No_Mercy

Anyone else feel that the Asian fighters put on much stronger performances seeing the fights was closer to their backyard. They usually tend to fade out towards the latter rounds, but none seem to have any issues.

Points to consider.

- major time difference + jet lag = lack of sleep
- different cuisines which would make it harder to adapt.
Food = energy
- training facilities
- dealing with interviews in a foreign territory
- not getting much fan support

Heck even Cung put on a career defining performance as he acknowledged where the Sanshou routes came from.

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Marcus Aurelius: Tell me again, Maximus, why are we here?
Maximus: For the glory of the Empire, sire.

Baked, not fried... the healthy choice.

HaVoK

Not sure how accurate it is, but many have said over the years that is harder for Asian fighters to come to America, then it is on American's who travel to Asia. After witnessing quite a few fights I am starting to believe it to be true.

Voiceless

Out of your points I would only agree on the jet lag issue. Other than that, Asia is NOT a homogenous entity. In fact, there are quite some struggles between the different countries. The major countries have historical issues (in particular wars and war crimes) between each other. China and Japan basically hate each other, Korea and Japan have similar grudges because of war(s). Even at the moment there are territory conflicts between China and Japan about an isle between their coasts (where there's probably oil fields beneath it). China is communist, Korea and Japan are democratic. So for non-Chinese fighters (which were all but one), China is as much a foreign territory as Cuba would be for US fighters, even though it's on the same continent.

But the jet leg issue can really be a hard one. It may very well have quite an impact on their performance.


For the UFC wanting to enter the Chinese market it kind of sucks that Tiequan Zhang of all fighters that night didn't get the win as he was the only Chinese fighter.

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John8204

Eh, they went 6-5* you can argue Nedkov had the "home court advantage, and Hyun Gyu Lim basically forfeited his fight.

Also their field of opponents you can manipulate their current records of going into this event or coming out of it as looking fairly terrible...

Rich Franklin(3-4)
Thiago Silva(1-3-1)
Mac Danzig(3-6)
Paulo Thiago(1-4)
Jeff Hougland(0-2)
Alex Caceres(3-5)
John Lineker(0-1)
Tom DeBlass(0-2)
(David Mitchel (0-2))

So none of those Asian fighters had some absurdly difficult opponent, all winnable fights against respectable and beatable guys.

gazh

To be honest, when some Americans on this forum refer to "European" fighters having home advantage (A British fighter in Sweden for example) it makes me chuckle aswell, Europe is a fragmented continent with dozens of different languages, it is far from a homogenous entity itself.

I feel about as European as i do American, ie. not at all.

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TheLyotoLegion

I'd say the grapple ******* Stun-Gun laid on Paulo Thiago pretty much proves there's some legitimacy to this whole Asians traveling to America thing.

He completely owned and out-classed Thiago in every aspect and it was amazing to watch. Not to mention Hioki did the same with Bartimus back at 144 in Japan.

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Hammerlock2.0

There's obviously an advantage in fighting in your own time zone. I bet if someone were to check up on it he'd find that east coast fighters do better on the east coast than on the west coast. I'd think that applies to fighters from Europe and Asia as well.

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