Kunlun is dead?

[Broadcast]

Did they host the last event more than 1 year ago or not? I think they just did not take a break for some months.

What is going one with the Chinese promotions? All are dead in kickboxing? I remember they had Kunlun, Glory Heroes and WLF???????????????????

Why would they stop suddenly, BEFORE the virus? And who had a new studio, not Kunlun?

 

[Loriquero]

Most of these Chinese promotions never were profitable. They only had lots of cash to bring elite kickboxers because they partnered up with local chinese governments who covered the expenses. Two or three years ago I believe the Chinese central government gave the instruction to cut expenses in this field and the least profitable like GoW and Kunlun just started to crumble. GoW didn't bring any elite foreign fighter last year to face Wei Rui and QJL, only second and third tier ISKA champions and shit (like Takeru's next challenger XD) Reading Chinese forums it seems like Wei Rui is returning to WLF soon and QLJ was almost fighting in the "Super Bouts" event that was canceled because of the Covid-19. Kunlun was not able to made their 2019-2020 World Max tournament and 2018 line-up was already weaker than 2016-2017 because most 70KG elite fighters are already in Glory and ONE. Hero Legends is long dead already.

The only consistent events in China now are EM Legend because they never invested strongly on the big stars, they focused in bulding local fighters and bringing not so expensive Japanese and Thai fighters and of course Wu Lin Feng that is the only event I believe makes money with their events because they have huge ratings on Henan TV Channel.

EDIT: About Kunlun, I believe they closed their partnership with Jiangsu TV channel. I'm sure they were giving Kunlun lots of money. Their headquarters were inside the building of Jiangsu TV channel in Beijing. I know it because I went there like 4 years ago

 

[Broadcast]

Really? In China the state can even subsidize kickboxing? The TV partnerships must be huge though at China level. What sucked was that they never had English websites.

Indeed, they both fought guys very known by me, Naccari, old Sasa Jovanovic and Simon Santana. Barely won, should have stopped every of them (all UDs). Koya Urabe exposed Wei Rui. And QJL was kind of protected since long time ago. Fighting home and against fighters under you, can make you such a record. They are a good, but in kickboxing a good fighter is one where goes anywhere. Especially in lower weight classes, where the pressure is not high and you get less dangerous fights (certainly if you are very good you can"t get KOed like in the WW-HW).

Anyway, let"s talk about this slump. I am really curious about what happened besides the virus. Because it happened before.

Do you know what it was in my opinion? The purses of the fighters, and these people had no idea how to develop a product. First of all, they pay them so well, giving huge money to some bums. Secondly, they didn"t want to sell to Europe and even America (their events). Purely amateurism and bad management in my opinion.

I am shocked by how small time they were in the field. Probably the governement also intervened. And honestly there might be something about the television in China we don"t know. It"s also linked to the state I suppose. Otherwise how to fall like this when TV money should have been huge? I don"t know if it"s still happening, but not long time ago (maybe in London 2012 or before) some Chinese gymnasts and very mature were beaten to train to get medals. I remember this.

Wu Lin Feng still putting shows? And isn"t Henan in the area of Wuhan?

I really wished there would still be more Chinese/Japanese on this forum.

Overall these guys anyway had millions. Today it"s hard everywhere to put shows of hundreds/millions. Look even at Glory. This is the level in kickboxing. I can"t say it decreased, but they don"t concentrate values anymore. Because we have no billionaires. I have connections, they always negotiates. Sometimes not for much money, they lose big talents. And those talents ever prefer boxing/MMA. Boxing overall sucks, but it"s popular and in America they get huge TV money. And more millionaires are there. But overall now boxing is not looking good, I can"t say really it improved. In some areas a little yes, in other areas it increased. Overall kickboxing on the planet is at a good level almost everywhere. And MMA is for America, maybe Russia and that"s all. It"s pretty much hated in Western Europe.

Too bad, China I can apprecciate it was on a good track. But money don"t grow up in trees. Even the TV productions, being national TVs, they are so mediocre for the level of the Western world. I mean these people have a lot, a lot of money. In developing or developed countries population counts.

 

[Loriquero]

Wu Lin Feng still putting shows? And isn"t Henan in the area of Wuhan?

I really wished there would still be more Chinese

I lived 11 years in China so I'm a little bit chinese. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei Province. Henan is another province and the capital is Zhengzhou. Is also kinda the cradle of chinese martial arts, and they have the famous Shaolin Temple in that province. (Close to another city called Luoyang)

Are you kidding me? WLF is really active right now. They did a hell of a 67KG tournament last year and the finals were in January 2020. (Jia Aoqi, Tawanchai, Liu Yaning, Petchtanong) you can see the whole event here (Password: wwwhula8net) or some highlights on my blog. Even your guy Adrian Maxim was fighting there... Lara Fernandez, Zhao Chongyang, Zhu Shuai, Fu Gaofeng were all there.

 

[Blazeblack]

Most of these Chinese promotions never were profitable. They only had lots of cash to bring elite kickboxers because they partnered up with local chinese governments who covered the expenses. Two or three years ago I believe the Chinese central government gave the instruction to cut expenses in this field and the least profitable like GoW and Kunlun just started to crumble. GoW didn't bring any elite foreign fighter last year to face Wei Rui and QJL, only second and third tier ISKA champions and shit (like Takeru's next challenger XD) Reading Chinese forums it seems like Wei Rui is returning to WLF soon and QLJ was almost fighting in the "Super Bouts" event that was canceled because of the Covid-19. Kunlun was not able to made their 2019-2020 World Max tournament and 2018 line-up was already weaker than 2016-2017 because most 70KG elite fighters are already in Glory and ONE. Hero Legends is long dead already.

The only consistent events in China now are EM Legend because they never invested strongly on the big stars, they focused in bulding local fighters and bringing not so expensive Japanese and Thai fighters and of course Wu Lin Feng that is the only event I believe makes money with their events because they have huge ratings on Henan TV Channel.

EDIT: About Kunlun, I believe they closed their partnership with Jiangsu TV channel. I'm sure they were giving Kunlun lots of money. Their headquarters were inside the building of Jiangsu TV channel in Beijing. I know it because I went there like 4 years ago

To bad about Kunlun, really liked that show. Good to hear WLF is still in the green. Maybe they can pickup the slack.

 

[jondoe1979]

To bad about Kunlun, really liked that show. Good to hear WLF is still in the green. Maybe they can pickup the slack.

Only WLF is active now. In fact, they sort of clean up their act after the split with GOH. And with yi long and his contemporaries more or less retired. On the flip side , they dun really have any Chinese fighters for the locals to rally behind

 

[Kanka]

I always thought the Chinese promotions seemed rather amateurish in their production. But the Kunlun tournaments were very stacked

Wei Rui is good, losing against another top kickboxer is not getting "exposed" IMO. Top fighters like Kaew and Petrosyan also got caught. The excessive weight cut may have affected Wei Rui's chin though, i think he usually fought at 63 kg. Studies have shown that dehydration cause a greater risk of concussion.

Also i'd say China is a good kickboxing nations with fighters like Qiu Jian Liang, Yang Zhuo, Wei Rui, Wei Ningui, Wang Wengfeng, Zhu Shuai etc

 

[Loriquero]

they dun really have any Chinese fighters for the locals to rally behind

Their bet is still Fu Gaofeng.

These are the Weibo followers os some chinese Kickboxers:

Only Yi Long has over one millon. Fu Gaofeng is the second most popular. with more than 2 thousand followers. I just check Zhang Weili and she is just a little bit over 1million right now. I don't know why her fight against Joanna was really followed on the media, but when she won the title against Bate-Estaca in China I didn't see that many chinese mainstream outlets showing the news.

 

[Broadcast]

QJL and Wei Rui really not many considering it"s China. I personally don"t think kickboxing was a draw in China, according to their numbers. The only good created product was Yi Long.

Even your guy Adrian Maxim was fighting there... Lara Fernandez, Zhao Chongyang, Zhu Shuai, Fu Gaofeng were all there.

I know, they also had Corbeanu, Peţenchea, Bublea, etc. But they are maximum B fighters, Peţenchea is a C (though he is a world champion in savate) and Bublea is like a D (overrated Muay Thai who tried to switch for KB). The A-class in Romania are Stoica brothers, Ghiță, Adegbuyi, Cătinaș, Moroșanu, Paraschiv, Iftimoaie, Ciobanu, probably also Spetcu. Mitu and Ristea, and maybe even Ostrovanu can also jump into A after the latest developments. Gafencu, Lambagiu and Cozmâncă closer than them to the A pool, I am waiting to see more tests for them. Adrian Maxim fought even in Glory, but he is a B. Cardoș fought in Glory but is really a C (Pattvean defeats him without problems).

WLF had some agreement with Golden Fighter.

I lived 11 years in China so I'm a little bit chinese.

Really? Wow! What did you do there?

 

[Broadcast]

Kunlun, and Glory Heroes and WFL at their best, would mean like 3 X Eddie Hearn in Britain. Imagine that in Spain - even though China is huge! Or imagine 3 X promotions in Europe at the level of Superkombat. Let"s say Kunlun was a lot still though under It"s Showtime.

I just don"t think kickboxing is a draw in China if besides Yi Long, and maybe Fang Biang a little bit (retired?), nobody is a big star. I don"t know, maybe HWs also attract more.

@ Loriquero

What are the hobbies of the Chinese people? Maybe music like in Japan/Korea, sumo like in Japan, etc? Flowers/horticulture? What? In team sports I only know about volleyball and basketball a little bit.

I'm not sure China has the culture of team sports so much.

Kung-fu comes from China, how big is that there? Maybe far from sumo, because kickboxing is not so loved?

 

[Shadess]

All the kickboxing is on hold, Wu Lin Feng included. Some national sports org told to hold off on events till ~end of April.

Not seen any news about Wu Lin Feng resuming yet, so probably the show they'd normally hold end of this month is not happening, maybe end of next month the situation is good enough, we'll see. They could definitely do a no audience studio show to resume things.

I'm not entirely sure but I think EM is owned by some rich real estate guy or something, so they might be able to go on low money burn mode for forever. Wu Lin Feng, in my estimation at least, isn't profitable. All my info is basically through google translate so it's always a little bit fuzzy, having followed the China scene for 5+years now I still generally understand the basics . They tried to privatise Wu Lin Feng last year (or was it the year before that already? lol), in 6 months they seemed to have lost $10mil, the company running it left staff unpaid, lawsuits etc. It was a mess.

Wu Lin Feng goes all over the world and they do a bunch of shows so I'm sure they see it as some kinds of soft power/sports diplomacy kind of nonsense too. They like to to post about Canadian/US mayors, politicians etc. having sent them letters of oh how nice it was to work together and way to go China blaablaablaa. It's a tool. The tv channels are in the end basically all government owned so they can to some extent keep subsidising things that they can explain serving some kind of a purpose.

About Kunlun, they're not completely dead yet. The Combat League thing is supposed to continue and the plan is/was to expand them doing an MMA version of it as well. The bigger shows are kind of done, they've seemed to have planned to do 70kg, 75kg, HW and maybe some 60-66kg tournament every year. With ONE and Glory around they are kind of fucked for talent though when they can't really keep them active year around anymore. No Superbon, no Kryklia etc. The shine of their tournaments being great, that time is over unless they really figure something out. The "capital winter" has been a theme with all the main promotions in China and they've sort of openly talked about the financial challenges compared to a few years ago. Now this corona virus bs sure isn't helping things unless the government decides to pour money into sports.

All the bigger Chinese promotions have definitely fumbled on some things. Kunlun should have done a much better job trying to sell the product for tv/streaming internationally in their peak years, instead it mostly came available after that, and people aren't that interested anymore. Wu Lin Feng is a weird one too, they have a decent product and could probably just kind of slap English commentary on it and sell it at least enough to cover the costs of doing that...but naah, why bother. Rizin got government support in Japan towards the internationalization of their shows, no entity in China would do the same?

 

[Broadcast]

Basically Commie-state, it"s present with more money than it"s needed in all the sports. At least they woke up and are not funding anymore mediocrity. Well, they need to change some generations in my opinion. They also built ghost towns. China economy is based the most on natural resources maybe or not just?

I wasn"t aware until your tweets about the situation, that they are off a lot before the virus. Sad, there have been some developments.

 

[Loriquero]

What are the hobbies of the Chinese people? Maybe music like in Japan/Korea, sumo like in Japan, etc? Flowers/horticulture? What? In team sports I only know about volleyball and basketball a little bit.

I'm not sure China has the culture of team sports so much.

Kung-fu comes from China, how big is that there? Maybe far from sumo, because kickboxing is not so loved?

Sumo is not popular at all in China. Majority of Chinese people don't care about Kung Fu-Wushu besides the movies and the TV new year galas were they have those fake Wushu masters. Sanda (Sanshou) has an underground fan base, but anything underground in China can be huge on international terms. Yi Long is genuinely popular in China and a good part of Chinese people would recognize him on the streets, but he is the only one. All the other kickboxers would not be recognized on the streets.

They like to watch Basketball and football. Karaoke, japanese manga, korean soup operas, american movies and pop music

 

[Tayski]

This could mean more signings for One FC who distribute their events internationally much better than Kunlun did.