Matt in South Korea

octopus tattoos

2011-08-04T12:33:00.000+09:00

ffffff

questionaire 2

2009-10-31T13:56:00.001+09:00

ffff

K-1 World Grand-Prix in Seoul 2009 - Final 16

2009-09-06T14:21:00.007+09:00

On September 26th, K-1 is returning to Seoul for it's World GP Final 16. This is going to bring the tourney down to 8 finalists, then eventually to the final four to determine the 2009 K-1 Heavyweight Grand Prix Champ. I know that none of my friends really follow fighting as closely as I do (probably an understatement) so I'm writing this up to fill everyone in so hopefully everyone will get as excited as me. So what does this mean for us? It means we get to see the absolute best kickboxers in the world slugging it out live in Seoul. I went to four fights last year and this is by far gonna be the best one I'll get to see live during my time in Seoul.

First up, here's the promo website for this event. Promo Website . Pretty cool site, check it out if you care enough. Little tidbits about the fighters and some weird facts.

Here is the fight card, but it's not in the fight order just yet.

[FINAL16] Peter Aerts vs. Alistair Overeem

[FINAL16] Remy Bonjasky vs. Melvin Manhoef

[FINAL16] Semmy Schilt vs. Daniel Ghita

[FINAL16] Badr Hari vs. Zabit Samedov
[FINAL16] Ruslan Karaev vs. KYOTARO
[FINAL16] Ewerton Teixeira vs. Singh "Heart" Jaideep
[FINAL16] Errol Zimmerman vs. Glaube Feitosa
[FINAL16] Jerome LeBanner vs. Musashi
[Super Fight] Taiei Kin vs Catalin Morosanu
[Special Fight] Su Jeong Lim vs Tahir Menxhiqi
[Special Fight] Chi Bin Lim vs Chen Qing

We get to see 11 fights that night, It's gonna be nuts.

I'm gonna start the breakdown with the match I'm most excited for, Alistair Overeem vs. Peter Aerts.

Alistair Overeem is a Mixed Martial Arts fighter (think UFC) that has dabbled in kickboxing in the past, gaining recent notoriety in K-1. Overeem used to be a middling Light-Heavyweight fighter that showed flashes of brilliance but remained extremely inconsistent. He'd be a man on fire for the first few minutes and then gas out and get murdered. Recently, Overeem has undergone a renaissance of sorts, moving up in weight to Heavyweight with much success.

And by renaissance I mean roided the fuck up.

So after eating a bowl of horse steroids (and likely the horse as well) every morning for three years, he's at his current MASSIVE size. The guy is absolutely huge. But whatever he's still a pretty cool dude and I like watching him fight, but the blatant steroid bulk up makes me laugh.

Anyways, why is this guy a big deal? Well last New Year's Eve, he participated in an event that pitted MMA guys vs. K-1 fighters in K-1 rules. The MMA guys all absolutely slaughtered their opponents which was hilarious, but the biggest shock was Overeem starching the K-1 Heavyweight champ at the time, Badr Hari.

Hari got flattened. K-1 wasn't too thrilled with some guy coming from out of their sport and thumping the champ, so in the next match they put him against Remy Bonjasky, 3 time GP champ. Overeem barely lost the fight (click) , and taking someone as good as Bonjasky to a close decision is nothing to be ashamed of. Overeem is the real deal and I'm excited to see him fight another great fighter, Peter Aerts.

Peter Aerts is a K-1 Legend, boasting a massive 95-27 record and at 38 years old it's pretty amazing that he's still as good as he is. Also apparently a notorious lumberjack. He's fought pretty much everyone ever in K-1 multiple times. Here's a few fights and such.

Awesome KO

This Fight is funny, Peter Aerts vs. Ernesto Hoost. Why is it funny? It was never supposed to happen. It was supposed to be Bob Sapp vs. Ernesto Hoost, but Sapp bolted. Aerts was actually announcing that night but he stepped out of the booth, borrowed a pair of shorts and stepped into the ring. And this was after a night of heavy drinking. How badass is that?

And finally a highlight with silly music.

Next up, Melvin Manhoef vs. Remy Bonjasky.

Melvin Manhoef is pretty much amazing. He's a natural middleweight, frequently fighting at 185 lbs and he's out there fighting men that outweigh him by 50 lbs or more. He wins, too. He's fast and hits probably harder than anyone on the planet. He's a wild fighter, almost too unrestrained sometimes and he tends to get caught or gas too quickly. His last fight he looked a bit more disciplined, but no matter what he's always exciting as hell. Also, he looks like Balrog from Street Fighter 2 and that's awesome. Manhoef has a kickboxing record of 37 wins with TWENTY SEVEN of them by way of KO. In MMA he's 23-7 with TWENTY TWO KOs. With Manhoef you're pretty much guaranteed a big KO. It's really a shame that there isn't a weightclass for him because he's an awesome fighter, and it's really unfair that he has to constantly fight guys that are so much bigger than him.

Highlight

One of my favorite Manhoef KOs here, Melvin Manhoef vs. Paul Slowinski

Melvin Manhoef vs. Ruslan Karaev , maybe this one is my favorite. I can't choose, they're all so great.

One last highlight. Can you tell i'm a huge fan?

Remy Bonjasky, nicknamed "The Flying Gentleman" for his flying knees and kicks. Also cause he helps old ladies across the street and holds doors open for people I guess. Bonjasky is a fantastic fighter, and a three time Grand Prix Champ.

If you can ignore the horrible music, here's a decent collection of his KOs. You can get a good idea where he gets his name from. The video is here.

Also, here's Remy Bonjasky vs. Vernon White. White isn't a great fighter by any means, but this sure is a sweet KO.

Anyways, I'm 2 fights in and this is takin forever so Im gonna post this and continue later. gonna post some youtube vids for my own benefit later

Badr Hari
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7nk44_k1-wgp-2008-final-badr-hari-vs-erro_sport
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/rusa/video/x38o0y_k1-badr-hari-vs-ruslan-karaev-2007_extreme

Jerome le Banner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io07WcVxR_k
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3gdzf_jerome-lebanner-vs-ernesto-hoost-19_extreme

DAGGERIN

2009-07-13T22:37:00.003+09:00

So you're out at the club havin a good time. You see a cutie from across the way and shuffle up nearby. You're feelin' the music, you make eyes, and make your move. You start grindin' up on your partner, havin a good time. Things get a little heavier. Sure, your moves may make Grandma blush but it's nothin too out there.

Then the music changes.

Burro Banton - Badder Than Them comes on. The mood changes. People get looser. People start gettin wild. 12 year olds start jump humping grown women. Bitches gettin helicoptered all over the room.

Suddenly, everyone is...

DAGGERING

By far the best part of the video starts here hahaha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raxgcgNeFik#t=3m10s

HELICOPTERS! haha the announcer guy is yellin "STAB HER" as he humps her

Orange shirt kid keeps getting lucky, kid's gonna be the King of Daggerin in no time

wait for the guy to FLY IN at 1:08

OH GOD WHO TOLD JAPAN ABOUT DAGGERIN

I don't know if this is real or not but it's the OFFICIAL DAGGERIN CONDOMS

The funniest thing is apparently people are hurting themselves and breaking their dicks doing this shit, here's some newspaper article I found

http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,28318,25516733-5014090,00.html

I fucking love Jamaica.

Clipse once again

2009-07-11T00:00:00.002+09:00

What Happened to That Boy

Baby is pretty lame but the PRRRRRRR makes me laugh everytime, and Clipse and this beat more than make up for it

Dope Game - just found this track the other night

Where you been

Set it Off

Big music post today - lots of Clipse, Three 6 Mafia and a few surprises

2009-07-10T23:46:00.002+09:00

Big music post today, here's what I've been listening to today.

First up, a bunch of Three 6 Mafia songs I love.

Smokin On Da Dro

Testin My Gangsta

Poppin My Collar

Ridin' Spinners

Stay High (Fly)

Dope Boy Fresh

Here's a bonus, the original "Poppin' My Collar" by The Last Mr Bigg

haha love it

Clipse

2009-04-25T00:04:00.002+09:00

Been feeling Clipse a lot lately

Clipse - Trill

Clipse - Mr. Me Too

Clipse - Momma I'm So Sorry

Clipse - Fast Life

Albert Kraus vs. Nagashima Yuichiro - I love K-1 so goddamn much

2009-04-24T00:09:00.005+09:00

So sometimes people wonder why I love fighting so much. Oh it's barbaric, it's human cockfighting, hurf durf shut up. There are rules, they have protection, they have athletic commissions, they take care of the fighters (well..for the most part). I find that people misunderstand fighting more than anything, they rarely (if ever) are familiar with the rules, and they just don't appreciate the beauty of a flying knee into some chump's grill.

And that's a god damn shame.

This is why I love fighting (and coincidentally Japan). It's so out there and goofy, there is absolutely no other sport where something like this could happen. We have Kraus, a dutch kickboxer with a giant mullet who looks like a huge guido vs. Nagashima, a grown man that dresses up as female anime characters on a daily basis. No, I'm not exaggerating.

This is a professional kickboxer. And hey, he's not that bad either

Suit, suit, suit, suit, suit, guy in a dress, suit

So here is the fight

Nagashima comes out to huge fanfare, with a giant anime-themed drag song and dance number. A dancing crew of Japanese women in french maid outfits in tow, he dances his little heart out. If you look closely, Piccolo from Dragonball and Chun-li from Street Fighter are in the audience cheering him on. It's so bizarre and fantastic.

He then proceeds to get his ass beat so bad it may or may not be considered a hate crime, I don't even know what the rules on shit like that in Japan are. Kraus beat the everloving SHIT out of Nagashima, he was completely outmatched in every way, it was hilarious. They need to set Nagashima up with a Taekwondo guy next so he can get a tune up after that.

I like Nagashima, I think he's a funny dude with a great schtick but to see him get beat so severely after all that song and dance was probably the funniest thing I've seen all month. Can't wait to see what's up next for the guy.

I love K-1.

Kawajiri "Crusher" Tatsuya vs. Takeda Kozo

2009-04-23T23:43:00.002+09:00

This is old, from New Years 2008 but I still love this video to death.

Here is Crusher, an MMA guy vs. Takeda, a K-1 guy in K-1 rules. No one gave him a chance, shit I thought he was going to get smashed.

And then something beautiful happened.

Crusher beat the ass out of Takeda. Not just beat him, but styled all over that dude and made him look bad. Huge Kawajiri fan now.

also check out Crusher choke a bitch

Jazztronic - Samurai

2009-04-23T22:22:00.002+09:00

Found this after I found Soil and "Pimp", this song rocks pretty hard, Japanese musicians are awesome. Step yo game up Korea.

Soil & "Pimp" - Japanese Death Jazz

2009-04-23T22:07:00.003+09:00

At least that's how they've described themselves (and yes, the quotes around "Pimp" are necessary). This stuff is pretty ridiculous, not exactly my cup of tea but I certainly can respect their musicianship and style. It's also another reason that the Japanese music scene absolutely eclipses Korea's. Check it out, it's pretty intense stuff, I know some of you will like it.

You can cop the album here http://www.amazon.com/Soil-Pimp-Sessions/dp/B001OBBRQK

or on Itunes I'm sure

UFC 97 Aftermath

2009-04-23T15:25:00.002+09:00

Now you done it Shogun, you dun killed Chuck

Alright I'm like a week late but I've been busy, sue me.

UFC 97 was...interesting. Here's what's up:

Ryo Chonan lost AGAIN and I'm really bummed out about it. I haven't tracked the fight down yet, apparently it was a good fight but I think he's 2-2 now in the UFC and that's not good for his chances to remain there. I wouldn't be surprised if we see him back in Japan sometime soon fighting in Dream or Sengoku.

Nate Quarry smashed Jason McDonald and subbed him in the first.

LIEUTENANT ALL AMERICAN BRIAN M STANN got humiliated by that vowel hating Canadian Krzysztof Soszynski and choked out in the first. I laughed pretty hard because Brian Stann is terrible.

Steve Cantwell; the man who beat Brian Stann to become the last WEC Light-Heavyweight champ before they folded the division into the UFC, put up a surprisingly good fight against Luis Artur "Banha" Cane. Cantwell impressed me by hanging tough despite taking a pretty big beating, and man his head kicks are lightning quick. Cane was able to dodge or block them but he pretty much had to keep his hand up at all times. Cane toughed out the decision but it went a lot better for Cantwell than I thought, I was expecting a first round massacre. Pretty good fight.

Cheick Kongo beat the ass out of Antoni Hardonk like I figured he would, and apparently has earned himself the next title shot. A bit surprising, I thought it'd be Shane Carwin that'd get the next shot but they may want to give the winner of Mir/Lesnar an easier first defense than Carwin. Kongo is improving every fight, but his wrestling is meh and I'm not sure what he'd do on the ground if he had to defend a bunch of submissions. Not sure he has much of a chance in his title shot but hey, crazier things have happened. Plus he trains at Wolfslair, a training camp that should be shit but is apparently magic (but only for the black fighters).

Denis Kang earned his first win in a decision win over Xavier "Professor X" Foupa-Pokam. Kang was coming off a 2nd round sub loss to Alan Belcher, which was pretty humiliating. Glad to see he bounced back. He used good wrestling and ground and pound to nullify Prof X's lauded striking ability. Good win for Kang, not sure who his next opponent will be.

Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua was awesome. It ended in the first round, so we still have some questions about Shogun's cardio, but he looked fantastic. Poor Chuck got smashed AGAIN, losing 4 of his last five, with 3 KOs in those losses. He got KO'd by Rampage, lost a decision to Jardine, beat Wanderlei by decision, got KO'd by Rashad Evans and now got KO'd by Shogun. Chuck looked to show up in shape like usual (despite what his weird ass gut seems to make you think) but he fell right back into his old habits, throwing these weird ass punches that start from his elbow. Shogun styled on him pretty hard and ended up basically clotheslining Chuck before pouncing on him and finishing the KO. I honestly thought that Shogun looked so terrible against Coleman that Chuck was gonna pound on him, but damn I was wrong. And Chuck getting KOd never gets old, it's hilarious every single time.

Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites was like getting absolutely smashed off Jack and trying to fuck a fat chick . You know you're supposed to be enjoying it, it's sex after all; but shit ain't workin right, it's takin way too long, you know you could do way better and in the back of your head you just know everything about it is wrong. Thales Leites, you are that fat chick, and Anderson should be ashamed of himself. We knew this was a mis-match from the moment it was announced, but we just hoped Anderson would smash this dude and move on, maybe move up to 205. After the Patrick Cote debacle we expected him to come out with a renewed fire and vigor, out to prove he wasn't a boring fighter. Instead we got a terrified Leites flopping to his back at the first sign of danger like a goddamn possum. We got Anderson dancing around and backpeddling from buttscoots. Sure it occasionally had a funny moment, he punched Leites in the leg and in the foot which was pretty silly; but it was twenty five god damn minutes long and just horrifically boring. Anderson really could have finished it at any moment, but he didn't even try. If he tried to engage a fleeing opponent a-la Nate Quarry/Kalib Starnes we'd be forgiving, but he fought like a huge turd. Don't get me wrong, the blame falls on Leites as well, who was so scared to engage Silva that he hit the fucking deck faster than Chuck getting KO'd when Silva feigned a strike at him. But come on Anderson, you're the champ, you can't play a game in the NBA by just running out the clock every damn possession. If you're gonna be a big baby and fighting shit fights on purpose to protest you getting crap opponents then hurry up and retire or move up to 205 because I don't want to have to sit through 25 minutes of THAT ever again.

Pictures and gifs to come later.

It's bigger than hip hop....

2009-04-19T22:47:00.004+09:00

Five tracks I've been feelin lately

J. Dilla - Reality Check feat. Black Thought.

Black Thought rappin over a Dilla beat, this shit is hot as hell. I've always felt BT sounded great over fast paced, consistent beats. Sounds great.

Rick Ross Feat. Kanye West, Lil Wayne & T-Pain - Maybach Music Part 2

One of my favorite songs off of Rick Ross' new albums. I love the shit out of the hook, I used to not be a huge T-Pain fan but the guy gets on some catchy shit.

Young Jeezy feat. R. Kelly - Go Getta. This song is a couple years old but it still goes hard as hell. Great hook, great beat, Jeezy does his thing. Love listening to this song while driving.

Dio feat Sef - Aye. Really disappointed that I couldn't embed the real video. The video is fantastic and is really half the charm of the song. The song is fantastic as it is, but the video really makes it something great. I'll link it here anyways. Dio feat. Sef - Aye (Video)

Jay-Z feat. UGK - Big Pimpin.

This is old school but I still love the shit out of it. Song is pure cheese and fun Jay lays it down, Bun B is great as always and Pimp C is awesome too. Unfortunately the song is censored in the video so like whole lines of Bun's are just blocked out haha. RIP Pimp C.

UFC 97 picks

2009-04-18T18:44:00.002+09:00

Real quick and dirty, picks in blue

Anderson Silva (182) vs. Thales Leites (185) - come on really? Granted, it is a little bit suspect that Silva came in underweight (he's a huge middleweight). Some sources are reporting that Silva might have a cold, which could account for the miss, I'm really not sure. I'm still going with Silva to beat Leites who got the shot by virtue of there being NOBODY ELSE TO GIVE IT TO.

Chuck Liddell (206) vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua (206) - This is gonna be kinda pathetic. It could very well be busted knees no cardio Shogun vs. Old ass busted chin Liddell - we can hope they'll be back to their 2006 selves, but I'm not counting on it. Liddell beats on Shogun for 3 rounds and everyone just feels sorta bad for the both of them.

Cheick Kongo (232) vs. Antoni Hardonk (249) - kickboxers kickbox eachother but if this turns into a wrestling match I will laaaugh and laaaaugh

Luis Arthur "Banha" Cane (206) vs. Steve Cantwell (205) - Banha is gonna beat the ass out of Cantwell, early KO, callin it

Brian Stann (206) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (204) I went back and forth on this a billion times but after his pathetic performance against Cantwell before the WEC folded the light-heavy division, I'm calling an upset for the newcomer Soszynski. Lieutenant Brian M. Cann gonna get choked out or something er other

Eliot Marshall (205) vs. Vinny Magalhaes (204)

Denis Kang (185) vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam (185) - If Denis Kang gets KOd by Xavier I am going to laugh so hard and post about it in my Korean MMA blog - seriously if he drops two in a row to opponents he SHOULD beat I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up cut and we see him in Japan soon - With Akiyama in the UFC now, the UFC doesn't NEED Kang to garner interest from South Korea.

Jason MacDonald (186) vs. Nate Quarry (186) - Could go either way but I'm calling late KO or decision by Quarry

Ed Herman (186) vs. David Loiseau (185)

Mark Bocek (154) vs. David Bielkheden (157)

T.J. Grant (169) vs. Ryo Chonan (171) - SERIOUSLY CHONAN PLEASE WIN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IF YOU LOSE TO TJ FUCKING GRANT I AM GOING TO CRY

Sam Stout (155) vs. Matt Wiman (155) - decision

Korean Fighters - The good, the bad and the incredibly mediocre pt. 3

2009-04-10T16:27:00.001+09:00

So it looks like I made quite a few omissions. I forgot Choi Mu Bae, Ham Seo-Hee (female mma fighter), a bunch of dudes from Spirit MC (which to be fair, is now defunct) and a lot of dudes from DEEP. Still debating if adding Taiei Kin is worth it, he's part ethnically Korean but it seems like he has even less connection to Korea than Chu Sung-hoon does (though I guess Taiei Kin trains Choi Hong-man apparently. I'm gonna throw it out right now - I've never heard of any of these people in this post (Choi Mu-bae excluded) before I started researching this project. I'm obviously no expert on Korean MMA/K-1, but I'm discovering a lot of dudes really fast. DEEP seems to be just overflowing with Korean talent,and I haven't even cracked into M-1 which has a ton of Korean fighters going for it. Obviously it'd be impossible to include all the Korean fighters out there so I'll just do what I can.

I gotta say, I'm having a lot of fun with this. I'm toying with the idea of expanding this into a bigger project. I may start a seperate blog dedicated to the Korean fight scene, update with the fighters i've profiled so far, add videos, pictures, news, shit like that. I mean once the ground work is laid down it'll be much easier to update here and there. And all the work I've done so far, I literally did in a bit over one day. The Korean fight scene is a lot deeper than I once thought, though I can't imagine every attempting something like this with Japanese, Brazilian or American guys. It'd take all fucking year to do.

for my own reference

Lim "The Korean Icepick Jae-suk, 15-4-0, 176 lbs, Spirit MC fighter, one EliteXC fight, lots of sub wins

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Jae-Suk-Lim-8538

Kim Chang-Hyeon, 8-3-0, Spirit MC fights, 6 sub wins

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Chang-Hyeon-Kim-15997

Kim "Snake Eater" Yoon-young, 10-4-0, 176 lbs, Spirit MC and DEEP fighter, badass nickname

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Yoon-Young-Kim-23766

Lee Chi-sung, 5-1-0, Spirit MC guy

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Chi-Sung-Lee-28333

Choi Mu-bae, 8-3-0, Heavyweight, fought in Pride, K-1 Hero's, Pancrase and Sengoku, beat Gary Goodridge and Dave Herman :/

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Mu-Bae-Choi-9684

Ham Seo-hee, 3-3, 108 lbs, fights in DEEP and Smackgirl, record is literally win-loss-win-loss-win-loss so her next fight should be a win

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Seo-Hee-Ham-21246

Jung Bu-kyung, 0-4-0, Lightweight, fights at Yarennoka!, Dream and DEEP, but lost to good guys (Aoki Shinya, Ishida Mitsuhiro, Nakamura Daisuke)

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Bu-Kyung-Jung-27180

Lee "Crazy" Kwang-hee, 5-1-0, Fights in Spirit MC and recently made his Sengoku debut

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Kwang-Hee-Lee-21680

Song "Tornado" Un-sik, 7-0-0, K-1 Hero's debut and the rest in MARS (japanese fight league i've never heard of)

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Un-Sik-Song-14296

http://www.spiritmc.org/eng/

http://www.letswrestling.net/

Korean Fighters - The good, the bad, and the incredibly mediocre pt. 2 - K-1 edition

2009-04-09T22:33:00.013+09:00

Last post I began my overview of the South Korean fighter scene, starting with the most prominent and promising Korean MMA guys; Chu Sung-hoon, Kim Dong-hyun, Denis Kang, Yoon Dong Sik and Jung Chan-sung. Admittedly, I may be missing a few people in the Korean fight scene, but so far I got the big Korean players in international MMA and a pretty good run down of K-1.

**Note to self** - add Ham Seo-hee, more female MMA fighters and look more into Spirit MC guys.

This time, I'm coming at you with some K-1 love. Unfortunately, Korean K-1 ain't that pretty. Thus far I'm going to talk about

Choi Hong-man

Lim Chi-bin

Lee Su-hwan

Lim Su-jeong (notable for being a female Korean K-1 fighter)

Also I'll talk briefly about Noh Jae-gil and Kim Se-ki (because I saw both of them fight live, and met Noh)

Otherwise, Kim Min-soo

There are more but they are all literally not worth mentioning in any way.

Choi Hong-man aka "The Techno Goliath" (named for his affinity for dancing to techno after a victory haaa) also dubbed "The Korean Monster" (by Japanese media) is a professional K-1 fighter that has dabbled in MMA as well. Here in Korea we know him, we love him, we literally look up to him. The man is 7'2, hovering between 327-360 lbs. This man is absolutely enormous. Choi posesses a tumor near his pituitary gland, which caused him to continue growing and accounts for his giant stature and build, though if I recall correctly it has recently been removed. Choi possesses a K-1 record of 12 wins and 5 losses, and an MMA record of 1 win and 2 losses. His most notable win is over Semmy Schilt whom he beat by split decision in K-1 Seoul GP 2006. He also beat Bob Sapp and Akebono 3 times (loollll). Recently, he dropped three fights in a row to Jerome LeBanner, Ray Sefo and Badr Hari. His foray into MMA hasn't gone so well. He beat the shit out of a 215 lb Bobby Ologun in a huge mismatch, then matched up with Fedor Emelianenko at Yarennoka! 2007. Emelianenko looked to be in trouble early, but managed to armbar the giant for the win. Choi's next MMA bout was against Mirco "Crocop" Flipovic, a fighter seemingly past his prime, but still able to finish Choi by TKO due to leg kicks (he literally kicked the fuck out of Choi's legs so bad that he couldn't continue).

Choi also, hilariously enough, has started a musical career with South Korean model Kang So-hee under the moniker "Beauty and the Beast". The music is terrible and watching Choi rap before one of his fights was just the goofiest shit I've ever seen.

Beauty and the Beast - Everything about this picture is awkward as fuck

My analysis - Choi Hong-Ma

n is physically imposing enough to bully his opponents around, he's got good reach and he's got decent skill. Thing is, he's awkward and pretty slow, and people are figuring him out. I mean Badr Hari literally jumped and punched Choi in the face. He gets picked apart with leg kicks a lot because he isn't terribly mobile, despite his reach advantage, and if you can stay away from his knees (which are already pretty much at your face level) you can beat him pretty soundly. He's only been KO'd once and has thrown in the towel recently against Badr Hari. I think we might be seeing the beginning of the end for Choi, he literally lost every one of his fights last year and two the previous year (that's five in a row between K-1 and MMA). Basically 1) dude needs to stay the fuck out of MMA because that is not working. 2) He needs some tune up fights. Losing to Badr Hari, Ray Sefo and Jerome LeBanner is nothing to be ashamed of, but if they just toss him in against a tough guy right away it won't be too great for morale.

Lim Chi-bin is a K-1 fighter boasting a record of 9 wins, 6 losses in his K-1 career. Despite his not so great record, he's still probably the best Korea has to offer in his weight class. Notable wins include erm...other Koreans. I did have the pleasure of seeing him fight at the K-1 Max Seoul 2009 tournament which he ended up winning after beating three opponents in one night (hey improving your record from 6-6 to 9-6 in one night, not bad!) Pretty exciting fighter, and the dude can take a hit like a champ. His match against Lee Su-hwan in the final was exciting as hell, despite being knocked down twice he was able to win by KO in the first round. With that regional tournament victory, he gets seeded into the Final 16 for the K-1 2009 Grand Prix. His first opponent will be Taishin Kohiruimaki (who has beaten Lim Chi-bin previously). We'll see how the fight goes this time.

Me shaking hands with Lim Chi-bin after he won the tournament. Nice guy.

My analysis: Honestly I don't have a ton to say about him other than he was exciting as hell to watch fight at the K-1 Max Seoul event. Seems like a good guy, and I like him as a fighter. Hope the guy improves and finds some success.

Lee Su-hwan has a record of 8 wins, 7 losses in his K-1 career. Record doesn't look that great, but of his 8 wins, 6 have been by KO. He also was a finalist in the aforementioned K-1 Max Seoul tournament, reaching the finals by beating his first two opponents by extremely impressive KOs. Because of his impressive tournament performance, he has been added in a reserve match for the Final 16 tournament against Yuya Yamamoto.

My analysis: I really think this guy has promise. I was more impressed with him than any other fighter I saw at the K-1 Max Seoul tournament. He won his first two matches in extremely impressive fashion. He finished mongolian fighter Munguntsooj Nandin-Erdine (jesus what a name) by brutal headkick KO. Seriously the guy did not get up for a scary long time, and finally got dragged out on a stretcher. He then finished his next opponent, Noh Jae-gil by KO via BODY KICK. He KOd a guy with a BODY KICK. This guy has amazingly powerful kicks, and is just amazingly strong. He also had Lim Chi-bin on the ropes in the final, scoring two knockdowns in the first round until finally being KOd himself via punches. I really like this guy, he made a fan out of me at that event and I'll be rooting for him from now on.

Lim Su-jeong is a female K-1 fighter who made her debut at the K-1 Max Seoul show against a Japanese female K-1 fighter, Reina. This fight was, to my knowledge, the first female fight that K-1 has ever held. This is a pretty big deal and could open a whole new division for K-1. It was a great fight too, tits to the wall slugfest between these two tough women. The fight went all three rounds and one extra round. When it was all said and done Su-jeong came out the victor (though props to Reina for a tough fight).

My analysis: Not sure what else to say. Tough, tough fighter that really impressed with her victory over Reina. It wasn't the most technical fight, but neither fighter gave an inch and showed a ton of heart. Also she's a total babe.

Noh Jae-gil holds a record of 4 wins, 3 losses with 1 KO. I don't know much about the guy, other than he made it to the second round at K-1 Max Seoul. He was the guy that got KOd via body kick by Lee Su-hwan.

My analysis: Don't know much about the guy as a fighter, but he's a really nice guy. Despite having a disappointing night (and probably in a bit of pain), he still took the time to pose with me for a picture while I was marking out like a jackass over everything K-1. Really cool guy, wish him a lot of luck.

Kim Se-ki holds a record of 1-1 with 1 KO. Apparently when I saw him fight at k-1 Max Seoul, it was his K-1 debut (I didn't realize that until just now). He made it to the second round until he lost to Lim Chi-bin (who went on to win the tourney). Tough fighter, can really take a beating and keep going.

My analysis: Again, not much to say. Pretty good performance for a novice, definitely a tough guy. The other thing to say is this guy is hilarious. For the first fight, he comes out to traditional Korean music looking like some sort of Korean hobo. His second fight he comes out thugged out to Ace Hood - Gutta (which is a rad song btw). I was dying laughing, that guy has a lot of character. Like him a lot.

Kim Min-Soo is a p. terrible fighter, 4 wins and one loss in K-1 and 2 wins, 7 losses in MMA. I'm only including him because he has had the pleasure of losing to both Bob Sapp and Brock Lesnar. And yet, he still beat Minowaman.

My analysis: Uh..he's terrible. Lost to Bob Sapp and was Brock Lesnar's first opponent. I just get a kick out of that for some reason. Interestingly, he replaced Choi Hong-man to fight Brock Lesnar in Lesnar's MMA debut when Choi failed to meet medical requirements (due to his pituitary tumor).

Korean Fighters - The good, the bad, and the incredibly mediocre

2009-04-09T16:36:00.015+09:00

You know it just occured to me that I haven't really spent the time to break down the Korean fight scene. Granted, it's pretty sparse. Korea's native MMA organization, Spirit MC seems to be in limbo. Occasionally they have K-1 events here (like the one I went to last month). Otherwise, Korean fighters participate in international M-1 fights, frequently competing against their M-1 Russia counterparts. Then there are the more well known internationally based Korean fighters that fight in Japan or the USA, in MMA or K-1 orgs there.

Basically, there aren't a ton of Korean fighters worth mentioning. In MMA there is

Chu Song-hoon (Akiyama Yoshihiro)

Kim Dong-hyun

Denis Kang (Canadian-Korean fighter)

Yoon Dong-sik

Jung Chan-sung

Choi Mu Bae

Taei Kin (Korean name 김태영) (who interestingly is a bad MMA fighter but was pretty good in K-1)

Joe Son

Lee Tae-hyun

Kim Min-soo

*Choi Hong-Man*

Then in K-1 we have

*Choi Hong-man*

Lim Chi-bin

Lee Su-hwan

*Taiei Kin*

*** Have participated in MMA as well as straight K-1 (meaning not K-1 Heros)

Orginally, I only had about 6-7 fighters in mind when I started to write this. I then realized I now have 13 fighters to write about. This is going to be a bit more work than I thought.

I guess I'll start at the top.

Chu Sung-hoon (Akiyama Yoshihiro) is a Japan born, 4th generation ethnic Korean that started his career as a Judoka in Japan. He is really only known by his Korean name in Korea, everywhere else he is known by Akiyama Yoshihiro, his Japanese name. I'll refer to him by his Korean name for the purposes of this post though. Sung-hoon is probably the most famous Korean fighter out there, as well as the most controversial. While he's definitely a talented fighter, he's been accused of cheating numerous times, stemming as far back as his Judo days. Three seperate opponents at the 2003 World Judo Championships complained that Chu's judo-gi was slippery, and cried foul. He switched to a reserve gi and promptly lost his next two matches, only appearing to incriminate himself worse.

He boasts an MMA record of 12-1 with 2 no contests. His one loss was also to a much, much larger Jerome LeBanner (seriously LeBanner is huge). Notable wins include over Melvin Manhoef, and two other Korean fighters I'll talk about later, Denis Kang and Taiei Kin. His two most high profile fights are also his most controversial, against legendary fighter Sakuraba Kazushi and later against Misaki Kazuo. He was caught greasing against Sakuraba and the fight was turned No Contest. Later against Misaki, Misaki beat his ass pretty thoroughly in a really exciting fight and ended up getting finished with a huge soccer kick to the face. The kick was deemed illegal later, and the fight result was overturned to a No Contest (in the new rules, soccer kicks to a downed opponent were illegal. Sung-hoon was in the process of getting up when kicked in the face, and in reality it was illegal by mere inches). Since that fight, he beat professional punching bag Shibata Katsuyori and some other dude. Recently, he signed with the UFC and will debut at UFC 100 against Alan Belcher (who just beat Denis Kang by guillotine).

Chu Sung-hoon - Fashion ico-hahahahahahaha

My analysis: Good fighter but a dirty cheater. He's really talented, he doesn't NEED to cheat and I hope he puts that shit behind him. Misaki gave him a pretty good talking to after he kicked his face off so hopefully he took his advice. Seriously, you can't cheat against Sakuraba. It's SAKURABA.

Kim Dong-hyun. "Stun Gun" Kim is a 24 year old fighter with a Judo background that started his career in small Korean orgs until he gained more prominence in Deep in Japan. He fights at welterweight (and is a huge welterweight too). He currently fights in the UFC and holds a record of 11 wins, 1 draw and 1 No Contest. He's interesting for a few reasons. When he entered the UFC, he immediately drew a huge salary for a debut fighter, $40,000 to show. Why? He basically secured a big Korean tv deal for the UFC along with his signing. Koreans love to watch other Koreans compete internationally. Great deal for Kim, interesting little factoid for everyone else. He's also a big part of the reason why I get to watch UFC for free all the time here in Korea (so basically I love you Stun Gun). Kim made his waves in his UFC debut when he beat the ass out of Jason Tan, but has since failed to live up to the hype. He won a close split-decision fight over Matt Brown (but in Kim's defense, Brown has become a much, much better fighter than his days on The Ultimate Fighter reality show) and dropped a decision to Karo "PANIC ATTACKS BRO" Parisyan. Parisyan, however, was drug tested post fight and three banned substances (Hydrocodone, Hydromorphone and Oxymorphone) were found in his system. The result was overturned to a No Contest. Records are records, but let's be real - Kim still lost. And it was a shit fight. His next opponent is Jonathon Goulet, who he'll clash with at UFC 100, which is a fight he SHOULD win. We will see.

My analysis: Another good fighter, but he just completely lacks cardio. He's a wrecking ball in the first, but every subsequent round he just gets shittier and shittier. Great elbows, awesome judo and he's pretty physically imposing for a welterweight at 6'1. He's been successful in the UFC on paper, but if you watch his fights you can definitely tell he's lacking in some very important areas. Hope he can improve those things because I like watching him fight.

Denis Kang is a Canadian raised French-Korean fighter based out of Vancouver. He has fought for Spirit MC in Korea, Pride FC in Japan and most recently made his debut in the UFC. Kang fought a bunch of shows in various places until he signed a contract with Spirit MC in South Korea. He went 5-0 and was picked up by Pride FC. He made his debut at Pride Bushido 6, defeating some Japanese guy by armbar. He racked together an impressive series of wins against Murilo "Ninja" Rua (back when that meant something), Akihiro Gono before losing to Misaki Kazuo in the Welterweight Grand Prix final. He won one then dropped two straight to Chu Sung-hoon and Gegard Mousasi. He beat some guy and Marvin Eastman (lol) before making his debut in the UFC against Alan Belcher. Kang decided it was a great idea to dive into a guillotine and was choked out in round 2. Not the best start for Kang. Kang's next opponent is Xavier Foupa-Pokam at UFC 97 in 2 weeks. If he doesn't fight like a big dummy he should win that pretty easily.

My analysis: Kang had a great run in that WWGP but his some pretty serious competition and has faded a lot since. Misaki, Akiyama and Mousasi are all good competition, but he seems to have just lost focus. If I recall correctly, his wife died not too long ago and I'm sure that's seriously added to his lack of focus. Kang has become somewhat of a middling fighter, I mean he just lost to Alan fucking Belcher. I'm not sure if he's ever going to crack the upper half of the UFC middleweight division, but he's much more suited for a middling UFC run than busting cans in Spirit MC.

Yoon Dong-Sik. Oh Donger, the most depressing of all Korean fighters. Yoon is another Korean Judoka that made the switch to MMA. He holds a record of 4 wins and 6 losses, but believe me when I tell you he's much better than his record. He's pretty much just depressing to watch fight because he's just got shit luck. He made his debut against Sakuraba Kazushi, which is just fucking mean. He dropped four in a row to the aforementioned Sakuraba, then took Makoto Takimoto, Murilo Bustamante and former UFC Light-Heavyweight champ Quinton "Rampage" Jackson to decisions. He lost all three by unanimous decision, but that is one tough motherfucker. If you don't know much about MMA, those are horribly stilted, difficult fights for an MMA amateur. He then racked up four wins in a row against Melvin Manhoef, Zelg Galesic, Shungo Oyama and Fabio Silva, three of which came by armbar (which MMA fans have lovingly dubbed the Dongbar). Things were starting to look up for our depressing little friend until he ran into Gegard Mousasi during the Dream Middleweight GP. Donger put up a great fight, but ended up losing by unanimous decision in the end. He was also the only person to take Mousasi to a decision during Mousasi's impressive MWGP run. Most recently he dropped another fight to Andrews Nakahara. He was scheduled to fight Murilo "Ninja" Rua at Dream 8 last weekend, but dropped out last minute due to injury. And the way that Ninja fought last weekend (shitty) he would have won, too.

My analysis: This guy can't catch a break, and at 36 years old, i don't know if he ever will. It's a shame too because he is a tough, tough motherfucker. Fighting tough veterans like Sakuraba, Bustamante and Rampage your first 4 fights is just plain mean. He racked up some good wins there before hitting Mousasi, but to be fair Mousasi has been on a ridiculous win streak lately. Nakahara proved to be more than just a fluke last weekend too. I hope he can come back because I really do like the Donger, but I don't know how much more he'll be able to do in his short career. I mean he's literally lost to only good fighters (Takimoto being the exception, and Nakahara being a bit untested at this point). Hopefully he can finish with a winning record, at least.

Jung Chan-sung aka "The Korean Zombie" is a featherweight fighter (145 lbs) currently fighting in the Sengoku featherweight Grand Prix. Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about the guy (I had never heard of him prior to the GP). I can't seem to get a record on the guy that doesn't conflict so he is either 5-0 or 8-0, I guess depending on if you count certain bouts or not. He had a few fights in Pancrase before moving to Deep, and finally making his Sengoku debut at Sengoku 7. He beat Ishiwatari Shintaro in the first round via rear naked choke, advancing him into the tournament.

My analysis: Thus far, he looks like a pretty good featherweight prospect. This kid is young too, he's a year younger than I am and has had some pretty decent experience for his age. I expect him to make a pretty big splash in this GP. I haven't seen enough of him to make a huge call, but I like him so far.

Placeholder post for my K-1 experience

2009-04-09T15:13:00.001+09:00

Placeholder post for my K-1 experience

The life of a go getta

2009-04-08T14:46:00.002+09:00

Alright so the last blog post was a bit depressing. That's just not really the kind of person I am so I'm going to post about what IS good right now.

1) Hayato "Mach" Sakurai, who I previously blogged about being the best ever, beat the everloving FUCK out of Shinya Aoki. This is a good thing because while Aoki is a good fighter, he's also a glove grabbing, rabbit punching cheating fuck. He basically pounced on Aoki but was taken down. He forcefully swept Aoki, held his head down and essentially dry humped Aoki to death while kneeing him in the face. When Aoki went through the ropes, he punched him about five more times. And since technically Aoki is the WAMMA Lightweight champion, Mach continues his "everytime champion" streak with another champion notch on his belt. Yesssss.

2) Suplexes. In pretty much the most hilarious turn of events I've ever seen, Katsuyori "I am a fucking horrible fighter" Shibata suplexed Ikuhisa Minowa at the end of round 2 at Dream 8. And I think it pretty much won him the fight. It was a horrible match before that point, but god I love a good suplex. Also on Suplex Watch 2009 is a movie I just started watching this morning, Donnie Yen's "Flashpoint". He suplexes a guy through a table during a fight scene and it was just gorgeous. I'm trying to find a gif of it right now so I can watch it everyday when I wake up and before I go to sleep.

3) Young Jeezy ft. R. Kelly - Go Getta. Can't get enough of this song right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52CrYgxjFFI

4) It's Wednesday, which means its almost Thursday, which means its almost Friday, which means its almost the weekend. I should use this logic on Mondays.

5) Baseball season started! Griffey is back with the Mariners and I'll probably see the Doosan Bears play this weekend. Korean baseball is p.rad.

6) It's sunny! and warm! I mean it's smoggy as fuck but it's still warmer!

7) Lots of fights comin up. Dream 8 and WEC 39 (?) last weekend, Strikeforce this weekend, K-1 the weekend after and UFC in 2 weeks.

Life isn't that bad, just gotta keep things in perspective.

Rough...month

2009-04-08T14:16:00.001+09:00

So I'm having a rough month here. The last half of march and the beginning of april have been pretty crap.

I was going to say abysmal but that sounds a bit melodramatic. Instead I opt for the childish alternative.

I've been sick for just a bit under a month straight. I've literally had some sort of cold symptom for that long. I've slept a ton, I've taken medicine, I've been drinking tea and my own goddamn metric weight in water daily but to no avail. It's getting pretty old. First I had a sore throat, then I had a sore throat and a stuffy nose. Then a cough, and now just the stuffy nose. I don't know if I'm getting better or not because I just keep swapping symptoms.

I'm sure my two readers will be enthralled to hear that I had a girlfriend for about a month before we broke it off.

Oh internet, I can't lie to you.

She broke it off. We lived pretty far away and she wasn't willing to put in the same effort I was into the relationship. C'est la vie. I was bummed out for a bit but I'm back on my feet. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was pretty frustrated though. Not so much that it didn't work out with this specific girl, but that I feel like I'm doomed to failure from the get go. Don't get me started on Korean girls. Jesus I don't even know what to do there. They're like sexy, sexy crack. But retarded crack that invites their sisters to what you presumed was a date. Or random friend. Or are monumentally fucked up in the head in some way.

I had a girl ask me, with a straight face, if I thought all Japanese girls were ugly. Well...no, I don't think they are all ugly, so I told her that. She looked disappointed with my response. Expecting the next quiery to be something insecure, somewhere along the lines of "well Korean girls are prettier right?" I was blindsided with "Well you know original Japanese girls are ugly. All the pretty ones are part French".

Now for one, that's retarded. Mentally retarded. Two, where the fuck did the French come into this? That doesn't even make any sense. Historically speaking you could have at least said the Dutch, since they were Japan's first western trading partner. Or America, the occupying nation post WWII with a presence to this day. But where the hell did you get the fucking French?

How do you respond to something like that? I laughed. I thought it was a joke. That sounds like something I would say as a joke. She was serious. I stopped laughing. I got really weirded out. You ever hear something so retarded that you almost punch yourself in the dick? No reason why, it just seems like the most rational thing to do in that situation? It felt like that.

And it's not just Korean girls. I've been witness to my fair share of horrid things back stateside as well. I've just hit a string of bad luck here. All the more frustrating, is that my dating pool has been completely obliterated here. I have to get lucky enough to 1) Find a girl that's single. 2) Find a girl that I click with. Fair enough, I have to do that in the states as well. But now I'm pretty much sunk if they don't speak enough English. I'm trying to learn Korean, but I need to be pretty realistic here. Until my Korean approaches a decent level, there is pretty much a requirement for any girl that I date to speak decent English. A lot of them speak a little bit, and quite a few speak pretty well too. But for things to really line up like that has gotten pretty frustrating. So I just bounce from horrible date to horrible date.

And yet, Korean girls are just so god damn gorgeous and fun that I just jump back in that shark tank. And punch me some sharks. Or...something, I don't know what else you would do to a shark. Because they are scary.

I've also been getting a bit homesick lately. Not even so much for things back home, though I do miss my family, friends and my favorite beer. More so for things that are absent back home. Back home I don't get called a foreigner daily. Back home I don't have people reflexively tell me I'm handsome. Back home people don't go WHOOOAA BIG NOOOOSE, or talk about me right in front of me. Sometimes it's shit knowing a bit of Korean because you understand a lot more when people are talking about you. And to be fair, it's rarely negative things. But they're invasive things, and often unintentionally rude. And when you're having a bad day and feeling a bit down, it's hard to keep perspective and keep intent in mind. I mean jesus, I'm a tall, skinny plain looking whitebread motherfucker. I can't imagine how fucking frustrating it must be to be overweight or possess any physical attribute other than "normal". Or got a fucked up grill. I don't know, I digress.

You find yourself frustrated with little things and start sinking deeper back into your little foreigner world.

And I don't want that. I like it here, I really do. These are good, kind-hearted people. But I'm just no good at being a circus monkey. And that's how I feel lately.

My top 5

2009-03-26T14:08:00.001+09:00

In the next few days (or immediately if I'm bored enough at work) I'm going to compile various top 5(ish) lists. I say 5ish because like everything else in my life I tend to get carried away. Off the top of my head I think I'm going to categorize my

Top 5

Favorite Jackie Chan movies

Favorite Non-Jackie Chan movies (yes they need their own categories)

Favorite TV show

Favorite Grunge Bands

Favorite Rappers

Favorite Non Grunge Bands

Favorite Japanese Fighters

Favorite Korean Fighters

Favorite American Fighters

Favorite Brazilian Fighters

Favorite European fighters (haha just kidding they all suck. Actually they will probably all be Dutch K-1 Guys)

Favorite dude I used to hate and now I like

Favorite Beer

Favorite Bald person

Favorite dumb random shit I dunno

I'll probably break it up as such just to keep it fairly organized. I sure look forward to writing this for myself since no one reads this besides me!

Movie addict

2009-03-17T16:22:00.001+09:00

I'm on my.....I think 6th mini dixie cup of weak ass pre mixed horrible Korean coffee. I'm writing this literally to stay awake. I want to do work but I CAN'T. I'm falling asleep standing up, at my desk, I just can't stay awake. I had a really good night last night but I'm paying for it now. I'm just going to write a rambly blog post so hopefully I can keep awake for the last hour of work.

What first. Well it's yellow dust season here in Korea and the air is pretty atrocious. It blows over from China and makes everything here miserable for like a month. It's been going on for like hundreds of years, but apparently recent deforestation and landscape changes due to rapid industrialization in China have made things a bit worse. The dusty periods last longer and are more intense now. Joy.

I've watched something like 15 movies in the last couple of weeks. Off the top of my head I've seen

The good:

RocknRolla

Punisher Warzone

Gran Torino

Watchmen

Role Models

The decent:

Deathrace

Max Payne

The terrible:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Transporter 3

Now when I say good, decent and terrible I really dont even mean quality of the movies of themselves. I look at 1) did I enjoy the movie and 2) did the movie accomplish what it set out to do.

Punisher Warzone is a good example of this sort of rating system. I never got the impression that this movie took itself completely seriously. The characters do, the world that they have created for Frank Castle to shoot, stab, detonate, kick, punch, headbutt, throw off a building, impale and otherwise horrifically mutilate is presented as serious business. But the filmmakers know their audience and know better than to present the whole package in a similar vein to the decent but otherwise, frankly, dull Punisher movie that preceded it. This movie will never win an Oscar until the committee realizes there needs to be a "Best Explodey Head" category. But it's fun, it's a hell of a lot of fun. I got a kick out of little character quirks. Castle shoots people that are fucking CLEARLY dead, juuust to make sure. He shoots a guy that is hanging by a spike through his head. He shoots a guy with his pistol a bunch of times, reloads his big assault rifle and then shoots him AGAIN. It's cartoony and silly but that's what I really appreciate about it. It wasn't a bad movie that I'm defending on the grounds that "gee man it's just dumb explodey fun, turn off your brain and enjoy". It succeeded on it's own terms and I really enjoyed watching it. Mission accomplished, sweet movie.

Max Payne wasn't a bad movie, it just never presented anything that I found interesting. It wasn't a really good movie either though.

Transporter 3 just bored me, and if you can make Jason Statham bore me you've done something horribly wrong. I will say one thing though, that dude does EVERYTHING angry. When he kisses that russian chick I swear that is the angriest kiss I have ever seen. If someone told me "Ok this is the Transporter 3. I am going to show you a short clip of one scene and tell me what you think is happening" and they showed me that kiss, I would have guessed that his hands and feet were bound and he was trying to punch that russkie in the face with his lips.

Deathrace was...Deathrace. It wasn't good but I didn't HATE it so I won't call it terrible. I don't have much to say about it though.

Indiana Jones 4 was just...weird. I don't know, I don't know why I didn't like it but I just didn't. I suppose that's a reason in and of itself. I just plain didn't like it.

Watching commericals for Gran Torino was interesting because they promote it like Clint Eastwood takin on all kinds of gangs in a bad neighborhood, but it's really a character driven story about his reluctant friendship with the asian neighbor boy. Also he's a horrible biggot and even by the end of the movie rolls around he still is. He doesn't change that aspect of his personality, but we're left to realize that he's still a good guy despite this major flaw. It's awkward and funny hearing him call the neighbor kid 'zipper head' in the same way it is to hear your grandpa say it. You're kind of like haha oh grandpa you card but seriously dont say that its not ok. Well not my Grandpa, i'm talking about YOUR racist grandpa (what a jerk).

Next on my list is The Wrestler after I finish the new season of Entourage (and Venture Bros). I also have a bunch of Top Gear sitting around as well. Better get watchin.

Bit of first week frustration

2009-03-05T15:47:00.001+09:00

It basically boils down to disorganization and lack of management. I come in to the first day of the semester and go back to my normal office. I was pretty sure I'd be getting a new office, but I had no idea where. No one could tell me where. I had to ask anyone that spoke English around me, and they didn't know (and rightfully so, not their job to know that kind of info). My old witch of a co teacher had washed her hands of responsibility of me long ago (and good fucking riddance I might say) so I couldnt count on her. Finally my new co teacher found me and I got some sort of direction. Now I have two new co teachers and I'm ecstatic. They are both really great, really kind and pretty much a total 180 from my old co teacher. But everything else this week has been a clusterfuck. I move into my new office and there is nothing in there. No desks, computers, chairs, nothing. I mean come on guys. That's retarded. They finally get us desks and chairs and we have to clean and set the room up. I'm not entirely sure why this wasn't already done but no one else complains so I just keep my mouth shut. At least I have something to do during this week of no teaching. So we get set up, but find out we won't be getting computers until wednesday afternoon. Again I fail to understand how I am supposed to work without a computer of any sort in this digital age but I just roll with it. I just studied Korean and played this dumb golf game on my phone and chatted with my new officemates. I'm in an office with 5 women and myself. It's a pretty big office, but that's a lot of people to share with. They're all really nice to me and actually engage me in conversation so I'm pretty happy. I'm just sort of annoyed that I can't do any damn work this week.

Thursday (today) rolls around and I get some work done but I'm having one of *those* days. I was woken up at 3AM last night by some drunk Korean dude ringing my doorbell and I was so delirious that I sat there staring at the monitor for the door camera until everything clicked and I just yelled something at him that I don't remember but I think I called him a penis. I don't know I was practically sleepwalking. Not like he understood me anyways. So I get rollin to work and hop on my "new" computer, and by new I mean an old piece of shit from the same office I worked in last semester it just wasnt MY old computer. It was one of my co workers, shit I even knew the login password. So I'm trying to get work done but the USB port doesnt work and the headphone jack doesnt work, basically anything on the front of the tower doesnt work at all. Argh. Ok fine, dink around a bit and eat lunch and they were able to find me another computer. Wow, it's a really nice computer! I'm thrilled. So they go to install English Microsoft Office (yessss) and then the CD didnt work so in the process they deleted the Korean version so now I can't do any work. siiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhh. There goes any work I can do for the rest of the day. I swear to god as soon as I try to get any real work done everything goes tits up.

I mean I'm just bitching a lot because I literally have nothing to do and I'm exhausted because of that drunk asshole but I have it pretty good. New co teachers, new office, new computer, and by next week I think everything will go very smoothly. It's just this week has been a bit draining. I wanted to get a lot of work done because I'm visiting Daegu this weekend and I wanted to relax and have fun and not think about work. This is making it very difficult to be totally prepared for teaching on monday. All in all though, my school rules pretty hard and everyone has been really cool to me since I got back. I've gotten a bit more comfortable speaking Korean to them which has been ok, but when I'm tired I find it impossible to think of anything to say in a foreign language.

I know I complain too much but in writing lengthy bitchy rambling posts like these I can reflect and realize that I live a pretty fulfilling life.

So in closing, I saw a midget the other day and I was all like whooooaaaa a midget and she was like whoooooaaaaa a foreigner. Reflect on that boys and girls.

Akihiro Gono is the best. EVER.

2009-02-12T09:41:00.001+09:00

I posted an image of this a while back and FINALLY found the video.

Gono

never change

I don't know this picture is sweet though

2009-02-12T09:37:00.001+09:00

Wanderlei Silva

Never change

Harajuku

2009-02-03T14:36:00.001+09:00

hey just chillin here in my green pants n shit no biggie

Suplex

2009-02-03T01:02:00.003+09:00

This weekend at UFC 94: St.Pierre vs. Penn, the world was hyped for the big title fight. GSP ended up winning, and I'm glad. But what else happened was one of the most spectacular beatdowns I have EVER seen.

Jon Jones beat the everloving fuck out of Stephen Bonnar. And to Bonnar's credit, he took the beating and put up a good fight, making it to the scorecards. But seriously watch this shit.

I'm not even sure what to call this.

Consider me a Jon Jones fan now because GOD DAMN

This is why Gono is the best.....EVER

2009-02-03T00:57:00.002+09:00

I'm not going to say anything else except that the man in the middle is Akihiro Gono, an awesome Japanese fighter from the Pride days that is now fighting in the UFC (hopefully forever).

This was before his big dance number before he fought five minutes later.

Gono rules so hard.

hahahaha oh my god ODB is haunting Lil Wayne's body and trolling us all

2009-02-03T00:35:00.005+09:00

Lil Wayne - "Around The Way Girl"

seriously watch this shit I'm crying because I'm laughing so hard right now

This is the WORST

Lil Wayne is experimenting with some bizarre shit because he's like four crackheads rolled into one so he decided the best way to do this by twanging on a guitar with his penis or something

i'm really not sure what's happening here but it's hilarious

I was even on board with the Carter 3, it grew on me a bit. I even came to love "Phone Home" eventually like a drooling old man working the door at a Wal-Mart because he might say some bizarre stuff but he's just doin his thing

droolin on himself

K-1 DYNAMITE!!

2008-12-31T15:49:00.004+09:00

Woooo New Years eve show. It's about to go on and I'm busy prepping for my trip to Shanghai tomorrow so I'll keep it brief.

Hayato "Mach" Sakurai (the best ever) is fighting Katsuyori Shibata (the worst ever) in a horrible match and I don't know why they are fighting but whatever. Mach is fresh off a sexy Unanimous Decision victory over some chick in some sex tape he is in floating around the internet (and no i didnt watch it) so surely he can take Shibata. Mach could sub him really easily but he'll probably dink around for a round, punch him a lot, judo throw him and then pound him out on the ground

This show is cursed though, because at the last second the best fight of the night was called off. JZ vs. Joachim Hansen has been called off due to some weird head injury that Hansen suffered...today, I guess. He's been hospitalized. This suuuucks. The only way to save this is to stack JZ on Crocop's shoulders and have him fight Choi Hong Man. Also Jermome Lebanner got a lung infection so he can't fight Mark Hunt but Melvin Manhoef stepped up and it's probably the most hilariously appropriate decision they could have possibly made.

Speaking of, Crocop is fighting Choi tonight. I think it's going to be pretty retarded but I hope Crocop can take him out.

Sakuraba is fighting Tamura and please oh god Sakuraba don't die in the ring just sub him quickly and get out of there.

Ikuhisa Minowa is fighting Errol Zimmerman and if Minowa can pull off some ridiculous rolling heel hook sub out of his ass he's gonna win otherwise Zimmerman is gonna beat his ass. Minowa can punch waterfalls and chase airplanes but I don't know how much that's gonna help him here.

Badr Hari is fighting Alistair Overeem but its K1 rules so Overeem is gonna get his ass beat.

Bob Sapp is fighting an anime.

YOU THINK IM FUCKIN PLAYING

I mean he's LITERALLY FIGHTING AN ANIME.

I'm a little speechless. It's so...so beautiful. I love you Japan. When I go there I'm going to hug each and every one of you lovely lovely people.

Anyways, no really serious picks here except that K1 guys will win K1 rules matches, MMA guys will beat K1 guys in MMA rules matches and Sakuraba will get hurt really bad and Mach will win.

Happy New Years everyone!

edit: hahahahaha I just checked this two seconds after I posted my blog, look at how smart I am

Round 1
Zimmerman gets a mid kick that Minowa catches and dives into a takedown with. Zimmerman grabs the ropes but goes down anyway, and Minowa begins to arduous task of looking to the footlock. Zimmerman tries to hammerfist the pro-wrestler off his leg, but Minowa transitions until he’s got the toe hold. Zimmerman screams in pain while tapping. The official time is 1:01 of the opening frame.

UFC 92: REPARATIONS recap

2008-12-30T12:55:00.004+09:00

Holy shit my picks went down in fucking flames.

If you look two posts down, you can see my picks for UFC 92. If you look at the fight results, you can see how wrong I was. 4/10 correct oh gawwdd my worst ever.

Who'd I get right? Shit. Antoni Hardonk won by KO, Matt Hamill won by KO, Yushin Okami took it by decision and Cheick Kongo beat the fuck out of Mustapha Al Turk.

I'm dissapointed that Ryo Chonan lost. I don't know what it is about Japanese dudes in the UFC that makes them fucking suck but here we are.

Pat Barry beat Dan Evensen by TKO via leg kicks. HE WENT DOWN FROM LEG KICKS. It was awesome Evensen is horrible.

CB Dolloway won and that's always disappointing but what I DID learn is that CB talks like a transvestite and it's HILARIOUS. He seriously sounds like Chyna from the WWE, I couldn't stop laughing.

Forrest Griffin vs. Rashad Evans was going exactly as I thought for the first couple rounds. Forrest was throwing tons of leg kicks from the outside, working his way to a decision. But then in the third, Rashad got Griffin down and fucking pounced on him. Vicious ground and pound led to a stoppage where Griffin's head was fuckin bouncing off the mat. I picked wrong but I honestly don't mind the Rashad win. I'm actually starting to like the dude as a fighter, he's become pretty entertaining KOing Chuck and Forrest in his last two. Not bad for the new Light Heavyweight champion. Rampage is going to knock him the fuuuck out though.

Speaking of, Rampage knocked Wandy the FUCK OUT. Holy shit just watch this gif.

GOD DAMN. Rampage is fuckin back. His next fight is either going to be a rematch with Forrest or they're going to toss him right back into the picture with a title shot against Rashad.

The absolute worst moment of the night (and my life :( ) was seeing Nogueira get his first KO loss to Frank Mir. FRANK MIR. Nog looked like absolute shit, landed about two shots, looked kinda fat, I just don't even know what to think. His gameplan was to homer on out there and get punched a lot until Mir got tired. Nog, you're just too old for that now. You've made a career out of getting your ass beat and then coming back to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat, but you can't do it anymore. I don't want to see you hang it up but you're gonna get fucking killed if you keep fighting like that.

The good news is, Nogueira vs. Couture is very likely now. The bad news, Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar 2 is very imminent.

The end is very fucking nigh, my friends.

Merry Christmas Eve!

2008-12-24T11:19:00.001+09:00

So I've been considering buying myself a Christmas present to keep my spirits high. The big question was, what do I really want? My iPod is fucked up but functional. I have a sweet phone. I don't have a coke habit. I can't write off hookers on my taxes. What to get??

Then it fell in my lap. My buddy found a great deal for a ticket to Shanghai, $200 hotel included. DAAAAAAAAAMN. Now China being the freedom hating commies they are charge Americans over 100,000 won for a visa. Ouch. But all the same, that only adds $100 on to what is already a steal. So looks like I'm going to Shanghai! Merry Christmas to me!

So it looks like I'm going to China AND Japan this January. I gotta be real careful with my cash. I'm gonna be broke as fuuuck after this but who cares. I get to go to China and Japan!

So I bought presents for people at my school. My two co teachers, the other woman who works in my office that isn't my co teacher but is really hot; my two VPs and Principal. AND I bought a tin of those really nice danish cookies for the English Center and one for the breakroom for the 6th grade teachers. Spent waaaay too much money but hell, what's the price of spreading some Christmas cheer? Though my grinch of a co teacher didnt even say thank you. Guess I just can't win eh? Fuck it. It's vacation time!

It's hard to stay motivated and keep your spirits high when Christmas is this close. I miss my friends and family back home, but I've made a lot of good friends here. I've had a lot of fun and I need to keep that in mind. I bought a really pathetic Christmas tree which rules, and my neighbor made me this awesome christmas stocking out of construction paper I have hanging up by the tree. I bought some Sky Vodka from E-mart so christmas screwdrivers ahoy. I'm going out to dinner with my friends Xmas eve and Xmas day and I'll try to get a copy of the Muppet Christmas Carol to watch at some point. I love that movie so much.

I also passed my Korean test! I got a 59/70. I was really proud of myself! I got a 45/50 on the writing portion because my spelling is shit (but all the answers were correct!). Then I got a 14/20 on my speaking because I came in all prepared to answer a bunch of questions, and then they flipped it on me! I had to ask THEM questions! Crafty bastards. I forgot a lot of them so I only did ok but they said my speaking speed and pronunciation was good. So now I get to move on to Beginner 2!

Vacation starts in like less than an hour so things are finally looking up. Can't wait for Xmas, UFC 92, K1 Dynamite!!, China and Japan!

UFC 92

2008-12-23T16:17:00.001+09:00

Seems like the only thing I blog about anymore is fights. Not that I care, I love doing it. There are a lot of good ones coming up. This post is devoted to UFC 92, but I'll have one about the DREAM/K-1 collabo fight they're putting on at New Years. It's gonna rule, but back on topic.

UFC 92, I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. Three huge fights and a number of pretty decent ones.

Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera vs. Frank Mir ****

Forrest Griffin vs. Rashad Evans ****

Wanderlei Silva vs. Quinton Jackson ****

Yushin Okami vs. Dean Lister ***

Ryo Chonan vs. Brad Blackburn ***

Matt Hammil vs. Reese Andy **

Dan Evensen vs. Pat Barry *

Mike Massenzio vs. CB Dolloway *

Antoni Hardonk vs. Mike Wessel *

Let's go in reverse order.

Antoni Hardonk is going to punch Mike Wessel in the face a lot. Still sucks, though.

Mike Massenzio is gonn tke CB Dolloway to a decision and win by UD. There will be a lot of decisions this card.

I have no idea who Dan Evensen or Pat Barry are but I do know they are both terrible so we can only hope they KO eachother. I'm randomly picking Dan Evensen by who gives a fuck.

Matt Hammil is a deaf wrestler who is pretty decent albeit a bit boring. I'm expecting him to take down Reese Andy and his dumb backwards name at will and pound him out in round 3. His post fight interview will be hilarious but everyone will feel ashamed that they laughed at a deaf guy talking.

Ryo Chonan vs. Brad Blackburn will be Chonan's to lose. Chonan's beaten and lost to a lot of good competition, never really breakthing through that mid level. I see him taking it by sub in rd 3 due to hopefully something cool. Chonan's a cool guy so I want to see him keep winning. I'm curious to see if they mention that he beat current Middleweight champ Anderson Silva in the past.

Yushin Okami vs. Dean Lister is going to be BORING. God. I mean I like Okami, and Lister has excellent BJJ but they are as boring as that time your girlfriend made you watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding and you politely sat there and didnt say anything because you are dead on the inside. Okami by decision and why the fuck isnt he fighting Anderson Silva if he has already recovered from surgery?

Now on to the good stuff. I'm actually gonna save Wandy vs. Page for last because I have a lot to say.

Forrest Griffin vs. Rashad Evans. Two TUF winners squaring off for the Light Heavyweight Title, you can hear Dana White messing himself from here. In Griffin's last fight he beat Rampage in a close decision and made him go insane and crash his giant monster truck into some shit so fuck you Forrest Griffin. Rashad Evans KO'd Chuck Liddell in what was probably the most satisfying KO i've ever seen in my entire life because I hate Chuck Liddell. I mean it was REALLY good. Beer and Pizza good. Taking a one-wipe poop good. Getting a BJ and then Bohemian Rhapsody comes on the radio good. So I pretty much love Rashad Evans for that even if he did give himself the nickname "Sugar" (Which is totally against the nickname rules you dick). So you would think I'd be picking Evans right? Nope.

Even with the recent crazy magic gameplan power of Greg Jackson's camp in all it's nipple tweaky goodness, I still see Griffin taking this. Why? A few reasons. Griffin is a cardio machine. We hear this all the time but it's true. At LHW he's like second only to Wanderlei Silva who practically goes about his entire day in a fucking snorkel (and no I'm not kidding). Rashad looked like he was about to die by the end of Rd 3 against Tito Ortiz. Now he could come in in crazy good shape, but I'm still giving this edge to Forrest. Forrest is also a HUGE LHW. The dude is enormous and is going to be hard to keep down and has passable BJJ from his back. I see Forrest taking a Unanimous Decision here.

Next, the big one. Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Noguiera vs. Frank Mir. This is going to be hilarious. Frank Mir is going to get his ass beat so bad. He's going to throw everything he's got at Nog in round 1 in a futile attempt to finish him early. As his blows seemingly do nothing to slow this man down, he will panic more and more. He'll gas hard. Desperately gasping for air, his mind will race furiously from thought to thought. If this man was crushed by a tractor and lost internal organs and only got fucking tougher, what chance do I have? Will my wife leave me for being so shitty? Why am I the only person left with this awful 1997 haircut? How come my baby doesnt look anything like me and looks sorta Puerto Rican? and then he will wake up. He'll open his eyes, looking upward at the hot lights of the arena. The ref is raising Noguiera's hand. The fight is over. Frank Mir will lay there silently, with one thought lingering in his mind. WELP LEAST I BET BROCK LESNAR THAT ONE TIME HEY GUYS REMEMBER THAT

But overall, I'm most excited for Wanderlei Silva vs. Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. These are seriously two of my favorite fighters. Hayato "Mach" Sakurai, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Wanderlei Silva are like the fightin trinity for me. Now keep in mind, these two have fought twice before. Wandy won both fights decisively by KO. So naturally we need a third one I guess? Things are a bit different this time. It's in a cage, the rules are a bit different. Rampage has improved a LOT, but his mental state is questionable. Wanderlei has been coming off a series of hard losses, but seems to be on his way back on track. Wanderlei is training at a state of the art facility working out while he breathes through a fucking snorkel. Rampage is grab assing with a bunch of shitty british cage ragers and the recently crowned COOLEST DUDE IN BRITAIN Michael Bisping. And Cheick Kongo. Welp.

I see this going pretty much the same as the last two. Wandy by KO rd 3, and I'll be happy and sad at the same time. Maybe it'll go to decision too. We will see. It's ok guys, no matter what happens I'll still love you both like my own children (I totally don't have any children*)). Ugly violent man children.

* that DNA test dont prove shit bitch**

** just kidding haaa***

***probably

Random stuff: December edition

2008-12-13T17:40:00.003+09:00

Here's my random stuff: December edition

First up:

1)Fuck you Rachel Ray. I don't know why, just fuck you.

2) Jerry Cantrell (of Alice in Chains fame) is the fucking man.

3) Busta Rhymes - Bladow just came on the radio. I fucking love that. BLADOW!

4) UFC Fight Night 16: Fight for the Troops was a fucking bloodbath. Cory Hill's leg snapped in fucking half and some guy with a vaguely terrorist sounding name just about got his arm snapped in half. Pics and a full post to come later.

5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4 The Lonely Island - Jizz in my Pants. Seriously it's fantastic, it's hilarious and it's got fantastic production. This shit is catchy as hell

6) Juanito Ibarra is a piece of shit. Fuck you for trying to sell out Rampage

7) I'll seriously personally come to your house and give you a big hug and a box of roses (the innocent flower kind, not the kind that conceals a sawn off shotgun or something) if you get half of the references I am making in this post

testing

2008-12-08T07:38:00.001+09:00

testing testing 12

coming soon

2008-12-07T15:50:00.002+09:00

coming soon...

-free big bang concert

-ufc fight night predictions

-K1 shit

- 6th and 4th grade tests

-going to japan!

- i need a fucking hobby

-winter camps

-korean class

Also:

hahahaha holy fucking shit I love Melvin Manhoef so god damn much

Post Thanksgiving report

2008-11-29T10:25:00.000+09:00

Matt vs. Thanksgiving in Korea

Round 1 started off poorly for Matt, getting hit early with a bout of homesickness, he staggered to stay on his feet early and get through the school day. His students didn't seem to care about learning about Thanksgiving and by that point, he didn't want to teach about it either. The last class was really good though, so the round ended well for Matt, but it wasn't enough to take it.

Round 1: 10-9, Thanksgiving in Korea

Round 2 begins as Matt gets to go home early and take a nap and get ready to search for Turkey. Matt takes this round decisively.

Round 2: 10-9, Matt

Round 3 begins in Itaewon, unfamiliar territory for Matt. It proceeds to Geckos Garden, a really nice restaurant in Itaewon. A little too nice perhaps. Everyone is surprised that the Thanksgiving menu consists of two choices, neither of which sound much like the Thanksgiving dinner they have back home. Oooh but they have Stella Artois. Drinking, a good counter measure by Matt. Matt demolishes his fancy turkey thing, nearly finishing Thanksgiving in Korea off in the process. T in K hangs on and catches Matt with a late blow when the bill is presented. Matt manages to hang on and hold the round.

Round 3: 10-9, Matt

The bout is scored 29-28 for the winner, by Unanimous Decision, Matt.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T17:09:00.000+09:00

Today is Thanksgiving in Korea, my first Thanksgiving away from my family. To be honest I felt homesick for the first time since I've been here today. Halloween wasn't really bad, it's more of a friend holiday anyways. I kind of had a bad day today, the kids weren't paying attention and didn't care about what I was teaching. Frankly I didn't care enough to try to make them care today so it just didn't go anywhere.

I'm just kind of tired of not being able to speak Korean and have to depend on other people to help me do the simplest things.

The good news is I start Korean classes on monday, and that should help a lot. I can actually learn grammar, won't that be amazing.

I'm also going to Itaewon to get a proper Thanksgiving dinner tonight, I'll have a trip report later. It's either going to be immensely satisfying or horribly disappointing. I'm half expecting them to serve us chicken and try to pass it off as turkey.

I also made hand turkeys with my 4th graders and that was fun so it's not all bad.

I know I'm feeling all bummed out now but I'll wake up tomorrow and feel fine so it's cool. Just gotta make it through one more day and it'll be the weekend. Sweet, sweet weekend.

Black Dynamite trailer

2008-11-23T22:43:00.001+09:00

hahahaha yes

oh god yes

This will win all the academy awards

all of them

Trailer

OI MATE YOU EVA 'EARD OF A DONKAY PUNCH

2008-11-17T22:53:00.000+09:00

hahahaha seriously watch this fucking trailer

It's for the new horror/suspense/thriller DONKEY PUNCH

yes, it's really about some dude that kills a girl by donkey punching her it looks hilarious

DONKEY PUNCH

battle blog, its on bitches

2008-11-17T21:23:00.000+09:00

The gauntlet has been laid down, a challenger has approached. I have been challenged to a battle of the ages. The challenge? To make fun of shit and eachother. The battleground? Blogs (ew that sounds really lame). The challenger?

A midget in a bathrobe.

Much like a sexual experience with Martin, this will only end in tears. It's on motherfucker!

http://martinhatesmattsouthkorea.blogspot.com/

UFC 91 results

2008-11-16T20:40:00.000+09:00

Uggghhhh. I don't know how to feel about this. It was a great PPV, we got to see all of the fights including the entire undercard. The fights were great. On the other hand, Cock Chestnar is the new UFC Heavyweight champ.

Let's start with the good.

Demian Maia subbed Nate Quarry in the first round, good fight.

Gabriel Gonzaga is a fucking Brazilian gorilla and smashed Hendrick's lumpy face in. Also he wears a mouthpiece that looks like teeth and that's pretty funny. Steve Mazzagatti needs to learn when to stop fights though, GG knocked Hendricks down with a great right hand and again on the ground. Then he looked to Mazzagatti like "do I really need to hurt this poor lumpy bastard any more?". This isn't the first time either. And Mazzagatti needs to grow his damn mustache back.

Also they were pushing Randy vs. Brock so hard they actually asked Napao who he thought was going to win in the post fight interview. Hey I know you just punched the shit out of this lumpy dude and this is your post fight interview but seriously randy or brock come on man we gotta know.

Matt Brown beat Ryan Thomas and Aaron Riley took Jorge Gurgel to decision and that was lovely because seriously fuck you Jorge Gurgel. Bocek handled Robinson well.

Jeremy Stephens vs. Raphael Dos Anjos started slowly but man what a finish. Seriously look at this fucking uppercut.

KABLAMMO!!

Awesome.

Also, Dustin Hazelett pulled off yet another sweet sub and had this fucking GIANT Evan Tanner Tribute beard. Seriously, I'm going to add a picture of it later. It was awesome.

Ben Stiller steamrolled Joe Daddy and it was pretty cool.

Now for the bad.

A dark day has befallen the world of MMA. A cold chill pierces the night. The skies are dark. Candy just doesn't taste as sweet. The really cute girl at work has a big herpes sore on her lip.

Brock Lesnar is the new Heavyweight Champion. Uggghhh I feel gross saying it. My heart, it weeps. I can't say it was unexpected. Randy Couture is 46 going on 47. He hasn't fought in 14 months. He's giving up 45 pounds in this fight. Brock Lesnar is bigger, faster, stronger, younger. But we all had high hopes for Randy. He's done the impossible before. He's built his legacy on upsets and surprises. He thrives as the underdog. But it was not meant to be this time.

Thankfully, Lesnar's next fight is against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Nogueira's gonna take Lesnar's arm back to Brazil with him after he's done with Frank Mir.

Thank god for Nog.

Everytime Champion

2008-11-15T13:26:00.000+09:00

So I've had people (see: one person) ask me what this "everytime champion" business is about.

Hayato "Mach" Sakurai. Only the best thing to come out of Japan since that one Japanese thing that people like. My favorite fighter. Most notable wins over Shinya Aoki, Joachim Hansen, Mac Danzig. He also nearly punched Olaf Alfonso's fucking head off in my favorite KO ever (but really, who hasn't?).

Without further ado, my hero Hayato Sakurai: Everytime Champion

Everytime Champion

Mach, you rule.

Hayato "Mach" Sakurai highlight reel

UFC 91 picks

2008-11-13T18:02:00.000+09:00

So UFC 91 is coming this saturday in the states (or sunday morning to me in Korea). I'll be waking up early of course to catch this on tv like a good little hungover boy. It's become a bit of a tradition for me.

The big story of this event is Randy Couture vs. professional sentient christmas ham Brock Lesnar. Now it's pretty retarded that Brock is getting a title shot based off a 1-1 record which includes him getting subbed in Rd1 by Frank Mir and dry humping The Texas Lazy Horse for three rounds but alas, here we are. He also fought a shark (see left). Now normally a dumb clumsy amateur fighter vs a fighter with Couture's experience should be a given. Unfortunately, Randy is old as fuck and hasn't fought in over a year since his awesome comeback when he beat the shit out of Tim Sylvia and Gabriel Gonzaga. I watched both fights on PPV and was pretty blown away. Ol' Handy's got a lot of heart and is a master of gameplans, but there's been some worry that he's going to just get straight outmuscled by a giant steak cutlet. And this steak cutlet has a tattoo of a cock on his chest. It's very possible, but I just can't bear to pick Lesnar over Randy. Randy has thrived as the underdog in the past, and man I'm just hoping he can pull off a miracle once again.

And then Nog can beat the ass out of Handy and take what's rightfully his, the REAL SUPER OFFICIAL FOR REALS THIS TIME Heavyweight Championship Belt.

Next up is Kenny Florian vs. Joe Stevenson and I promise I won't write as much about this one (neither of them look like meat products so I'm afraid I'd just run out of material.) Now I can't say I'm a Florian fan because his nickname is KenFlo and what the fuck is that. BUT, he looks a lot like Ben Stiller and watching Ben Stiller beat the hell out of people is just funny. I'm looking for this to get stopped RD 2 by TKO from cuts, due to Florian's patented "Hellbows". Yes, he calls them hellbows. Why am I picking him again?

Anywho, Damien Maia will sub Nate Quarry or Quarry will KO Maia, it's pretty much a given. I'm going with Maia anyways so we'll see.

We also have Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Josh Hendricks. I don't know who Josh Hendricks is but he looks fat and he's a wrestler so screw him. Gonzaga by KO rd1.

Mark Bocek vs. Alvin Robinson. I dunno, dude's name is Alvin. That's all I got.

Dustin 'McLovin' Hazelett vs. Tamden McRory. McLovin is gonna do some goofy shit and sub the hell out of McRory. Thank you god(s?) for getting this bumped up into the main card, it's gonna rule.

Aaron Riley vs. Jorge Gurgel. I've never heard of Aaron Riley but I'm picking him on principle. Fuck you Jorge Gurgel.

Next is Matt Brown vs. Ryan Thomas and uhghhghhghg don't care.

Someone please start liking the UFC so I can stop talking to myself about this shit

Four Day Weekend

2008-11-13T17:55:00.000+09:00

So I had a four day weekend due to some random holiday on friday and my school's bday falling on monday. And it ruled.

Thursday night me and Mike went out around Suyu to grab a couple drinks and ended up drinking five in a couple hours. Oops. Least I didn't have work in the morning, sorry Mike. Played a lot of darts though, that was fun.

Friday I met up with my neighbor Kiernan and we decided we wanted to go to Myeong-dong, that crazy ass shopping area. But first, I got my haircut.

This haircut was the shit. It took an HOUR. So I get in there, and look all confused and some friendly Korean people came to my rescue. They had me look through a book of hairstyles. It was page after page of Korean dudes and then David Beckham. I figured it'd be safer to get a Korean guy's haircut so that's what I did. I even got the pointy sideburn things but they actually kinda rule. So some really hot girl shampoos my hair and besides that I think her only job was to brush hair off my face. I kept laughing everytime she did it because it's sorta funny to have a Korean girl waiting next to you just so she can brush hair off your face, and it tickled. So I'd start laughing and she'd get all giggly and it was all kinds of retarded awesome. All in all I had about five people attending to me, random dudes would come check on me and the guy cutting my hair spoke english pretty well. Then I get my hair shampooed again and some girl who I presume worked there told me "My name Cherry I am cutie!" and then I never saw her again. Maybe it was a ghost I don't know I'm not an expert on ghosts.

So when it's all said and done like five people walk me to the door and say bye and the dude who cut my hair asks for my number so we can hang out some time. Now I know what you're thinking, a hairstylist just asked for my number but...this is Korea. I've had random ass people ask for my number everywhere. Subway, hair salon, some weird music performance, shit I'm surprised I haven't had anyone ask me for my number while I was taking a piss. So I said bye to my new haircut entourage and went on with my day.

Myeong-dong was cool and I bought more shit from Uniqlo that I didn't really need but what else is new. Then I saw the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. I loved it, it was everything I expected. Bond killed some dudes, fucked up a nice ass car and banged some woman that later met a terrible death. Awesome. Then I went over to Hongdae like a good little boy and went to a hookah bar with some friends, got smashed because I didn't get a chance to eat and woke up....

At 9 AM. Fuck. Couldn't sleep in though I certainly tried. So I took a shower, got some coffee and tried to become slowly functional. Saturday I decided it'd be cool to check out some photo opportunities with Aaron and ATL. Took lots of pictures and then hit up Yongsan which is a huge electronics shopping area. It was awesome.

Saturday night was fun though, we went back to Hongdae (I really should just live there honestly) to Bar Boom where some kind of 10,000 won all you can drink shit show was going on and I had a great time. By the end of the night you basically get your drink, head to the end of the line and by the time you finish your drink you're back up at the front. Miraculously, there were no casualties. Got home safe and sound again and managed to sleep until 12. And the peasants rejoiced.

Sunday I hit up the Nandaemun market with some friends and we found out how close it is to...everything. We ended up by Myeong-dong by accident and finally Insadong, which is a cool "cultural center" area. We walked around and I found a Tekken 6 machine in an arcade. Talk about a cultural experience. It was awesome though. Then Sunday night me and Mike went for drinks again that night because what's a four day weekend without a huge ass bender.

Monday I felt pretty thrashed but I hauled my ass down to Jamsil trying to see what's up in that area. Everything was closed. Yay. Backtracked to Dongdaemun and hit up the market but all the really good Konglish shirts were gone so I bought a black and white trucker hat that aptly stated "Drunken". Felt it wrapped up the weekend pretty well.

Election Day

2008-11-04T22:46:00.000+09:00

So it looks like it's that time again. Election Day. Barack Obama vs John McCain. Now I could post a lengthy blog about who I think is right and who I think is a big dummy but instead I'll leave you with these two images.

I think you know what to do people.

oh by the way....

2008-11-03T17:14:00.000+09:00

Koreans are lovely, lovely people and they try so damn hard at everything but goddamn if they aren't the most disorganized people I've ever met. So I was volunteered to give a presentation to other English teachers in the district. Now when I was told about it, everyone was going to prepare a little something to present related to teaching tips. Now that's slowly transformed to just three of us presenting something. And a three minute presentation has transformed just today into ten minutes, and now I need to make a powerpoint and a worksheet...I mean this shit is on Wednesday and I really don't like just being volunteered for random shit regardless. At least tell me exactly what is expected of me if you're going to volunteer me for shit.

The other annoying thing today is that I was told today that I needed to go on some trip this friday night til saturday morning for something. When I asked where the place was, they didn't know and when someone finally did know they couldn't tell me anything more than a name. A Korean name. Which I don't understand. How are you gonna invite someone to something and not tell them WHERE it is. Now I had plans for friday night. I was going to go see the new Bond film with a bunch of friends and we had tickets already set up. I decided that fine, I can break my plans and go to on this mystery trip that will probably end up being like in that Battle Royale movie and I have to kill all my fellow teachers or some shit. After all, I can see that movie some other time and the trip may end up being fun.

So thankfully my friend was able to find someone else to take my place and my ticket, so it seemed like everything was settled. But not three hours later I was told there was a mistake and that I'm actually NOT invited because it was for the Giant English program people (and I'm not part of that). So I'm not going to take the ticket back or anything, that'd be a dick move so I just got my Friday plans fucked up because people can't fucking double check which god damn cracker they are speaking to.

I mean nothing against Korea but I fucking expect everything to start catching fire for no reason here sometimes.

DUNNN DUN DUN DUN

2008-11-02T22:53:00.000+09:00

DUN DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNN DUN DUN DUN!

random stuff

2008-10-30T17:31:00.000+09:00

My office at work is fucking freezing. I'm seriously wearing a jacket, gloves and a scarf while typing on my computer. I'm about to cut open one of those space camels on Hoth from Star Wars if it gets any worse.

It was slim pickings for Halloween costumes here in Seoul. They don't really celebrate Halloween except in the foreign areas so I just kinda had to make do. Looks like I'm gonna be a cowboy this year since half the outfit was already in my closet. I'm gonna wear boots, jeans, a plaid shirt and I bought a cheap cowboy hat and some fake mustaches so I should be all set. My kids should get a kick out of seeing me in my Halloween costume tomorrow.

We've been doing Halloween lessons all week and my fourth graders drew some Jack-O-Lanterns and they turned out really great, I'll post pictures later.

I bought a giant pack of corndogs and they rule. I also bought a $5 bottle of gin at the supermarket (yes they sell liquor at the supermarket). Now this is either going to be the best or worst idea I've ever had I'll keep everyone posted if I post really drunk about how much i love bobbies or something you'll know

My apartment is so fucking messy it's atrocious. I'm kind of disgusted with myself but also kind of impressed because letting it get this bad really takes a lot of dedication and perseverance I think I will write this on my next job application

I need a vacation I want to go sleep all day and then go to Japan and sleep in Japan

OK I think I dumped enough dumb shit out of my brain for the day

UFC 90 results

2008-10-29T20:52:00.000+09:00

UFC 90 was quite the night of surprises. Not only did Sean Sherk stand and trade with Tyson Griffin, they got fucking fight of the night. A Sean Sherk fight got fight of the night. I was speechless. It was a pretty decent fight too, good matchup. I was still right, Sherk won by UD but I didn't expect it THAT way.

Fabricio Werdum is gonna have to break out that pb&j crap earlier than I thought because Dos Santos knocked his fucking head off. I thought his head was gonna pop off like a rock-em sock-em robot, it was awesome.

Gray Maynard won but was boring as shit, and most of my picks were right so I was happy. Two things though.

Thiago Alves vs. Josh Koscheck fucking ruled. Josh Koscheck must have quite a chin because some of the shit that Alves hit him was looked like it hit HARD. It went to UD but man, what a fight. Alves looked awesome and Koscheck is a trooper. I still don't care for the guy, but if he keeps fighting like that I may have to reluctantly change my mind.

Anderson Silva vs. Patrick Cote sucked ass. Alright, watching Silva dance around and showboat was pretty hilarious. I mean the guy did the capoeira dance move and showed off some wing chun hands and threw some weird ass kicks, but he didn't engage Cote until 3:10 of the first round. Dude didn't throw a single strike for 2 minutes of the fight. It was more dance off than fight.

And Cote can't dance. In round three Cote's knee just exploded and the fight was over, just like that. It was barely a fight. As a fight fan I enjoyed other aspects of it, but if I had paid for the PPV I would have been PISSED. It was still better than Bisping vs. Leben though.

UFC 90 picks

2008-10-25T15:05:00.000+09:00

UFC 90 is tomorrow night in the states, or I guess like 10 AM or something here in Korea. I will watch it and it will be fun. No one will share my enthusiasm but I won't care and I'll tell em allll about it. Thus is my life.

Anderson Silva punches Patrick Cote's french canadian head off, shocks no one

Josh Koscheck vs. Thiago Alves could go one of two ways. Josh Koscheck could lay on Alves for three rounds and get the Unanimous Decision win, or Josh Koscheck could lay on Alves until they get stood up and Alves beats the hell out of him. I'm hoping for the latter in round 3.

Fabricio Werdum is gonna submit Junior Dos Santos and continue to be ignored in the heavyweight division in favor of the likes of professional christmas ham Brock Lesnar. He will become depressed and eat an entire jar of that gross peanut butter and jelly mix that comes in jars with no spoon.

Sean Sherk is unfortunately going to lay on Tyson Griffin and make sweet love to him all night for another boring UD. If we're lucky, Tyson Griffin's better reach will be able to keep Sherk and his T-Rex arms at bay enough to turn the decision in his favor, but I'm not seeing it happening. Perhaps a 15 minute nap will be in order.

Josh Burkman is gonna sub Pete Sell and I see Hermes Franca beating Marcus Aurelio by UD. I wish I could pick Aurelio, especially after the fucking AWESOME armbar he pulled in his last fight, but I can't.

Fuck there is gonna be a lot of decisions. I'm gonna be drinking pretty heavily for 11 AM, look what you are making me do SEAN SHERK I HOPE YOU ARE ASHAMED.

Gray Maynard is most famous for KOing himself in a fight against Rob Emerson. After he KOs Rich Clementi let's see if he can do it again. Dan Miller and Thales Leites are gonna sub Matt Horwich and Drew McFedries respectively.

The best part of the night will be another highlight reel KO for Anderson Silva. We can only hope that he shows off some of his sweet dance moves after his win. Also expect some USA USA USA chants by fucking drunk retards who don't realize that Patrick Cote is canadian.

lets watch someone get punched in the dick

2008-10-24T23:53:00.000+09:00

So in stressful times like this, I can always find comfort in watching someone get punched in the dick.

Ok so you aren't allowed to punch people in the dick in the UFC anymore, but there was a time...Joe Son got punched in the dick about a million times in an oooold UFC fight back in 1994. Back when that kind of stuff was allowed. Not anymore. People criticize the old days of the UFC. It was far too violent, emphasis on brutality over sportsmanship and appreciation of the martial arts.

Counter-point: Joe Son was recently (a few weeks back) charged with assault and rape from an incident that occured in 1990. By coincidence a few years later, he was also punched in the dick a lot. Sweet, sweet justice baby.

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=z4iZ-NEz-mg&feature=related

witch hunt

2008-10-24T23:03:00.000+09:00

My co teacher wrote up a 10 page list of things she felt I was doing wrong and took it to the principal. No, I'm being completely serious. 10 pages. I counted. So apparently when she wasn't helping me in the classroom and I was teaching by myself, she was taking notes on how awful I am. Some being as mentally retarded as

-dropping things, even by accident. KOREANS DONT DROP THINGS OK

- complaining that the air quality was very bad that day because it is rude to Korea to say that

- I forgot to write a word on the board and caught my mistake later. UNFORGIVABLE.

I mean there was literally 10 pages of...this. It's fucking drivel and it's a fucking witch hunt. I haven't had help in lesson planning or in the classroom in weeks and I get blindsided with this shit. I had to go into a meeting with her, the principal and the vice principal and be lectured on my "bad behavior". Nevermind that I never got to tell my side of anything and the school policy list that was drawn up BY HER wasn't even fucking in English. I don't know how much longer I can put up with this. I can understand the need for hierarchy in the workplace and I can respect their wishes. They made some good points and I'm sure I'd made an awful lot of honest mistakes. But that's what they are. Honest mistakes. There is no reason to document every little thing you don't like about a person. Thank god my other co-teacher is such a nice lady. I went to her for advice and tried to explain to her my side of things because I was just at a loss. She was very understanding and it sounds like she actually went to bat for me and spoke to the Principal, VP and one of the head teachers so at least I think I received a small amount of representation. So thank you thank you thank you, you are an angel.

gonna go die now

ps FUUUUCK

Yippie Ki-Yay Motherfucker

2008-10-18T20:36:00.001+09:00

So I'm watching the Die Hard movies for the millionth time and I started thinking about them. I love them all, they are my precious babies and I want to cradle them gently in my arms until they fall asleep.

The first Die Hard is, naturally, the best one. Everything about it is perfect and Urkel's fat dad makes a pretty good sidekick to John McClane. The second one is not as good as the first, but the name is Die Hard 2: Die Harder and I just gotta say bravo hollywood. I still enjoy it. His main sidekick in this one is some janitor dude at the airport. The third one gets back to form pairing John McClane with Sam Jackson as they run around New York looking for bombs hidden in the city. It strays a bit from the formula, the first one was about a lone man in a clausterphobic setting hiding and using his wits to get the upper hand on the bad guys. But all in all, a pretty good movie.

A lot of people weren't happy with the fourth movie, Live Free or Die Hard. Surprise surprise, I loved it. It's Die Hard. I love all Die Hards. I want them to make Die Hard until it mashes up with Weekend at Bernie's and some dumb teenagers have to prop up John McClane's dead body in different positions to solve some mystery.

Anyways, I did feel like one thing was missing from Live Free or Die Hard.

I mean besides Bruce Willis' hair.

John McClane was back, had...most of the same attitude, though he swore a whole lot less. It still felt like him. The stunts were a bit more outrageous this time around. By a bit more outrageous I mean he launched a car into a helicopter and then later drove a mach truck up a collapsing bridge while being chased by a harrier jet. You know, day at the office stuff.

But in all the Die Hard movies, John McClane has a black sidekick. In the first movie John McClane's sidekick is a black cop played by Reginald VelJohnson, or Urkel's dad on Family Matters. In the second movie his black sidekick is some airport worker played by some dude I've never heard of. In the third movie, his black sidekick is none other than Samuel L. Jackson.

But in the fourth movie, John McClane's black sidekick is Justin Long.

Justin Long is a terrible black sidekick.

this is why Korea rules

2008-10-18T02:25:00.000+09:00

LOOK AT THIS FUCKIN STATUE OF GANDALF GUYS

IT'S HUGE

IT'S HERE FOR KINDA NO REASON

YESSSSSSSS

fighting!

2008-10-18T01:53:00.000+09:00

So on Saturday UFC 89 is on which should be pretty good. The main event is between Michael "EES FOOKIN STANDIN" Bisping and Chris "Daddy Issues" Leben, which really shouldn't be a main event but i guess who died and made me Dana White? I'm going with Bisping by Unanimous Decision but it's very possible Leben will get beat on for three rounds and then catch Bisping with some looping punch from the outside because Leben's got more chin than a...something chinese.

Akihiro Gono vs. Dan Hardy should be good, if nothing other than the fact that Joe Rogan is gonna rip on Gono for the whole fight like he did last time and Rogan is gonna eat his own words when Hardy gets beaten senseless by a man wearing zebra print shorts. Word is that Gono has prepared another awesome outfit and entrance, so I'm praying that the UFC actually shows it. Whatever he's got planned has got to be better than most the other assholes walking out to some nu-metal crap. Maybe DJ Gozma will make his return...??

Luis Cane vs Sokoudjou should be a quick RD1 KO for SOKO, and Shane Carwin is gonna beat the ass out of Neil Wain.

Keith Jardine is gonna leg kick Brandon Vera so bad his legs are gonna look like a pack of skittles, but I see it going to a UD for Jardine.

All in all a pretty decent night of fights and since it's in England we are going to see a lot of really shitty british fighters with no wrestling get messed up so it should be fun

comatose

2008-10-18T01:35:00.000+09:00

So I caught a touch of the bubonic plague on monday and I've been fighting that off all week. Teaching kids by yourself when you're coughing up a lung and feeling like you're about to pass out is excruciating but I made it through the week. It was kinda messed up, I was shivering like a chihuahua in a freezer on wednesday in my office, I actually went home early so I could go comatose in my apartment. Maybe I should buy one of those masks I see people wearing on the subway.

Alas, it's friday night and I'm spending the night in coughing and watching crappy movies on TV. Right now there is some show on where I think a woman is being possessed by flying playing cards and now she showed her boobs for no reason so I guess things could be worse? I know the first thing I would do if I was possessed by a cartoon devil on a playing card is rip off my dress in front of the mirror so at the very least this show is true to life. Oh no she passed out no more boobs and now she is a brunette. Just a dream!

Hahahahahahha best line of this show

"I gave myself an erection today!"

First post, one month in Korea, and why my fourth graders rule

2008-10-07T23:37:00.001+09:00

Can't say I've ever been much of the blogging type but I figure this is going to be the best way for friends and family to keep tabs on how I'm doing these days in South Korea.

So this is where I work in Korea.

I've been working here for a month and it's been great. Compared to Elementary Schools in the USA this thing is MASSIVE. It's bigger than my high school back home. They don't really do grass here in Korea, all the fields are like dirt for some reason. Maybe there is grass under the dirt, it's like when you tear up carpet and find hardwood floor.

I teach 4th and 6th grade at the school and the kids are great. They're really funny, there have been a couple of occasions where I had to stop class for a minute because I was laughing too hard at something some kid yelled at me. The best was when I showed a picture of a Korean fighter to demonstrate tall vs. short. So this is Hong-Man Choi and Fedor Emelianenko. I'm fairly convinced that Choi is two Korean people in a giant suit using an elaborate pulley and lever mechanism to move around but I have been unable to test my theory.

So Choi is part giraffe and Fedor is just plain the best heavyweight MMA fighter in the world. They fought last new years eve, and apparently it was a pretty big deal here in Korea. So I ask the kids who Choi is and they could all answer that no problem. But then they started yelling out "FEDOR!" at me and that took me back a bit. I mean I'm a huge fighting fan but most of my friends back home have no idea who Fedor Emelianenko is unless you were unfortunate enough to get trapped in a corner while I talked your ear off about fighting (sorry). These 10 year old kids all knew who the best heavyweight MMA fighter in the world was. My 4th graders rule.

So anyways, the funniest bit comes when kids start yelling "ARMBAR!" at me and I just start laughing and I can't stop. Little 4th graders shouting submission moves I guess is my weakness.

And yes, Fedor did indeed win by armbar.

I get the feeling I'm going to write about fighting a lot here too.