My main sporting pursuit that I enjoy is martial arts, both tradtional and modern. My first love is striking and I studied the Korean martial art of Tae Kwon Do for many years culminating in the rank of a first degree black belt. I would have liked to have gone further up the ranks but I had to choose between school and sport, I had never bothered to take it back up, which is a shame because that was where my talent lay. Double graded in my first ever grading, countless trophies, black belt within four years and a 13 year old instructor teaching people in the thirties towards their blackbelt grading. I would be a third degree by now and well on the way to my fourth.
Over the past few years I have become interested in MMA or mixed martial arts, I have watched almost every single UFC event since UFC 38 (could've been 36) when they came to the UK for the first time. I remember the excitement in the dojo at the time and watching the event on Sky Box Office, Mark Weir's flash knock out win is an abiding memory as well as Matt Hughes' slam on Carlos Newton where I believe both were out cold, Newton from the slam and Hughes from the choke.
Since getting into UFC I have watched as much MMA as I can, I love the now defunct Pride FC fighting organisation, something about the ring and the fights, that make me yearn for more. Yes some fights were freakshow fights, others mismatches but the excitement from the crowd was immense. Plus you had legends like Fedor Emelianenko, Wanderlei Silva, Kazushi Sakuraba all in their prime. My favourite fight so far and a very exciting one at that is Don Frye vs Yoshihiro Takayama, they brawl from the first bell, not everyones cup of tea admittedly due to the wild and as goold old JR would say slobberknocker nature of the match. It was an exciting 6 minutes where each man gave his all, not often you see two men both holding eachothers head with one hand and pummeling their foe with the other.
It is a shame the Pride FC is now defunct, I would have loved to have experience the thril of seeing a Pride event or Grand Prix (GP) live. I have started to collect DVDs of the events and have started to build a nice little collection, I have all the Pride GP tournaments.
I enjoy watching Strikeforce, Dream, Sengoku and K1 events too, sadly they don’t get broadcast much over here so I have to usually trawl online to find a stream or the events on Youtube the following morning. I like Strikforce because it is home to two of my favourite fighters ‘The Last Emporer’ Fedor Emelianenko and Alistair Overeem, I enjoy watching them fight and am very much looking forward to the forthcoming Strikeforce Heavyweight GP, hoping for a Fedor/Overeem semi final with either Sergei Kharitonov or Josh Barnett facing the winner in the final.
I would like to take up a ground based martial art in the future, I am well versed in the technicality of the stand up through my extensive Tae Kwon Do training and forays into Muay Thai and boxing but on the ground I have little idea, I pick up a little through watching the fights but I feel to truly understand and appreciate that aspect of MMA I will need to get myself versed and have a go for myself. I would like to take up BJJ or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to give it’s full name but sadly where I live is lacking a decent gym so I may take up Jiu Jitsu or Judo.
I may review some of my DVDs in future blogs and give my opinion on recent events. I am not an expert on martial arts, just a fan like everyone else.
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