The UFC is determined to capitalize on the sport’s burgeoning popularity in China, a country rediscovering its rich martial arts heritage. As China further opens its athletic endeavors to the world following the Beijing Olympics, Chinese athletes increasingly are participating in boxing and martial arts, which were discouraged or banned during the Cultural Revolution.
China has native MMA promotions, but nothing on the UFC’s scale. The UFC recently hired Mark Fischer, a former NBA executive who’s working to get the UFC’s fights on regular television in China.
Zhang Tiequan, who makes his US debut tonight at WEC 51, was discovered by Sean Shelby, the WEC’s matchmaker and a longtime sanshou student tasked by the UFC with finding China’s best fighters. Shelby crisscrossed the country for three weeks, starting on the northern border and moving all the way down to Hong Kong on his fact-finding mission.
“The thing that amazed me was the spirit of the Chinese people and the Chinese athlete,” Shelby said. “There’s absolutely no quit in them, and that’s something you just can’t teach an athlete. You either have it or you don’t. It’s the intangible. When they have the jiujitsu to go with the sanda, there’s no telling how far they can go.”
Shelby attended a local fight card and saw wildly differing levels of athletes, including far more skilled heavyweights than he ever imagined. But when Shelby scouted the Chinese Top Team, a Beijing outfit run by a Brazilian coach, he immediately liked Zhang’s toughness, his advanced kickboxing skills and his 16-0 record.
“If you’re going to be a successful MMA fighter, you have to be a good Greco-Roman wrestler,” Shelby said. “They decide where the fight goes. … If you have that kind of resume, you’re set up to do very well, no matter where you come from. Chinese or not, he’s got potential.”
Shelby has identified several more Chinese fighters who could be added to the promotion. He thinks Chinese MMA will grow along with a proliferation of schools teaching Brazilian jiujitsu, the grappling and ground-fighting discipline that’s so important in MMA.
But nobody will know just how quickly this experiment will move until Zhang steps into the octagon on Thursday night.
UFC’s three week scouting mission to China
The UFC is determined to capitalize on the sport’s burgeoning popularity in China, a country rediscovering its rich martial arts heritage. As China further opens its athletic endeavors to the world following the Beijing Olympics, Chinese athletes increasingly are participating in boxing and martial arts, which were discouraged or banned during the Cultural Revolution. China…
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