The only thing that prevented me from jumping in front of a bus in college was the knowledge that if everything didn't work out, I could always travel to China and be a Shaolin Monk. Whenever your professor tells you that you write like an 'infantile retard,' the 'Shaolin Monk' career option seems just a little bit more reasonable. Traveling the earth, defending the weak, rocking orange apparel everywhere you go and being considered a demi-god by the Wu-Tang Clan is a pretty good way to live the rest of your life. Dan Hardy knew this, and in 2002 (roughly the same time I decided to become a Shaolin Monk), Hardy traveled to China and began flying through the air and balancing his weight on bamboo shoots. It didn't last, however. In fact he went back to Nottingham, England in just a couple months.

The point of that story was to cleverly tie-in the nation of China to a preexisting story of a fighter traveling to China. When I'm on my death bed, I will look upon that previous story and find a thousands ways it could have been connected better, leading to a more natural segue. After I find the correct method, my body will give away and I will travel to whatever great beyond that awaits all of us -- and hopefully wherever it is, they have an Xbox 360 connected to an HDTV. There's no way I'm spending my afterlife with just a Playstation 3. My god, the horror...

The Ranik Ultimate Fighting Federation (RUFF) hails directly from China and has full support of the communist Chinese government in an attempt to nationalize the sport of mixed martial arts. They're serious about this nationalization stuff. The organization won't allow any non-Chinese citizen to compete in RUFF and on the rare occasion, they will accept fighters under the condition they can obtain a work visa from China.

Recently RUFF announced they signed a long-term sponsorship deal with Nike and Ducati, which essentially sets a precedent for all MMA organizations across the world. With the newly acquired financial support, RUFF plans to hold one massive annual event in which title holders from the promotion's seven weight divisions will defend their title, with the winner getting a cool 1,000,000 RMB (or about $158,931). The promotion plans to hold their first super event at some point in 2013.

Look at that, Chinese MMA is growing strong and you didn't even know. Shame on you, and your xenophobia. The next RUFF event is scheduled to go down late in 2012, but check out the highlights from RUFF 3 just below these beautifully executed words. [Source]

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+7 # analXstaphXinfection 2012-05-02 13:56

Best sponsor ever!!!! They have to succeed.

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+16 # Guest 2012-05-02 14:03

Dana is gonna downplay this one, big time. We all know he's gonna be shitting himself behind the scenes.

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+20 # Guest 2012-05-02 14:31

I got 3-1 odds that Dana starts cursing 3 words into his rant about Nike. He has done an amazing job with MMA, but I think a lot of major sponsors are still holding off because he can't complete a sentence without a curse word.

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+1 # GrimsGrind 2012-05-03 06:00

GSP brought alot of major sponsors into the sport...Jon Jones will do the same in the near future..

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-7 # Guest 2012-05-02 14:33

"Ruff" "China" and "Nike." Hmmm...add "Vick" and "Obama" and we have a theme.

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0 # Lefthea D. Kick 2012-05-02 15:39

Ducati is nice and all but they should have been sponsored by RUF:[youtube]ht tp://www.youtub e.com/watch?v=j sGp25liMRQ[/you tube]

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+7 # Guest 2012-05-02 16:43

All the fighters are ripped, the ring girls are hot as hell and the arena looks very professional... And if Nike put its logo in there, you better believe this is for real!

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-5 # Guest 2012-05-02 17:20

This is like when you like a girl, but she instead of going out with you (you are the UFC in terms of men available) she chooses some idiot elsewhere you didn't know about (RUFF in this case). Nike is the girl, for those who didn't get it.

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0 # Guest 2012-05-03 05:42

This interview/artic le with Joel Resnick, the president of RUFF also came out today.
http://english.cri.cn/8046/2012/05/03/45s697065.htm

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+1 # GrimsGrind 2012-05-03 06:01

I wanna fight for RUFF.

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0 # ispitzhotfire 2012-05-03 08:10

What's this video about?? I just kept replaying the :16-:17 mark.

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+2 # Guest 2012-05-03 12:31

and they use the octagon cage and logo? I'm guessing they did not pay the UFC for that.

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0 # Guest 2012-05-04 16:47

those fighters wouldn't last 1 round in the ufc or even Dream but damm they got big titty octagon girls way hotter than that slot arianny

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0 # Guest 2012-05-04 18:04

Holy sheeit....talk about swagger jacking, China you are the champ!

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