Hailaierke emerged from his nook in a southpaw pose, earlier than abruptly switching to an orthodox stance contained in the octagonal ring within the central Chinese language metropolis of Lüliang. Whether or not that sudden shift befuddled his opponent is unclear, however simply 40 seconds later Shang Zhifa was sprawled on the canvas, felled by a vicious proper hand.
It was a first-round knockout that gained Hailaierke the 1 million rmb ($135,000) high prize on the Dec. 28 flyweight Bounty Event held by JCK, China’s high blended martial arts (MMA) promotion. It additionally got here towards all the percentages. Hailaierke was solely drafted into the principle bout after Shang’s authentic opponent turned up chubby. The revered MMA web site Tapology.com assessed Hailaierke’s pre-fight chances at 0%.
But Hailaierke possessed a secret weapon that’s quick changing into headline information throughout the more and more popular world of Asian MMA. In a victory video posted to social media, clutching bricks of prize cash and sporting the white-studded “hero’s sash” of China’s Yi ethnic minority, the 25-year-old thanked “all my Yi compatriots for supporting me.”
China’s Yi individuals quantity simply 9 million scattered throughout the nation of 1.3 billion but they’re punching (and kicking) far above their weight within the pugilistic arts. Of the seven bouts at JCK’s Bounty Occasion, 4 have been gained by Yi. The remainder of the cardboard was made up of ethnic Kazakhs and Russians with the defeated Shang amongst solely three fighters belonging to China’s majority Han ethnicity, which accounts for some 92% of the nationwide inhabitants. As well as, two Yi already struggle within the apex UFC promotion.
The disproportionate success of Yi in Chinese language MMA is a curiosity that’s galvanizing curiosity in ethnic minority tradition amongst sports activities followers in addition to resurgent delight inside these communities themselves. Following his victory, Hailaierke returned to a hero’s welcome within the Yi heartland of Liangshan, set amid the rippling hills the place China’s southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan provinces meet. Pigs have been slaughtered in his honor, he was festooned with floral garlands, and tons of younger and previous thronged the grime streets to catch a glimpse of the conquering warrior’s return.
“I bought into preventing as a result of the Yi are a society of heroes,” Hailaierke tells TIME. “I put on the Yi heroes’ sash as a result of it symbolizes valor and energy.”
Certainly, the Yi have lengthy had a fearsome fame which works some method to clarify their function because the rising pressure of Chinese language MMA—one that’s casting the nation’s oft-maligned ethnic minorities in a brand new gentle. “A lot of the Yi individuals dwell within the mountains of Sichuan, however they’ve many wonderful fighters,” says Chinese language MMA analyst Hou Yu, who runs the favored “Punch of the Big Dipper” social media channel. “Their ethnicity can be pleased with them, and increasingly Chinese language followers are additionally beginning to acknowledge these minority athletes.”
It’s recognition that stands in distinction to the thriller that has lengthy swathed the Yi. Throughout World Battle II, an American pilot crash-landed near Liangshan, the place he’s believed to have been captured by the Yi and changed into a sort of god-slave. When Mao Zedong’s ragtag communist rebels underwent their Lengthy March throughout China in 1935 they handed by means of the territory of the Yi, who would raid and loot their caravans till revolutionary Normal Liu Bocheng secured protected passage by drinking chicken’s blood with the Yi chieftain.
Nonetheless, there remained an “antagonistic relationship” between the Yi and Han, says June Teufel Dreyer, a professor specializing in China’s ethnic minorities on the College of Miami. “The Yi didn’t have needles however acknowledged instantly that they have been helpful. They must commerce, say, 10 chickens for one needle, and so they rightfully considered that as exploitation, and they also didn’t just like the Han very a lot.” That animosity reduce each methods, with the prevailing Chinese language view disparaging the Yi and different minorities as “soiled and a step beneath the Han in humanity,” says Dreyer.
Certainly, China’s ethnic minorities have typically chafed under Beijing’s rule. Article 4 of the structure of the Folks’s Republic theoretically ensures equality for all its 56 ethnic teams, although in actuality the Chinese language Communist Social gathering guidelines in response to a Han Chinese language orthodoxy, which claims a direct lineage from the early Yellow River basin tribes and alone defines the nationwide imaginative and prescient.
Lately, Beijing has enforced curbs on native language in Inside Mongolia, corralled some 2.8 million Tibetans into city work teams underneath the guise of “poverty alleviation,” and unleashed a marketing campaign of extrajudicial detention and cultural assimilation towards predominantly Muslims Uyghurs and Kazakhs that that the U.S. and different nations have labeled genocide. “The social gathering is blissful to rejoice minorities’ achievements so long as it doesn’t battle with what it needs, which is management of ethnic minority tradition,” says Dreyer.
Little surprise Yi and different minority athletes at all times rejoice their id inside the parameters of being a part of the good Chinese language nation. When ethnic Chinese language Kazakhs compete in neighboring Kazakhstan, they bond carefully with their native counterparts throughout coaching, although at all times be certain that to enter the ring wrapped within the purple Chinese language flag, says Vaughn “Blud” Anderson, a retired Canadian MMA fighter who has been Asia-based for over 20 years and as we speak works as a commentator, coach, and analyst for JCK and different promotions.
“Hans will cheer for a Tibetan or a Yi or Mongolian simply as they’ll for a Han,” says Anderson. “I don’t assume China is split that manner. Simply as long as there’s nothing that particular person has accomplished to isolate themselves.”
After all, successful helps, and as we speak the resurgent Yi are having fun with a cultural renaissance no less than amongst Chinese language followers of martial arts. Although, in reality, minorities’ dominance of MMA is nothing new.
In historic occasions, blended fight competitions have been commonplace in China. Often called Leitai after the raised platform the place they have been sometimes held, these no-holds-barred contests mixed putting, grappling, and wrestling. But the emphasis on Leitai dwindled as trendy warfare got here to rely extra on weaponry than hand-to-hand fight. As a substitute, Chinese language martial arts reverted to conventional putting types corresponding to shaolin kung fu, which is geared extra in the direction of rules-based competitors and wowing cinema audiences. That’s besides within the minority-dominated areas hugging China’s borders—the place Mongols, Tibetans, Kazakhs, and the Yi all retained a tradition of wrestling.
Whereas the fluid acrobatics of kung fu might look nice on digital camera, in a struggle with few guidelines it’s the grappling types of wrestling and Brazilian jujitsu that finally come out on high. When trendy MMA first burst onto the scene within the mid-Nineteen Nineties it was ethnic Mongolian wrestlers that originally dominated in Asia. In the present day, Kazakhs and Tibetans additionally characteristic prominently, alongside the Yi. What hyperlinks all these teams is a cultural custom of wrestling versus putting martial arts like kung fu.
So may ethnic Han practice just like the Yi and be equally profitable? They already are.
When Shi Ming entered the Octagon for the strawweight ultimate of Road to UFC Struggle Evening in Macau on Nov. 23, few outdoors her nook believed she would defeat her youthful, taller opponent. Certainly, Feng Xiaocan dominated a lot of the competition, exploiting her longer attain to upset Shi’s rhythm with a string of jabs. However then Shi unleashed a lightning head kick that despatched Feng crashing to the canvas. As Feng was carried out on a stretcher straight to a hospital, Shi’s beautiful knockout was already going viral world wide, turning the 30-year-old into a world sensation.
“After I stroll on the street individuals acknowledge me and wish to take footage,” Shi tells TIME. “I’m actually blissful to satisfy new pals and to see all of the messages supporting me.”
That victory earned Shi a UFC contract that appeared like a faraway dream when she first started coaching in taekwondo and kickboxing as an adolescent. She was at all times a middling competitor, she concedes, by no means changing into even a provincial champion, not to mention representing her nation. However that each one modified as soon as she began working with U.S.-Iranian catch wrestling coach Bagher Amanolahi, who as a part of Shi’s coaching regime would take her to compete at conventional Yi “sani” wrestling occasions within the hills of Yunnan province, the place wrestling is an intrinsic a part of each village competition.
“I really went there only for follow,” says Shi. “But it surely was actually troublesome for me. Even native farmers, these previous ladies, they’re actually sturdy. And whereas they aren’t skilled, they’ve taken half in this sort of wrestling since they have been possibly 5 years previous, so that they have loads of expertise.”
Shi, who by day works as a physician within the Yunnan capital Kunming, says that the 2 advantages of being based mostly within the province are the altitude for stamina coaching and the prevalence of ethnic minorities, permitting her to hone her wrestling abilities. “I improved each my wrestling assaults and protection rather a lot, so I don’t fear an excessive amount of even when they take me down, as a result of I can stand up,” she says. “So my putting additionally turned extra highly effective.”
However a cultural affinity with wrestling is just not the one purpose behind the disproportionate illustration of China’s ethnic minorities in MMA. The arcane pockets of China’s periphery the place the Yi and different minorities dwell are sometimes China’s poorest areas, removed from the gleaming skyscrapers and bustling ports of Shanghai and Shenzhen.
“As a toddler I grew up herding cattle and sheep,” says Jimuwusha, a 26-year-old Yi fighter who defeated an ethnic Kazakh from China’s Xinjiang province at JCK’s latest Bounty Occasion. “I adopted cattle and sheep everywhere in the mountains and fields. At eight or 9 years previous I needed to climb one or two mountains a day.”
Hailaierke has related tales. “From a younger age, I lived in a small rural village deep within the mountains,” he says. “I may eat sufficient meals, however there was little cash for different issues, together with faculty. From the age of 14 or 15, we elevate sheep and cattle, or exit to search out work in locations like building websites, after which marry younger too.”
Skilled preventing is a working-class escape throughout the globe, however whereas in North America and Europe it’s sometimes disadvantaged cities that show essentially the most fertile breeding floor, in China the countryside is the place individuals are hungriest. “The inhabitants of Shanghai is 30 million individuals and there’s no actual born-and-bred Shanghai fighter,” says Anderson. “It’s concerning the setting the place these guys develop up.”
Shi agrees. “Rich youngsters don’t wish to do these sorts of robust sports activities,” she says. “And poor villages have loads of youngsters who’re keen to coach onerous.” She additionally notes that China’s authorities plows big assets into recognizing younger athletes and coaching them for glory in worldwide occasions just like the Olympics. However there’s extra incentive for teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds that maybe aren’t reaching medal positions to stop sporting academies for the extra rapid returns of economic MMA.
Even those that do obtain glory are making the change. Yi bantamweight Buhuoyouga started coaching in boxing, weightlifting, and wrestling in his early teenagers, finally successful China’s Nationwide Wrestling Championship. In the present day, the 32-year-old is pound-for-pound the No. 3 ranked MMA fighter throughout the Asia-Pacific. “Up to now, we have been comparatively poor, and I modified my life by means of preventing,” he says. “Now I hope to encourage our Yi kids.”
And never simply Yi. In the present day, younger MMA followers throughout Asia have begun sporting the Yi hero’s sash to emulate these high stars. In the meantime, Hou cites the instance of the younger Tibetan MMA fighter Ze Wang, whose preventing prowess mixed with bleach-blond hair and smoldering beauty is inspiring younger followers to embrace Tibetan tradition.
“Many younger followers began to love him and in addition Tibetan tradition,” says Hou. “I hope the cohesion of all ethnic teams might be elevated by means of MMA.”
