Knowing this adds a lot of weight to the idea that these fighters coming over from the US are more or less sponsored by Evolve, or paid to rep that gym, not actually training out of there in any significant way.

At the end of the day, it’s all speculation, some educated guesses are thrown in there and some inside knowledge of the industry, but when the operations are so opaque it’s hard to do more than speculate.

One of the things that really is interesting though and throws up a massive conflict of interest sign is that every single one of the former members of the Evolve fight team I talked to told me that Chatri trains with them just about every day at Evolve and that sometimes he will come in and actually run the training sessions for the fighters.

Keep in mind, this is the guy who also owns the promotion they fight in. He trains with them every day, and he sometimes takes on the role of coach. How can he not assume that impacts his objectivity.

If you go back to some of the early ONE events, back when it was still ONE FC, before they dropped the word fighting from their vocabulary. There are fights where Chatri is actually cornering fighters. One fight he is cornering Shinya Aoki, another video from the very first event, he walks out with Eddie Ng, in a fight against Yuan Chun Bo where Matt Hume, one of the Executives for ONE Championship is also the ref!

To put this in perspective, before dana white was the president and minority shareholder in the UFC he managed several fighters, you might have heard of them, Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell.

once he had an ownership stake and management position he had to remove himself from that role because there is no legitimate commission on the face of the planet that would allow that conflict of interest.

But hey, nothing to see here….

What do you guys think? Why are so many of the ONE Championship imports repping Evolve MMA alongside their own gyms?

And what do you think about Chatris involvement with Evolve is that a conflict of interest since he also runs ONE Championship, do I even need to ask?

Let me know.

And to stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Follow Asian MMA Podcast Everywhere:

GooglePlay: http://bit.ly/AsianMMAPodcast_GooglePlay

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/asian-mma-podcast

Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

Chatri Cornering Shinya Aoki: https://youtu.be/mZHVlfLPE4M?t=329

Chatri walking out Eddie Ng: https://youtu.be/gUxs7LgfRIY?t=108

May 20, 2019

00:18:18

Asian MMA Podcast weekend update for May 17tth -19th of 2019 ONE Championship Enter the Dragon and ROAD FC 53

This is your Asian MMA weekend update for May 17tth -19th of 2019

We had two massive events this weekend with ONE Championships Enter The Dragon in Singapore and ROAD FC 53 capping off their lightweight tournament and awarding the million dollar prize.

And Don’t forget to subscribe to the Asian MMA Podcast so you don’t miss out any Asian MMA Goodness.

Let’s start things off in Singapore with ONE Championship, which put together an amazing card.

And before I get into the fights from that night, I want to highlight Michael Schiavello calling the fight cage side for injecting some of the best Game of Thrones references and just slipping them in at the perfect time. It really added some fun audible moments.

For some reason, Mei Yamaguchi vs Laura Balin was on the prelims, Yamaguchi came out strong and made quick work of Balin with an armbar finish at 3:45 of the first round.

I love watching Mei fight, I think she is one of the most talented women on the ONE roster. Her fighting on the prelims is really a crime.

We also had Garry Tonon back in action against Yoshiki Nakahara.

Tonon is an absolute beast! He came out strong like we have seen him do in every fight, and he dove for a heel hook and had it locked up and Nakahara tapping in less than a minute. Tonon is just unstoppable right now and making short work of people.

Kicking off the main card we had Miao Li Tao get a highlight real finish over former ONE Strawweight Champ DSA. It was a nasty KO.

DSA just wasn't getting his hands up and Tao saw that opportunity and put him to sleep.

In other action, we had Dagi make short work of Amir Khan who got a second shot at moving ahead in the lighweight grand prix, but Dagi had his number and his striking was just too much and too powerful for Khan as a series of uppercuts and hooks crumpled Khan against the ropes

The first of the two fights we absolutely have to talk about is Sage Northcut making his debut against Cosmo Alexandre.

Before I get into the craziness of this fight, did anyone else notice that ONE announced Sage as a 77-time world Karate Champion? Despite the fact that he is 23 making that seems a bit difficult. I went and looked this up anyway and it turns out they were referring to the youth championships he has won in Karate. I’ve got to give ONE a yellow card for that attempt at subterfuge.

On to the fight.

Sweet Mother of Science, I did not expect it to go down like this. For some reason, Sage thought it was a good idea to stand with Cosmo, a multi-time Muay Thai and kickboxing champion. This is a guy who has shared the stage with some of the greatest fighters of this generation, he has wins over John Wayne Parr and Mark Holst.

Cosmo had not fought MMA in almost 3 years but has been active in kickboxing and Muay Thai in that time so one would think that Sage would have had a better game plan then to stand with a killer.

Well, it only took 29 seconds for Cosmo to absolutely crush Sage with a single punch, causing 8 fractures in his face in the process resulting in Sage needing a 9-hour surgery.

I’ve got links to Sage’s post about his surgery over on AsianMMAPodcast.com you can go check that out, links will be in the shownotes.

Cosmo was able to cut off Sages angles measured Sages responses, Sage had his hands down and Cosmo caught him with a right hook on the half beat that just put Sage out. He caught him with a left on his way down and a hammer fist for good measure.

An absolute brutal welcome to ONE championship for Sage.

Of course, we have to discuss the main event, the lightweight championship fight between Shinya Aoki and Christian Lee.

For most of the first round, Shinya was his dominant self. Much to the point where I messaged my producer Emily and said it looked as though Christian was out of his depth.

Then he got stuck in an armbar and I thought it was over, it was deep, Shinya even tucked it under his other arm for added torque. Somehow, Lee escaped and survived the round.

Had he done nothing else that alone showed he had gumption and that maybe I was wrong he wasn’t completely out of his depth.

Christian comes out in the second frame guns blazing running Shinya down and backing him up. He blasts Shinya with a left that rocks him and Shinya drops down in the corner and Lee unloads with a bomb of a right to snaps Shinya's head as the ref jumps in for the stoppage.

Making Christain Lee the new ONE lightweight champ

Overall it was a fantastic night of fights, great card and stacked with some really good kickboxing and Muay Thai fights to supplement the MMA action.

In other ONE Championship news, we now know when, where and against who Yoshihiro Akiyama (Sexyama) will make his ONE Championship debut. It will be June 15th in Shanghai against former title challenger Malaysian Agilan Thani. Agilan is currently on a two-fight skid and will look to get back into the win column against Sexyama.

Moving on to ROAD FC 53

This card was just ok, But there were really just two bouts I want to touch on here,

First up we had super heavyweight action with Aorigele facing Heo Jae-Hyeok.

This fight was everything you wanted to see from guys this size, the came out with a pace that you know can only last about a minute and the fight was done at the 50-second mark.

They were both swinging for the fences, Aorigele was the one who connected with the first major shot, dropped Hyeok and then jumped on him for the finish. One might be tempted to call this fight a 50-second slobber knocker, and I wouldn’t argue with them if they did.

On to the main event, which was the finals of the million dollars, lightweight championship tournament. In what turned out to be a very one-sided affair. Mansour Barnaoui was able to make short work of the champ A-Sol Kwon.

A-Sol Kwon came out strong and landed a few shots, but once Barnaoui got him against the cage and was able to control him it was all downhill for A-Sol.

When they hit the ground Barnaoui quickly moved to the back and was able to secure a choke that elicited a tap from A-Sol. Making Barnaoui both the new ROAD FC lightweight champion and a million dollars richer.

I loved the build up on this whole tournament, and it was nice to see the finals go off so well. I hope ROAD does another one.

That’s ALl i’ve got for you guys today.

To stay up to date with all things Asian MMA

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Sticher, YouTube and Facebook. I’ll have all the links in the show notes.

Follow Asian MMA Podcast Everywhere:

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https://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/One-Big-Problem-153787

Host: dana blouin

Producer: Emily Barner

Executive Producer: dana blouin

May 17, 2019

00:15:14

Thoughts on ONE Championship’s Agent Certification Program - Asian MMA Podcast Episode 24

This whole announcement was def a head-scratcher for a lot of people. It came just a week after ONE made a big splash by announcing their new production studio that will create movies and shows for digital distribution.

On the surface, the underpinnings of the certification program seem reasonable for the most part. But the very first point causes pause…

Currently a resident in Asia for at least one (1) year
No prior criminal record
No history or current ongoing matters of legal or lawsuit activity with any athlete
A minimum of 10 years of related experience in the martial arts industry
Must possess a College or University Degree

Now Chatri would go on to explain in some social media posts that lacked any significant details that this program was being put into place because of some issues several fighters have gone through recently and that exceptions to the criteria could be made on a case by case basis.

I came across an article from Low Kick MMA of comments from Chatri that goes into a bit more depth about the stated motivations for the certification program and ONEs willingness to make exceptions to the criteria, I’ll have that linked below in the show notes.

Again, on the surface, this all looks like it is being put in place for the benefit of the fighters, and if that is the case then the motivation is great, but it raises some serious questions.

One of the comments in the low kick article that I want to quote here because it throws up some red flags for me is.

“We started with Asia, because if there is an unethical agent it’s very easy for us in Asia to seek justice because we have strong government and business relationships all over the continent,”

Again, even if this is motivated with the best of intentions that quote alone sounds a bit thuggish.

I think it would come as a surprise to no one to know that the type of behavior that Chatri talks about does exist, there are a lot of stories, especially in Asia of agents and managers taking horrible advantage of fighters, but there are also the same stories with regards to promotions. It cuts both ways.

The biggest issue that comes from all of this is, at least in my opinion is that ONE now has a great deal of control and influence over the fighters and the way they do business, both in and out of the organization. And a clear lack of oversights and transparency just makes the waters more turbulent.

There was a fantastic article by MMA Journalist Anthony Walker that was published on Sherdog where he dives into this even further and highlights some of the big conflicts of interest with the whole program.

I’m going to link to his article and his twitter account down in the show notes, def check it out and follow him on Twitter he shares a lot of great MMA Content.

Anthony points out in his article that US sports organizations like the NFL, NBA, MLB all have some type of agent certifications program, but those standards are not set by the league themselves, they are set by the players association to ensure that it is in the best interest of the players, not the organizations.

Something like a players organization is clearly missing from the equation in MMA and is even further from reality in Asian MMA.

That doesn’t mean that a promotion should step in and enforce such standards, it’s clearly a conflict of interest and the overwhelming lack of transparency in the way ONE operates makes it that much more concerning.

I recently spoke with several ONE fighters who told me their contracts require them to promote the sponsors of ONE Championship without any further compensation, that in itself if it’s true, would seem the type of thing a good agent would advise against.

While the sentiment of an agent certification program seems all well and good the application and enforcement of it by the promotor raises a whole lot of red flags for me. The lack of transparency on the process and how it’s applied also tosses up a lot of red flags.

And to be honest, the fact that they are already talking about making exceptions to their rules for the certification before the program is even a month old has me wondering.

At this point, I look around and I am surrounded by red flags.

At the end of the day, I think ONE has done a lot of very good things, a lot of positive things. I think Chatri has taken a very innovative approach to the fight business in treating it as a tech startup, and an approach that I commend him for. But there is always this looming air of distrust with the promotion based on a lot of their actions, and this agent certification policy just adds to that.

What do you guys think about the agent certification policy being instituted by and enforced by ONE Championship? Is it a good thing or is it a conflict of interest? Let me know.

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Chatrie’s Further Explanation:

https://www.lowkickmma.com/exclusive-one-ceo-chatri-sityodtong-discusses-new-agent-rules/----------

Ant Walker Article from Sherdog:

https://twitter.com/AntWalkerMMA

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Follow Asian MMA Podcast Everywhere:

GooglePlay: http://bit.ly/AsianMMAPodcast_GooglePlay

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/asian-mma-podcast