Another Return

As anyone who has stumbled across this blog knows, I have recently moved to Korea and the move was a bit taxing on my time. The free time I have had has usually gone to sleep, catching up with friends, or adjusting to living on the other side of the world. I thought I would return with a little bit of a summary of how MMA is covered here. There are entirely too many stories to cover so my promise to myself (as I am the only one who frequents this blog) is to get a top 10 ranking out for the major divisions before UFC 104 as well as my thoughts on the approaching event and the Rampage/Dana/Rashad/TUF 10 saga. I likely wont keep the promise but I am going to give it a good go, now onto MMA in Korea.

MMA is a bit more mainstream here, as one might have guessed. For example, I was flipping through some cannels that I didn’t understand and I came across some sort of game show that hurt my brain. People were taking turns playing with a cat and were totally stoked on it. Then, out of nowhere, a picture of Fedor came up with some Korean text beside it. I have wished I could read Korean since I have been here but not once more than that moment. There was just a big grinning Fedor smiling at me while people played with cat.

Akyama can be found on a number of advertising billboards, including my personal favorite of him in a suit and tie eating some food while leaning on a dishwasher, two poses.

UFC events are free on regular cable, as are DREAM events. They are carried on different channels, which caused me to miss half of the last DREAM card due to confusion. Before UFC events they do an hour long countdown, talk show that is what a MMA countdown show would look like if ESPN did it.

They are clearly still hung up on Pride fighers here. For the UFC 103 countdown show Cro Cop dominated the coverage, taking at least 50% of the airtime. The other three headlining fighters split the difference between themselves. I didn’t understand what they were saying so that is only based on who was actually on the TV.

This has nothing to do with Korean culture but most of my coworkers here are really into MMA, which means I actually have people to talk to about the events. This is just plain ol’ exciting.

Be back shortly folks… be back shortly.