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Guy had potential. Kim must have hit him so hard it convinced him to give up the sport.
yeah, he certainly got cracked by kim. murata's career was an interesting one and i wish it had lasted longer.
 
HEAT going all out with HEAT 40, seems like pretty much all of their titles will be up for grabs. All 3 that they have announced so far feature a challenger from Team MAD.

Lightweight Championship Tournament Finals
Rae Yoon Ok vs Yasuaki Kishimoto
Ok is one of Team MAD's top prospects at the moment riding a 6 fight win streak that includes wins over ROAD China Trials contestant Habiti Tuerxunbieke and long time Pancrase ranker Eiji Ishikawa.
Kishimoto gets a 2nd chance in the tournament due to Tom Santos bouncing for ROAD's Lightweight Tournament. He's a former DEEP title challenger and holds a recent win over ROAD International Trials competitor Won Bin Ki.

Flyweight Title Fight
Takeshi Kasugai (champion) vs Nam Jin Jo (challenger)
Kasugai has quietly become one of Japan's best Flyweights in the last few years. Since coming up short for the ROAD interim title in 2015, he has gone on a 6 fight winning streak with wins over then King of Pancrase Kiyotaka Shimizu, former GRACHAN and HEAT Bantamweight champ and UFC vet Motonobu Tezuka, and Kyu Sung Kim. He was the HEAT BW champ as well but has since vacated the belt.
Jo is the former ROAD champ and has been competing since he was a Freshman in high school. He has long been one of Korea's biggest representatives in the lighter divisions.

Welterweight Title Fight
Nelson Carvalho (champion) vs Sung Won Son (challenger)
Carvalho is coming off of a split decision loss against Efrain Escudero outside of the promotion, he holds a win over former King of Pancrase Gota Yamashita.
Sung Won Son has been around since some of the earliest days of Korean MMA, starting out in MARS and Spirit MC. HEAT lists his record as 13-6 so it's possible some bouts are missing from his western records. Also I haven't seen his last 2 fights but I get the feeling the decisions were probably iffy considering the promotion and the guys he fought.
 
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HEAT going all out with HEAT 40, seems like pretty much all of their titles will be up for grabs. All 3 that they have announced so far feature a challenger from Team MAD.

Lightweight Championship Tournament Finals
Rae Yoon Ok vs Yasuaki Kishimoto
Ok is one of Team MAD's top prospects at the moment riding a 6 fight win streak that includes wins over ROAD China Trials contestant Habiti Tuerxunbieke and long time Pancrase ranker Eiji Ishikawa.
Kishimoto gets a 2nd chance in the tournament due to Tom Santos bouncing for ROAD's Lightweight Tournament. He's a former DEEP title challenger and holds a recent win over ROAD International Trials competitor Won Bin Ki.

Flyweight Title Fight
Takeshi Kasugai (champion) vs Nam Jin Jo (challenger)
Kasugai has quietly become one of Japan's best Flyweights in the last few years. Since coming up short for the ROAD interim title in 2015, he has gone on a 6 fight winning streak with wins over then King of Pancrase Kiyotaka Shimizu, former GRACHAN and HEAT Bantamweight champ and UFC vet Motonobu Tezuka, and Kyu Sung Kim. He was the HEAT BW champ as well but has since vacated the belt.
Jo is the former ROAD champ and has been competing since he was a Freshman in high school. He has long been one of Korea's biggest representatives in the lighter divisions.

Welterweight Title Fight
Nelson Carvalho (champion) vs Sung Won Son (challenger)
Carvalho is coming off of a split decision loss against Efrain Escudero outside of the promotion, he holds a win over former King of Pancrase Gota Yamashita.
Sung Won Son has been around since some of the earliest days of Korean MMA, starting out in MARS and Spirit MC. HEAT lists his record as 13-6 so it's possible some bouts are missing from his western records. Also I haven't seen his last 2 fights but I get the feeling the decisions were probably iffy considering the promotion and the guys he fought.
War team MAD!
 
Hey, can u tell me about
do you think whatever TFC Dream 3 event is it is worth checking out? Or is that like a lower level event to try to get into main TFC event?

I prob will go to Seoul couple days before that, and wondering if worth the extra money to stick around for this?

Anyone here train at KTT or KZ? I been to KZ before, but what is Pro team sparring at KTT like?
 
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Hey, can u tell me about
do you think whatever TFC Dream 3 event is it is worth checking out? Or is that like a lower level event to try to get into main TFC event?

I prob will go to Seoul couple days before that, and wondering if worth the extra money to stick around for this?

Anyone here train at KTT or KZ? I been to KZ before, but what is Pro team sparring at KTT like?
Yeah, TFC DREAM is basically a rookie series so it's mostly newer fighters. The events are still pretty entertaining though and usually have some great knockouts. Probably not worth sticking around extra days for but good to go to if you were planning on being in Seoul still.
 
Ji Yeon Seo did pretty well in TFC's ammy league, didn't really notice anything special in her 2 pro fights though. She's a former netball athlete which I don't think I have seen that as a background for a fighter yet. They keep referring to her as "Cage Kim Yuna".
Jung Yoon Choi has a 12-4 Muay Thai/Kickboxing record. She has been called the "2nd Ji Yeon Kim" and was supposed to fight Jin Tang in Kunlun Fight last year but the bout fell through. She doesn't have much in the way of technique but she makes up for it with nonstop aggression and power.
Here's her only pro MMA fight


Young Joo Lee was undefeated in TFC's amateur league and trains out of a Shooto gym. She's also a national Sport Sambo champion but I haven't seen her fight.
Jae Choi is out of Korean Top Team but sounds like she has no prior experience and only got into MMA via Crossfit, I think she's also older than the rest of the girls.
Song Bok Heo is a former Korean kickboxing champ and did pretty well in TFC's ammy league.
Han Sol Jang finished Song Bok Heo in TFC's ammy league

On the guy's side there are Jun Yong Lee who is 3-0 as a pro and Doo Ri Song who gave Yokota a tough fight a few years back and trains out of Jong Man Kim's gym.
 
Young Joo Lee was undefeated in TFC's amateur league and trains out of a Shooto gym. She's also a national Sport Sambo champion but I haven't seen her fight.


Any idea if they're actually affiliated with Shooto? I know Paraestra has several branches in Korea.
 
Does anyone think Road FC will ever go back to Busan? I realize Seoul is the population center of the country, but one would think that the second largest city, also being the home of Team MAD, would be a target, especially since they haven't left Korea at all so far this year, likely due to the anti Korea protests in China over THAAD. I mean, they've even had several events in Gangwando, even though it's been a while for there, too, and that's mountainous countryside.

Looks like DEEP JEWELS Middleweight champ Ji Yeon Kim has officially signed with the UFC

About time it's official. Curious who she'll face, as she's expected to fight in Singapore still. Probably gonna be someone way above her, as befits Korean fashion, although UFC probably doesn't even realize that.
 
They seem pretty set on Seoul and Ilsan (most of their ammy events take place there), Busan has a high population but maybe they don't feel that it's a big market just yet. As far as international events, I wonder if they still plan on going to Japan twice this year, seems clear that the one scheduled for next month isn't going to happen.
 
They seem pretty set on Seoul and Ilsan (most of their ammy events take place there), Busan has a high population but maybe they don't feel that it's a big market just yet. As far as international events, I wonder if they still plan on going to Japan twice this year, seems clear that the one scheduled for next month isn't going to happen.
Cha's defense against Choi was originally set for May. Seems that fight's cancelation has set everything back by at least 1 month.

Road seems pretty adaptable, to say the least. Not scheduling anything for China for the first half of the year, after moving their last scheduled event there back to Korea, was good business foresight.
 
Okay, I have to vent/question something I've been seeing. I follow a lot of Korean fighters on Facebook/IG, and they're always traveling in nice vehicles; BMWs, cars with nice leather interiors (good leather), luxury cars, etc.

Are these guys getting taking care of by good sponsors, or are the living "Gangnam style" and massing huge credit card debt?

Even if nobody is sure of the answer, I just had to put this out there.
 
Chances are they were already rich or are going the way of many athletes and will be bankrupt in the future. There are a few guys on the scene that could probably afford those cars but not many.

I guess Chan Mi Jeon is bypassing Invicta and is now fighting JJ Aldrich on short notice in the UFC. Not a fan of that at all, she's way too green of a fighter and needed that Invicta experience.

Looking through her Instagram it seems like she has been spending a lot of time recently at Tiger Muay Thai with Dae Hwan Kim. Pretty sure they are dating judging by the amount of selfies together and the amount of hearts used.
https://www.instagram.com/1ove.chan/
 
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Chances are they were already rich or are going the way of many athletes and will be bankrupt in the future. There are a few guys on the scene that could probably afford those cars but not many.

I guess Chan Mi Jeon is bypassing Invicta and is now fighting JJ Aldrich on short notice in the UFC. Not a fan of that at all, she's way too green of a fighter and needed that Invicta experience.

Looking through her Instagram it seems like she has been spending a lot of time recently at Tiger Muay Thai with Dae Hwan Kim. Pretty sure they are dating judging by the amount of selfies together and the amount of hearts used.
https://www.instagram.com/1ove.chan/
Where did you see something about her matching up with Aldridge?
 
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Does anyone think Road FC will ever go back to Busan? I realize Seoul is the population center of the country, but one would think that the second largest city, also being the home of Team MAD, would be a target, especially since they haven't left Korea at all so far this year, likely due to the anti Korea protests in China over THAAD. I mean, they've even had several events in Gangwando, even though it's been a while for there, too, and that's mountainous countryside.


About time it's official. Curious who she'll face, as she's expected to fight in Singapore still. Probably gonna be someone way above her, as befits Korean fashion, although UFC probably doesn't even realize that.
She's fighting that 1 young fighter from Czech with nice ass and fked lina Lansberg face up on her last fight.
 
Lol, figures. the one mma website I'd never think to check.
I wouldn't have looked either if I hadn't seen the fight mentioned on Twitter and also seen that someone posted about the UFC site adding a profile for her lol
 
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