Are you by anyway Chinese? That's such a Chinese thing to say.
I'm not a citizen nor did I grew up there, however I trained in Chinese Sanda facilities by several members from the national Sanda team, my coach, Liu Xinghu was placed 2nd place in the national competition in 2004 in 75 KG and I know the system far more than you. I'm in fact being toned down and polite about your comment; to be more blunt, I simply don't think you know what you are talking about when you said the government lead organization is limiting the development of athletes. The fact is, without government facilities, none of China's athletes would be even half decent and successful as they are today, and China would just be like India, a third tier sports nation without any athletic accomplishments.
Probably the most tiresome thing to read on these forums are people claiming that X fighter from Y sport could do oh so well in Z sport. Especially when it's never going to happen. It's just pure speculation, no proof, and a ton of excuses.
It's ironic that you would say this when you have no respect for Sanda as a sport and simply want these fighters to transfer over...
But its still happening, and we do see some top Sanda fighters entering other sports, such as Fang Bian, Dong Wenfei, Salikhov Muslim, etc. and since this is just a forum, speculation is just a pass time entertainment similar to gambling and we like to test the validity of our theories. That's all. I just want to make the comment that the top Chinese Sanda talents hasn't entered MMA, and the vast majority of these MMA fighters representing Sanda in RUFF haven't even made it to provincial championship, and that's a fact.
The Sanda organization and the way things work in China are limiting the development of other martial arts in China.
I'm sorry, but you are just pulling things out of your ass right now. The Sanda organization is certainly not limiting the development of other martial arts in China. I don't know what basis you even derived this conclusion from when the opposite is in fact the case. The Sanda organization in fact pushed the development of combat sports in China. After the Sanda matches against other styles, Chinese people are more and more interested in other combat sports like Muay Thai and kickboxing. The amount of Muay Thai, kickboxing, and MMA gyms multiplied in the past decades thanks to the exposure Chinese got from Sanda fighters participating in these events. Why aren't kickboxing and MMA as developed? Because government facilities are more professional and creates top level fighters, those private clubs that symbolizes the "free developments" you talk about only create second and third tier fighters. There is nothing that prevents capitalistic development of private gyms, they just aren't as good as the state sponsored ones.
The fighters there don't really have much choice. You can't even compare that with how things work with the UFC. The MA market in the West is completely open. Athletes can easily go back and forth between organizations when their contract is over. UFC often have fighters leave the organization and come back again at a later stage. This happens in a market with competing organization and not in a non democratic government controlled market. I don't assume anything about what Sanda fighters want, it seems you do though. Why are you against them having more choice?
You are right, you can't compare them, the UFC is in fact
much worse. The Chinese Wushu Association don't bind their fighters with
legal contracts and they only prevent fighters from fighting in other places
while they are actively training under the association; the UFC holds their fighters in contracts and doesn't even release fighters who wants to quit, look at how it fucked up people's careers like Wanderlei and Cung Le.
There is
nothing that prevents Sanda fighters from simply quitting the national team and starting their own gyms and clubs and participate in any professional sports; there isn't a law that binds them like the UFC or Thai gyms. They just don't because the training facilities sponsored by the state is much better (although clubs are slowly improving). Plenty of Sanda fighters took a break from the association, but most just can't hang with the top talent when they return, especially after a long layoff. They chose to remain in the national team because that's where the best training, facilities, and benefits are.
Sanda isn't an Olympic sport, so there is no pressure by the associations for the athletes to stay and compete for China. Even if they are on the national team, fighters often participate in professional matches anyways. Why do you think guys like Bateer and Zhang Kaiyin fights in kickboxing and MMA events? You think that the Martial Association doesn't know about this? No. They are free to fight when they have off time and they simply puts Sanda competitions above the other ones. The fact is, without the Martial Association, these fighters wouldn't even reach the level that they are in now, so fighting in other combat sports won't even be something we should be discussing.
Are fighters completely free? No. But lets not pretend that this is a unique Chinese thing, Thai gyms also control their fighters to an extent, but Chinese fighters at least has the option to quit and there isn't a law to restrict their options. You are delusional if you think the Chinese Wushu association controls all the combat sport markets. The Wu Lingfeng and RUFF are completely independent organizations and the former is bigger professionally.
Why shouldn't other MA sports get the same support as Sanda in China? Get equal chance to grow.
Because Sanda is a national sport and kickboxing and MMA aren't. Is this really a difficult thing to comprehend? Government funding is limited and they are not going to waste money in professional sports that they don't care about. Also, boxing, TKD, and Judo receives even more funding than Sanda because they are Olympic sports. So there are plenty of support for other MA, just not the ones you want.
