Media Why is Japan struggling in the UFC?

Pancake Sprawl said:
their culture. it is not conducive to building individuality. MMA is an individual sport. their society is not particularly conducive to violence. it's that simple. sure, not cutting weight and whatever, but you have to be an animal in fighting. you have to be like Kid Yamamoto, or Takanori Gomi. these guys wanted to smash your face.

it's like asking why there's so many Samoan fighters when Samoa is WAY smaller than Japan. that's because Samoa's entire culture is built around violence and fighting. you come from a violent warrior society, guess what, you get violent warriors.
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Japan has one of the most vicious finishers in boxing in Naoya Inoue. They have good boxers in lower weight classes in boxing. They are big in Kick boxing and literally has the biggest MMA org outside of the UFC. They love their combat sports.

The main issue is the lack of wrestling and their size or lack there of. There's just not many big Japanese people that compete in MMA. And in the lower weight classes they would have to be really superb wrestlers to compete with wrestlers from western countries.
 
ElLunico said:
Japan has one of the most vicious finishers in boxing in Naoya Inoue. They have good boxers in lower weight classes in boxing. They are big on Kick boxing and literally has the biggest MMA org outside of the UFC. They love their combat sports.

The main issue is the lack of wrestling and their size or lack there of. There's just not many big Japanese people that compete in MMA. And in the lower weight classes they would have to be really superb wrestlers to compete with wrestlers from western countries.
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Japan is one of the best wrestling nations, and pretty much get more medals than everyone every recent Olympics. Their women in particular are insanely dominant at wrestling (and yet no female UFC champs, as the two are not nearly as connected as people think).

The Japanese fighters today in the UFC are superb wrestlers, and are among the best in the UFC.

The mens team nets multiple medals every year with the most recent one being a gigantic success. Japan is absolutely elite at grappling sports. Grappling has been more popular in Japan for much longer than in the States.


MMA isn't wrestling. People have a hard time accepting this, but most of the best fighters, including those with wrestling bases, are very far from being truly elite wrestlers.
 
1- Historical diets: they didn't eat meat for like 10 centuries (not sure of the figure but it was sthing like that) - until the Meiji era for the History lads. So, you will mostly find them in the small weight classes (guys like Akiyama and lots of big Japanese pro-wrestlers are Ethnic Koreans, so their genes are those of meat-eaters). The currently most talented fighters are Asakura, Taira, Horiguchi, Tsuruya, the guy who beat Moraes and another small guy in Rizin, 125ers, and 135ers (even if there are famous LWs and WWs historically)
2- Competition with other sports/ martial arts: You can make money by being a top Olympian in judo or freestyle wrestling, being a pro boxer, kickboxer, or pro-wrestler, lowering the appeal for MMA. That's why, sometimes, Japanese MMA fighters look like outcasts (Asakura brothers, Kid Yamamoto, Aoki); they were people not interested in traditional martial arts
3- Insular training: Outside Horiguchi, the fighters train in Japan, some even in Okinawa island. It reduces the number of high-level teammates, the diversity of the teammates (for example, they don't have a lot of MMA wrestlers) and the quality of the available coaches (Japan Top Team, where Asakura trains, has an American wrestling coach and an unknown French MT coach)
4- Pride/ Dream/ Rizin: You just make more money fighting locally, which reduces the appeal to join the UFC
 
Japan don't be got no Brazilian trainers...

those Gray-see Wanna-beez ain't helpin' train no Sakuraba wannabees.
ChickenBrother said:
Japan won the most medals at the 2024 Olympics in Judo and wrestling, including 8 golds in wrestling compared to the runners up at 2 golds each for Iran, USA and Bulgaria. And given Japan has always been well-represented in other combat sports, it's fair to say they do well at combat sports they actually care about.

Now someone mentioned sumo and how Mongolians tend to eat the Japanese's bento boxes in their own national sport. That is notable. Japan doesn't fuck around when it comes to sumo and they still do very well but it's interesting that Mongolians for some reason do it better.

View attachment 1089328
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If that dude challenged me, that white thread around his waist would be used to subdue him by tie-ing those little arms and toothpick legs together.
 
Pancake Sprawl said:
their culture. it is not conducive to building individuality. MMA is an individual sport. their society is not particularly conducive to violence. it's that simple. sure, not cutting weight and whatever, but you have to be an animal in fighting. you have to be like Kid Yamamoto, or Takanori Gomi. these guys wanted to smash your face.

it's like asking why there's so many Samoan fighters when Samoa is WAY smaller than Japan. that's because Samoa's entire culture is built around violence and fighting. you come from a violent warrior society, guess what, you get violent warriors.
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Very true, good post. All those guys from Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Maori NZ are crazy strong and tough and can fight with zero training

I used to work with 2 guys from Tonga in my old job, both of them were obese and had never been in a gym in their life and they were incredibly strong and can fight. I remember once when we was all out and there was one of those punch force machines, and they both got crazy high numbers.. on the machine there were stickers of famous people you have to try and beat their score, and Lennox Lewis was at the top and one of those Tongan guys got close to Lennox by like 60 or 70, I can't remember exactly but Lennox Lewis score was like 1450 PSI and one of them got 1390 PSI (or something like that). I was like Damnnnnnnnn.

And nope they never been in a gym in their life and never training nothing. They were both really fat. I was so impressed. I think I got like 480 PSI on it haha :D :D
 
Everyone knows it’s just east to west jet lag.

But this isn’t unique to Japs.

It’s just any Jap org crossover (eg, Murko)
 
HI SCOTT NEWMAN said:
Very true, good post. All those guys from Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Maori NZ are crazy strong
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4ltqw1.jpg
 
nonoob said:
Japan don't be got no Brazilian trainers...

those Gray-see Wanna-beez ain't helpin' train no Sakuraba wannabees.


If that dude challenged me, that white thread around his waist would be used to subdue him by tie-ing those little arms and toothpick legs together.
Click to expand...

I don't know cuz. If that dude was a girl, people would say he has badonkadonks...


1743689000094.png
 
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Hellowhosthat said:
There definitely aren't more Koreans in MMA than there are Japanese.
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there's more Koreans in the UFC though. hell, Hawaii produces a lot of the Japanese dudes who end up in UFC. Dan Ige, Dustin Kimura, Louis Smolka. those are Japanese dudes JUST from Hawaii.
 
Pancake Sprawl said:
there's more Koreans in the UFC though. hell, Hawaii produces a lot of the Japanese dudes who end up in UFC. Dan Ige, Dustin Kimura, Louis Smolka. those are Japanese dudes JUST from Hawaii.
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Japanese standouts earn big money in Asia while UFC does not bid for top talent in lighest divisions.
Even sent Mighty Mouse there.

Otherwise we would've had Horiguchi as UFC champion for a number of years this past decade, and several other Japanese around the rankings, more recently Taira, Asakura or Wakamatsu.
More so if there was male straweight division in UFC.

In others words, no different than in boxing, kickboxing and wrestling when it comes to combat sports: world class in the lightest weightclasses, mediocre in middle-upper.

Anything else is pure sherbroscience
 
Pancake Sprawl said:
their culture. it is not conducive to building individuality. MMA is an individual sport. their society is not particularly conducive to violence. it's that simple. sure, not cutting weight and whatever, but you have to be an animal in fighting. you have to be like Kid Yamamoto, or Takanori Gomi. these guys wanted to smash your face.

it's like asking why there's so many Samoan fighters when Samoa is WAY smaller than Japan. that's because Samoa's entire culture is built around violence and fighting. you come from a violent warrior society, guess what, you get violent warriors.
Click to expand...
If this were true, they wouldn't have created so many martial arts.

Japan has been a powerhouse in combat sports for decades.
 
Japan three years Dagestan and forget
 
Because the UFC is not a country.
 
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