No. 13: Reale
Discipline: Kung fu chameleon?
Strengths: Probably watches a ton of fight tape.
Analysis: With this film already having its European babyface (as well as a healthy serving of kung fu stylists), there’s seemingly little room for Reale, who gets disposed of by Toon Ip Mung in the opening round of the Kumite.
Although Reale seems to flow well with elbows in exchanges, he makes the questionable choice of getting into a foot checking battle with a better kung fu fighter – resulting in a poor Marcos Ruas impression that left him open for some big shots from Toon.
If you throw Reale in the early days of MMA, I could totally see him on the end of another unfavorable draw in an open-weight tournament (a la John Matua vs. Tank Abbott). And if you throw him in there under today’s standards, I doubt he even makes the walk before realizing that it’s far safer to just smoke weed and learn jiu-jitsu on the internet at home instead.
No. 12: Hung Chi-Sing
Discipline: Kung fu
Strengths: Sporting tattoos before it was cool
Analysis: Well, at least Hung Chi-Sing has the tattoo part of being an MMA fighter down, right?
Joking aside, Hung appeared to have a solid spread of offense to go with some of the faster hands on display at the Kumite. Unfortunately for Hung, he drew Chuan Ip Mung in the opener – who was probably the best pure kung fu fighter in the entire tournament.
Hung will undoubtedly fight hard no matter where you place him in MMA’s timeline, but I think he still struggles regardless.
If you insert him into the sport’s early days, I fear that Hung would be massively outsized. And if you pop him into the appropriate weight class of the modern day, I don’t suspect Hung can even make headway in the Chinese regionals (no offense).