Fred,
I know you haven’t done much fighting, so you may not understand the culture of the martial life. Therefore, I wanted to share this with you, in the hopes that you would overcome your fear and simply fight me, accept the loss and learn from it. Remember you have gained nothing, learned nothing, and proven nothing by dragging this thing on for two years. Your status of course has dramatically diminished by your repeated failures to either accept a fight when offered or accepting but not turning up.
Watch it on youtube http://youtu.be/XaYcLpXvvr8
In 1949, when Masahiko Kimura went to Brazil he hadn’t been defeated since his teens. In fact, he had a 13 year undefeated streak. He won the All Japan judo competition a record 9 times. Helio Gracie extended a challenge to Kimura and in that famous fight, Kimura broke Helio’s arm. But Helio didn’t lose face. In fact, the courage he showed in fighting Kimura elevated him to the status of legend and insured the continued success and development of Gracie jujitsu.
Fred, you have much more to gain by actually fighting me than by agreeing to fight and not showing up or playing games, stalling the arrangements of date time and place or making unreasonable demands such as I ride in your car or we fight at the airport, or that you want me to come to your hotel room for sex first, or that we fight on the street in a crowded tourist district in Shanghai, or any of the other preposterous demands you have made. Just fight me. Just agree, show up, and fight, and you will become more than you are now. Remember a man is two things, his word and his balls. You have broken your word repeatedly and you have demonstrated a complete lack of balls again, and again.
Here is more about the famous fight and how both Helio and Carlos Gracie viewed it.
Many years later Gracie told an interviewer that he never expected to win: “I thought that nobody in the world could defeat Kimura.” He said that his brother Carlos thought he would get seriously injured but that his “fear was surpassed by desire to know what…Kimura would do in a fight.” Carlos thought Kimura might open the door to an unknown world for me.”
This is why even the MMA students in Vietnam want to spar with me. They know they will lose, but they know they will learn. And for me, I train in a sports university where everyone is a black belt and everyone competes at the international level. And I spar, and I get beat, and I learn and grow. And no one thinks the less of me for losing those matches, the same as I think no less of my students for losing to me. I told you I fought san da in November of last year and lost. But my students, training partners, teachers, and even my opponent stood by me. We talked about what I did wrong, what I could have done better, and I have grown from the experience. Not to mention the fact that at nearly 50 years old, every fight I take seems like a bonus win or lose.
Two years is a long time to drag this out Fred. If you had started training when this thing started, you could be a blue belt already. But no matter, let this fight be the first step in your development as both a man and a martial artist. Please agree to fight me in a reasonable venue, preferably in a ring or a cage, but an open practice room is fine too. I am willing to fight in Shenzhe, and have been since the beginning, but the fight has to be in a real venue. Obviously, I think Shanghai makes the most sense because we have the venues. We have the cage, ring, or practice room. We could even fight in a public fight or a professional fight that goes on both of our records if you so chose. If we fight in Shanghai, I have my two cameramen, one for video and one for photos. You are a pilot and probably get free flights to Shanghai. And you have been here several times when you were supposed to fight me but backed out. Whether you chose Shenzhen or Shanghai, make it a real fight, not just more insults, lies and nonsense on your part. We will film it, and it will live on Youtube where you can refer back to it for the rest of your fight career. And the next time you brag about being a fighter and someone calls you a liar, you can point to that video as proof.
Antonio Graceffo
Brooklyn Monk in Asia 