Home » Feature » Art and Culture
‘Dongbei Tiger’ in big MMA fight in Shanghai
Print Edition
Mixed martial arts is the world’s fastest-growing sport and a glitzy 13-fight event is on tap next week with China’s welterweight champion. It’s the first hometown show in two years for homegrown MMA organization RUFF. Andrew Chin steps into the ring.
With its unique mix of different fighting styles, mixed martial arts (MMA) is the world’s fastest-growing sport with massive fan bases in Japan and South Korea.
The Shanghai-based organization RUFF (Ranik Ultimate Fighting Federation) has been at the forefront of promoting the full-contact sport in China with an ancient tradition of varied martial arts.
It has held glitzy events and matches in Chongqing Municipality, Nanjing in Jiangsu Province, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Sanya in Hainan Province.
Next Saturday, RUFF 10 is set at Shanghai Hongkou Indoor Stadium. It’s the 10th match organized by RUFF and the first hometown fight since its debut event, “RUFF 1: Genesis,” held in August 2011, at Qizhong Forest Sports Center in Minhang District.
RUFF is the first Chinese mixed martial arts organization sanctioned by the General Administration of Sport of China and permitted to crown national MMA champions.
“Ranik” stands for Joel Resnick, CEO, and Saul Rajsky, who founded RUFF in 2007.
The company is pulling out all the stops to promote the sport. Weekly RUFF Thursday parties, complete with ring girls, are rotating through Big Bamboo locations and three RUFF champions will be fighting next Saturday.
The headline event features 66kg welterweight champion Wang “The Dongbei (Northeast) Tiger” Guan against Hong Kong-based Brazilian Sandros Dos Silva in a rematch of one of the company’s most memorable fights.
When RUFF 1 re-aired on SMG, CEO Resnick remembers thinking that the 250,000 viewers “were the biggest thing.” Since then, RUFF events attract nearly eight million viewers online each time. Events are held roughly every 10 weeks across the country.
Each event features 13 fights and follows the world standard Unified Rules of MMA. Last year’s 10-episode reality TV show, “RUFF: Journey,” delved into the fighters’ personal stories and was watched by nearly 30 million viewers.
Although RUFF has taken great strides over the past two years, Resnick says it’s been a seven-year journey.
The 52-year-old Toronto businessman had been living in Shanghai for 12 years, running a clothing company. “Then my son suggested I start an MMA league because I loved MMA so much and don’t like golf.”
Rather than importing oversea fighters for one-off events, RUFF focused on a homegrown plan of developing young Chinese fighters.
“They saw how genuine we were about building a sport in China for China,” Resnick says. “Our job at RUFF is to promote MMA, the fights and the fighters. If we can build fighters into stars, then RUFF will grow.”
The company is part of a growing MMA ecosystem that includes fight camps and gyms investing in the sport’s development. The number of MMA gyms and teams across the country has increased, and Resnick praises people like Bobo (Wu Xing) at K1 Club in Tianjin for mentoring young fighters.
“We wanted to invest in the fighters, the athletes and the camps,” he says. “Gyms are making investments and bringing in top trainers from Brazil and North America.
Club memberships are going up and more women and kids are doing MMA.”
And most of the audience are women.
So far the events regularly fill 4,000- to 6,000-seat arenas across the country and have received global attention. TV personality Karyn Bryant recently profiled RUFF fighters during their Sanya event for MMA H.E.A.T., an online site and TV program on the sport.
“RUFF is doing something very special, trying to grow organic Chinese MMA superstars,” says Bryant, former MTV and CNN personality. “I was very impressed with the fighters I spoke with. While they all display a great sense of the warrior spirit, they are also quite charming and humble.”
While Resnick still encounters skepticism about a Chinese homegrown MMA organization, he sees the sport growing through its natural early stages.
“The fighters were always here and being trained,” he explains. “The great thing (about MMA) is that it’s a super sport that mixes up all of these components. So China always had the wrestlers, boxers and judo guys who are now starting to mix it up and learn these other disciplines. We’re seeing surprises each time with the fighters becoming more multi-dimensional.”
Resnick cites RUFF 10’s headliner Wang Guan as an example. The former national Sanda champion has been training in martial arts since 2000. The Liaoning native has been preparing for his upcoming fight by “training on my weakness by strengthening my ground defense.”
The fight will be the first for Wang since he captured the title at the RUFF signature 1-million-yuan (US$163,286) Super Fight in February.
“I was extremely excited and so were my family and friends,” Wang says. “They witnessed this great moment on TV and sent congratulations as soon as it was announced.”
As China’s MMA community grows and receives more international attention, Resnick is watching the evolution of the fighters and the crowds. Submissions from young aspiring local fighters are at an all-time high and the RUFF CEO notes that the entertainment value at RUFF events keep growing.
“People are pretty quiet at first because it’s real fighting but after a couple of fights they really get into it,” he says. “The fighters are seeing that part of sport is entertainment and you’re seeing a lot of their personalities finally come out.
“All these kids have visions of grandeur and they want to be big.”
The audience is predominantly women. Resnick jokes, “We were shocked, but come on, we have a bunch of good-looking young guys in great shape rolling around on a mat.”
RUFF 10
Date: August 24, 6:30pm
Venue: Hongkou Indoor Stadium, 715 Dongtiyuhui Rd
Tickets: 80-1,880 yuan
For more information, visit www.ruffchina.com.
(Andrew Chin is a Shanghai-based freelancer.)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
