Choi Hong-Man

Choi Hong-man (Korean: 최홍만, Hanja: 崔洪萬; born October 30, 1980), often anglicised to Hongman Choi, is a South Korean kickboxer, mixed martial artist, and former ssireum wrestler. In Asia, he is called "Che Man", "Techno Goliath", "Korean Monster" and "Korean Colossus". He won the 2005 K-1 Seoul Grand Prix beating Kaoklai Kaennorsing in the finals. He stands and weighs .

Career

Ssireum (until 2004)

At the 2003 Ssireum Championships, he won the title against his long-time rival Kim Young-hyun. A year later, he reached the final again, where he was defeated by Kim. Across all Combat sport styles, there has never been anywhere a fight of such physical proportions between two athletes. Choi weighed standing tall, Kim weighed standing tall.
This even surpasses the WBA heavyweight championship between Nikolay Valuev ( at ) and Jameel McCline ( at ), which is considered a record in boxing in terms of physique. Valuev and McCline brought together and , Choi and Kim and .

K-1 (2005–2008)

Prepared for his kickboxing career by K-1 fighter Nicholas Pettas, he debuted in K-1 fighting at the ''World GP 2005'' event in Seoul in March, 2005, which he won in the final vs. Kaoklai Kaennorsing. In the Final Elimination he defeated Bob Sapp with a 2–0 decision, eventually losing to Remy Bonjasky in the World Grand Prix Final.

He got his nickname "Techno Goliath" (테크노 골리앗) when he was a ssireum wrestler in South Korea, as after a victory he would dance to techno music. He is referred to on Japanese television and news articles as the 'Korean Monster' (コリアン・モンスター).

He started the season 2006 at the K-1 World GP in Las Vegas with a unanimous decision win over Sylvester Terkay aka "The Predator". His new coach was the former Japanese Korean K-1 fighter Kin Taiei (anglicised to Taiei Kin).

One of Choi's most notable fights was against current K-1 World Champion Semmy Schilt at the World GP 2006 event in Seoul. The fight was unique due to the enormous size and weight of both fighters (Schilt , Choi ). Choi won the fight by 2-0 decision, but it was a disputed win.

On September 30, 2006, Choi fought Jérôme Le Banner in the final eliminations, and lost after 3 Rounds and 1 extra Round on points. After the fight, Le Banner said: ''"He is dangerous, his knees are already almost at the level of my head, he's not human! But he's a good guy and I like him, he's very tough, maybe the strongest guy in K-1, and he has hard bones -- when I kicked him, it hurt my leg! I'm sure with more experience, in two years no one will be able to knock him out!"''

On March 4, 2007, in the World Grand Prix in Yokohama, he was knocked out for the first time in his career. Mighty Mo landed his trademark overhand right to the chin and Choi was not able to stand up again. In this fight he weighed , was very slow and many say it was his worst performance. Choi himself stated in an interview about six months later: ''At that time, I was not in shape so that I did not train at all.''

On August 5. at the Asia World Grand Prix in Hong Kong, he beat Gary Goodridge by KO at 1:34 in the first round. He weighed . Notable on this fight was his stance. Since his K-1 debut in 2005, he has fought using an orthodox stance. However, in this fight, he adopted for the first time a Southpaw stance. This was a strategy by his coach Kin Taiei (often anglicised to Taiei Kin) for an eventual re-match with Mighty Mo (to block his devastating overhand right better as in orthodox stance).

On September 29 at the K-1 Final Eliminations in Seoul, fighting southpaw stance again, he redeemed his previous loss and defeated Mighty Mo by decision. The win was disputed because Mo was able to land many hard hands on Choi's head, while the Korean missed most of his shots. However, due to a kick Choi delivered to Mighty Mo's groin in the second round that was inexplicably ruled a knockdown. Mighty Mo was quoted in the post-fight interview: ''"He (Choi) seemed a little bit stronger because I hit him with some good shots and he didn't fall down so I was surprised, actually harder than the ones I hit him with before. He must have been practicing taking punches."''

In the World Grand Prix Final 2007 tournament on December 8, he again lost by decision to Jérôme Le Banner. Choi was announced by Jimmy Lennon Jr. as weighing in at , the heaviest weight of his K-1 career (2005-2008). In the post-fight Choi said: ''"He (Jérôme) has been my toughest opponent, who was able to resist my powerful punches and counter with speed, I admire his physical strength and I'm sure with more experience will be able to defeat him."''

On September 27 at the K-1 final Elimination in Seoul, he came back to K-1 and fought against the current Heavyweight champion Badr Hari. After 3 rounds of fighting, Choi's corner threw in the towel due to a rib injury. Although Hari was unable to faze Choi with two heavy punches thrown in the first and second rounds, in the third round he began targeting Choi's ribcage with punches and kicks.
Notable: In the years 2008 and 2009, Hari fought 14 bouts and only lost 3 of them, one by disqualification against Remy Bonjasky, two by KO against Alistair Overeem and Semmy Schilt. From his 11 wins, he won 8 times by KO in the first round, against Ray Sefo, Glaube Feitosa, Domagoj Ostojic, Frédéric Sinistra, Semmy Schilt, Zabit Samedov, Ruslan Karaev and Alistair Overeem. Only Peter Aerts and Errol Zimmerman survived the first round, Aerts lost by KO in the second round, Zimmerman in the third round.
Choi stated before his bout against Hari: ''"He is a great fighter, but I will be different from those who fell in the opening round"''. Choi was the only from Hari's 11 defeated opponents in 2008 and 2009, who was able to take his best punches and kicks to the head, body and legs without going down once. Hari said after the fight, ''"I tried to knock him out in the first round, but he has a really strong chin."''

Since his last fight, Choi has lost much weight. He was announced with a weight of .

Choi was picked as a first reserve fighter against Ray Sefo at the 2008 K-1 Championship Finals which he lost by Unanimous decision.
The English version of the fight from HDNet Fights was commentated by Michael Schiavello and Mike Kogan, Co-Commentator was Kimbo Slice. Slice stated he saw Choi the day before at breakfast, and pointed out how big and huge he is. Slice: ''"Hongman is a really big guy, he is really tall. Fighting him would be a real challenge to any fighter."'' In the last 23 seconds of the bout, Sefo landed a very hard overhand right to Choi's jaw, but the Korean took it without any damage. Sefo knocked out many opponents with the same right hand, including Jérôme Le Banner, Gary Goodridge and Ruslan Karaev. Schiavello pointed out how the same punch broke the jaw of Le Banner in four places, and Kogan stated: ''"To Choi's credit, i don't think the people realize the power in Sefo's punches. That landed flush on his jaw, and Choi just shook it off and kept moving fowards, that's ridicolous."''

Mixed martial arts career (2006–2009)

K-1 Dynamite

On December 31, Choi fought his first mixed martial arts fight on K-1 Dynamite, facing former TV star Bobby Ologun, whom Choi outweighed by a large margin. Ologun charged and missed a flying kick, after which Choi dragged him to the center of the ring and punched him. As Ologun seemed to refuse to defend, the referee stopped the match in just 16 seconds with a win for the Korean.

Choi was scheduled to face former WWE, IWGP, and NCAA national champion amateur wrestler Brock Lesnar at the combined promotion event K-1 Dynamite!! USA, a pay-per-view event at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, on June 2, 2007. However, reportedly due to a benign tumor on his pituitary gland, Choi was denied his California fighter's license on May 23, 2007, putting Dynamite!! USA's main event in jeopardy only 10 days before its scheduled occurrence. Choi was replaced in the fight by fellow Korean fighter Kim Min-soo.

He was confirmed to fight former Pride heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko at Yarennoka on New Year's Eve. Choi opened the fight landing on top of Fedor during a takedown attempt, after which the Russian attempted an armbar from the bottom to no avail. The sequence repeated itself, only the second time Fedor showed the difference in experience and locked the armbar, forcing Choi to tap at 1:54.

Choi fought again in Dynamite!! 2008, being scheduled to fight Mirko Cro Cop. The fight was longer, as Cro Cop, a fellow K-1 specialist, found difficult to strike against the larger Choi. He did land multiple low kicks through the round, which eventually caused enough damage for the fight to be stopped in a KO for Cro Cop.

DREAM

Choi's next MMA match would be for the Dream promotion. He faced retired baseball player Jose Canseco in an MMA match on May 26, 2009, as part of its Super Hulk Tournament. Choi beat Canseco in 1 minute 17 seconds.

The Korean advanced to the semi-finals at Dream 11 and was pitted against Ikuhisa Minowa, a Japanese fighter familiar with large differences in size. Minowa resorted to creative takedown and guard pulls to bring the match to the mat, but Choi used his size and strength to shut down his gameplan. Eventually Minowa pinned Choi in side control and landed knee strikes, which the Korean answered to by landing some ground and pound later through Minowa's guard. At the next round, however, Minowa took Choi down and immediately locked a heel hook