“World’s Apart: Paulo Filho, Choi Hong-man, and TNA in Hong Kong”

With the North American debut of Paulo Filho this Saturday, World Extreme Cagefighting has add one of the world’s top middleweights to its roster. Filho fighting for WEC is an interesting development as it concerns the UFC’s middleweight stable. With both the UFC and WEC falling under the same Zuffa umbrella, one wonders why the decision was made to send Filho to the smaller promotion, particularly since the UFC’s MW division is somewhat thin on top. UFC President Dana White has talked of how he wants all the best fighters in the UFC, yet Filho will fight for the WEC. Rather than groom him as a potential UFC MW title challenger, Zuffa puts Filho against Joe Doerksen to crown WEC’s version of that same belt. In a piece of trivia, Filho was once scheduled to face UFC MW Champion Anderson Silva; the two were to meet at PRIDE 21. Now, despite being in the same company, they are once again worlds apart. But, the UFC’s loss is truly WEC’s gain.

A black belt in both Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – a medalist in the Judo junior world championships, a five-time Brazilian BJJ champion, and a three-time World BJJ champion – Filho is a grappler of the highest order. He’s often been compared to light heavyweight standout, and fellow Brazilian Top Team member, Ricardo Arona and for good reason. Not only do the two share a similar muscular physique, deep tan, facial features, and numerous tattoos, they’re both specialists at forcing an opponent to play their game. Filho is a fighter that gets people down and keeps them there. He rarely makes mistakes, always capitalizes on someone else’s, and embodies the jiu-jitsu saying of, “Position before submission.” In his 14-fight MMA career, no one has managed to stop Filho’s takedown and smothering top game. And smothering is often the best word to describe Filho; he once had an opponent mounted and did so little the referee called for a standup.

Still, though he can be “methodical” in his approach to fighting - he’s finished exactly half his fights - there’s no questioning his success. There are quite a few undefeated fighters out there, but many of them have records build on the backs of lesser foes – not Filho. Though he has yet to secure that one career defining victory, such as the one Silva earned when he destroyed Rich Franklin, the man sometimes known as Paulao has wins over the likes of Ikuhisa Minowa, Amar Suloev, Kazuo Misaki, Yuki Kondo, and Murilo “Ninja” Rua.

Filho joins Urijah Faber as WEC fighters that are universally recognized as #1, or near it, in their respective divisions and he brings immediate credibility to a shallow talent pool. There’s a chance that Filho won’t fight anyone better than his past opposition for the foreseeable future. There are actually a number of solid matches on the horizon for Filho, just none that immediately jump to mind as ones a fight fan will salivate at seeing. The new WEC is still just that: new. As such it will probably take some time for a depth of quality talent to emerge. In addition to Doerksen, Filho has potential fights against Joe Riggs and Jason Miller to look forward to – solid, but not great fighters.

Those tuning in on Saturday and watching Filho for the first time may be disappointed. He’s not flashy and his style won’t soon be confused with hyper-active grapplers like Clay Guida, but he’s good. Paulo Filho is damn good.

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An American White Guy in Hong Kong

In other news, K-1 is putting on a show in Hong Kong where the Asia Grand Prix champion will be crowned with the winner going on to the World Grand Prix. I’m vacationing in HK and as such will be in attendance. Typical of a K-1 event, there are familiar faces, Musashi and Fujimoto, and a few odd balls, like former Sumo Henry “Sentoryu” Miller, competing in the eight-man tournament. The super-fights see Badi Hari taking on Peter Graham and the legendary Peter Aerts facing Nicholas Pettas.

The most interesting bout features Gary Goodridge challenging Choi Hong-man. This is particularly fascinating as Choi is supposed to be in California for a hearing as to whether he’s fit to fight – a hearing scheduled for the next day! I’ve been trying to figure out if this is even logistically possible. The HK show starts at 3 PM local time, and there isn’t a single flight on united.com that leaves after that time. The best I can figure is Choi could catch an 11 AM flight on August 6th (which is approximately 8 PM, August 5th California time) and arrive in CA at somewhere around 2:30 PM August 6th. I’d love to be a fly in the meeting room when a surrogate has to explain, “I’m sorry, Commissioner Garcia, but Mr. Choi isn’t present right now. He’s missed this meeting to decide if he’s fit to fight because he was in Hong Kong … fighting.”

By traditional standards, the tickets aren’t that expensive. The VIP section is going for HK $1,200, or roughly US $150, and the cheap seats (“C Reserve”) are HK $180, or US $22. Both the VIP and C Reserve were sold out as of a few days ago (though the website now lists tickets available, so who knows what’s going on) and I found that many of the “B Reserve” (HK $300) were gone as well. I did manage to secure two good seats in the HK $500 section (“A Reserve”) though. If my experience with the K-1 Dynamite!! spectacular in Los Angeles is any indication, many of those in attendance will be Japanese that fly in for the show.

This is the first time a major promotion has come to Hong Kong and there is some local buzz. There have been stories in the local paper talking about the show and a few commercials here and there. I’ve also seen posters for a Thai Boxing event that takes place on August 18th and features British and Swedish fighters amongst others. I doubt this is the beginning of a combat sports boom in Hong Kong, but there’s interest in fighting on some level.

And, before I go, I’ll recount one little nugget of humor that I’m certain everyone reading will appreciate. I was talking to the cousin of my girlfriend and he mentioned that he watches TNA. He then asked, “Does everyone in America watch TNA?” I felt like a jerk for laughing but I couldn’t stop myself. {plug}