Here’s few of the big news coming out of the Asian MMA scene:
Legend FC 8, which happened in Hong Kong last weekend, was originally supposed to be in Jakarta, headlined by Indonesia’s home town hero, Fransino Tirta. Unfortunately, he ruptured his appendix before the fight, and had to be scrapped from the card. After several more injuries and a whirlwind of events, the promotion decided to move the show to their home-base of Hong Kong, just two weeks before the event.
It was a tough task, but their co-founder Chris Pollack claims that they still broke attendance records in the country. “We had to uproot our show, change countries and come to Hong Kong and put on a fight with only two weeks notice,” he said, “But despite all the challenges we faced, we still saw our strongest ever ticket sales in Hong Kong.”
- Headlining the event was Jadamba Narantungalag taking on Nam Yui Chul for the Legend FC lightweight title. After winning the first round where Jadamba had dropped his Korean opponent, the Mongolian fighter locked in a guillotine on the second round to successfully defend his lightweight belt for the first time.
- For the co-headliner of the night, Yusuke Kawanago took home the vacant Legend FC featherweight title by submitting Chinese fighter, Ji Xian, who was stepping in on short notice. With the victory, Kawanago is expected to make his first title defense against Fransino Tita when the fight gets re-booked for that planned Indonesian card in July.
- Those title fights will obviously get the most attention, but the two bouts that stole the show were on the prelims. (You can watch them here).
- Filipino fighter Augustin Delarmino was losing all three rounds on his fight, showing lack of takedown defense and jiujitsu skills. He was able to survive though, and with just 29 seconds left he displayed his excellent Muay Thai, and KO’d Kai Kara-France to win his second straight Knockout of the Night bonus in as much fights.
- Rob Hill also made a splash as he made the most of his opportunity when he stepped in on short notice against a then undefeated Japanese fighter in Yusuke Kasuya. Interestingly enough, Hill, who is known for brawling, choked out Kasuya with a move which the Japanese submission fighter is well known for. He got Submission on the Night honors as a late replacement, on his birthday weekend. Quite an interesting night for the Australian.
More Asian MMA news after the jump, focusing on the UFC TV deal in India. — Follow me on twitter.
- Full Results for Legend FC 8:
Jadamba Narantungalag (Mongolia) def. Nam Yui Chul (Korea) by submission 0:58 Round 2
Yusuke Kawanago (Japan) def. Ji Xian (China) by submission 4:18 Round 2
Sam Brown (New Zealand) def. Yuki Niimura (Japan) by unanimous decision
Keita Nakamura (Japan) def. Kim Hoon (Korea) by technical knockout (injury) Round 1
Wu Haotian (China) def. Daniel Hooker (New Zealand) by submission 4:52 Round 2
Rob Hill (Australia) def. Yusuke Kasuya (Japan) by submission 4:55 Round 1
Wu Chengjie (China) def. Leonard Delarmino (Philippines) by unanimous decision
Danaa Batgerel (Mongolia) def. Jazor Ablasi (Philippines) by unanimous decision
Agustin Delarmino, Jr. (Philippines) def. Kai Kara-France (New Zealand) by knockout 0:29 Round 3
Terrance Chan (Hong Kong) def. Alex Lee (Hong Kong) by submission 1:55 in Round 2 - There are more than a billion residents in India, and the UFC has been hoping to tap into that market for quite some time now. They took the first step to that recently after signing a 4-year deal with Multi Screen Media, or MSM, to broadcast events in India. UFC programming will now be shown on a new channel called Sony SIX. This can be very instrumental in helping the sport grow in a country where MMA is still in it’s infancy.
- There are currently 2 promotions running in India with 2 very different business models. There’s Full Contact Championship (FCC), which has been quietly running shows since 2009, and has a model that believes in developing a true grassroots program that pits their local guys against each other to further develop talent. On the other hand, there’s the more popular SFL, or Super Fight League who are grooming their Indian fighters by having them compete against foreign fighters from countries such as Sri Lanka, the Ivory Coast, and others.
- SFL spends more and gets more attention by bringing in familiar names from the US, along with several concerts, musical acts and Bollywood dances, while FCC takes the more typical and conservative approach by slowly building up a grassroots movement. Time will tell on which business model will succeed in the long run, but it’s guaranteed that the UFC TV will do wonders for both promotions.
- Evolve MMA just released another edition of their video blogs. This one brings highlights from their fighters who competed at ONE FC 3. It’s a great watch, check it out below:
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