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On Saturday we went to the K1 World GP at an Olympic Stadium. Not the same Olympic Stadium that we saw James Brown at, but one inconveniently even further away. Who knew hosting the Olympics required so many stadiums? At least they're still being put to good use, unlike the skeleton World Cup arenas scattered across Korea. Those aren't doing shit anymore.

For those of you not in the know, K1 is a popular kickboxing circuit mostly based in Asia. Fighters from all over the world are invited to compete, provided they are somewhat good at kicking and/or boxing. Our proximity to the ring actually exceeded my expectations: we weren't exactly adjacent, but we were 3x Digital Zoom close! Not bad for thirty bucks.

The event was punctuated with blinding lasers, scary pyrotechnics and hip hop entrance songs for each fighter. One bald Chinese fellow, perhaps erroneously, selected early 90's techno hit "It's a Beautiful Life" as his entrance music. This had the immediate effect of making him seem like a pansy in a chiffon robe, whereas if he had chosen Biggie he could've been a Shaolin Pimp of Infinite Complacency.

In the preliminary matches we saw the following:

-fat marshmallow punching bags, dead on their feet after the first round.
-our hero from Thailand, cruelly shanked by the whims of the judges.
-an impromptu ringside testicle examination following a second (!!!) kick to the nuts from an overenthusiastic Turk.
-an obese man chase his smaller opponent around the ring like a fat wife after her husband who forgot the sausage from the market.

Anytime you're at a sporting event, you can increase your interest and emotional investment tenfold simply by gambling. If you're watching two guys you've never heard of punch each other... well, good. One of them might fall down, and that might be humorous. But if you've got ONE THOUSAND WON riding on that surly Iranian, you'll be screaming at the referee and jumping around like a sprightly young monkey. I'm not entirely sure, but I think this constant might even hold true with yawn-athons like baseball and dog talent shows.

After a lot of third-round decisions and a couple skull-shattering knockouts, the arena crackled with anticipation for the Main Event. But first some somewhat necessary background info and unnecessary character assassination.

Korea's darling Big Boi is a seven-foot monster named Hong Man Choi, whose name is pronounced similarly to 'Chairman Hong'. Yep, say the name from right to left: it's how things are done here.

Now, I can assure you that the Chairman is not a good fighter. Sure, he's an imposing and interesting figure. He has a huge head which is able to withstand a staggering amount of punishment. He also has the gentle demeanour and rumbling soft-speak of beloved giants from the past, like Andre and... uh... that dude you always see in wax museums, Guinness Book's tallest man in the world. I've seen Choi Man in interviews and I like the man, even though he might be talking about eating six-packs of babies for all I know. At least he sounds nice.

But he is certainly not a fighter. He doesn't kick at all, despite the prefix kick- helpfully added to -boxing to inform combatants of their full range of options. Choi Man's ring strategy is relatively simple: he ambles towards his opponent, casually taking shots to the face until he is close enough to pound on their heads with stilted vertical blows, somewhat like playing a bongo drum. It works well against diminutive fighters, who are quite often discouraged by his invincibility and prefer to go down rather than continue their futile crusade against his chin. But this time Hong Man Choi was set to fight Semmy Schilt, a Hollander almost his equal in height and certainly his better in technique.

Following a few bursts of flame and two very large men striding purposefully to the ring, the fated bout began. It was pretty terrible. I don't know whether it was just that Mike had no money left to gamble with, or that watching two behemoths hug each other for twelve minutes just isn't that interesting, but it was probably the worst fight of the day. After watching through binoculars and counting the number of times Semmy Schilt hit Choi Man in the face - "One, two... thirty-seven, thirty-eight..." - I was entirely convinced that Korea was set to watch their hero go down by decision.

Somehow this was not the case. Against overwhelming evidence Choi Man was declared the winner, redefining 'home field advantage.' Suddenly he was left alone in the ring, smiling stupidly into the flashbulbs and showered in gold tinsel, undoubtedly wondering how the hell he managed to pull that one off. We all wondered too, but over the next few days the Korean media made no mention of the twisted logic of Choi Man's victory in their gushings. The legend lives on; nationalism pulls its strings. Poor Semmy Schilt, all that superior boxing for nothing.

Now this was just kickboxing, kickboxing from a circuit most people have never heard of, but it just goes to show you how seriously Korea takes its stars. In the absence of political trust, sports and entertainment figures seem to form the crux of this country's pride and unity. If Choi Man ever crashes down onto the canvas, defeated, he'll be dragging a lot of hearts down with him. That's a ton of weight to bear - I hope he learns how to kick soon or he's fucked.

[Hong Man Choi] [Semmy Schilt] [K1 World GP in Seoul] [Kickboxing]

Posted by Chris at 03:25 AM >> Commentations (1)