Freakshow Fight of the Week: The Hong Man Choi vs Akebono Trilogy

MMA has come a long way since its inception; it has grown from being a gritty toughman-esq competition that just wanted to find out what martial arts style was the best, into a true sporting event and martial art all its own. MMA today looks nothing like it did in the early days and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to reminisce about the good ole’ days.

The one part of MMA we truly miss in its modern form is the “Freakshow Fight”. For those of you who don’t know, a “Freakshow Fight” is a fight that pits two fighters against each other that have no business fighting; generally there is a crazy size difference between the fighters.

So in honor of our love for “Freakshow Fights”, we at The MMA Corner will share our favorite videos of our favorite fights that had no business ever taking place.

This week we turn our attention away from MMA and we focus on K-1 kickboxing. While K-1 was an elite combat sports promotion known for putting on some of the world’s best kickboxing bouts, they always lived up to the Japanese “Freakshow Fight” tradition.

On three separate occasions, K-1 featured bouts between 7’1” tall South Korean giant Hong Man Choi and 6’8” Yokozuna Akebono Taro…that’s right three times.

These bouts are almost sad as Akebono, a legendary sumo wrestler, just looks horrible the ring and Choi completely dominates him all three times. At the same time though, these bouts are so egregiously bad they are good.

Enjoy!