Doo Ho Choi: The Korean Superboy is Back!
Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images
January 14th, 2018. Saint Louis, Missouri.
Jeremy Stephens is screaming and jumping over the octagon to celebrate with his friends and family. He just violently defeated one of the UFC’s brightest prospects - “The Korean Superboy” Doo Ho Choi. While Stephens celebrates, the young Korean star is down in the octagon, encircled by doctors. Choi seems fine, but the sadness and embarrassment conveyed by his demeanor is heartbreaking.
The young stud stands up, but his head is down. Jeremy Stephens comes back inside the cage and congratulates him, Though Choi responds with a polite smile and some congratulations for his hangman, he cannot hide the shame he feels.
After a very good first round, Choi was caught by a big right hand to the side of the head that took away his balance. While Choi was on his back, Stephens landed another big right hand straight to his face along with some nasty elbows, it was more than enough for the referee to stop this would-be assault. This was the first time that Choi was stopped in his career. This was his first UFC main event, but his second loss in a row. A loss to Cub Swanson in a crazy fight made his stock rise, this one surely made it drop.
Doo Ho Choi is set to begin his compulsory military service soon. But this Saturday, the UFC has an event in Busan, South Korea, his home country. The Korean Superboy is fighting on the main card against Charles Jourdain (9-2). In his hometown, the Korean has a chance to make a statement for his comeback after some necessary time outside of the octagon.
Before you enjoy his return on Saturday, let’s refresh your memory and show you why Doo Ho Choi was a rising star a couple of years ago in the UFC.
UFC Debut
Before entering the UFC, Doo Ho Choi was knocking people out in Japan and had a record of 11 wins (eight by KO) and only one defeat. He retired Mitsuhiro Ishida in 2011 after knocking him out in 90 seconds. Shooto and Pride fans could tell you how good a fighter Ishida was, he held career victories over fighters like Gilbert Melendez, Marcus Aurelio, and Takashi Nakakura.
The Korean Superboy was also on a five-fight knockout streak and he had high hopes to continue that streak in the UFC. For his debut he faced Juan Puig in Austin, Texas. The fight lasted 18 seconds.
He may have the face of an angel, but he has the heart of a killer. Joe Rogan once said, “He looks like a teenager but he will give you a concussion.” Choi didn’t seem nervous at all for his UFC debut, walking out with a big smile like he’s been doing it all his life.
Choi opened the fight with an unsuccessful 1-2 that was countered by a nice jab from his opponent. Choi then avoided a jab and leg kick from Puig, throwing another 1-2 that fell just short. However, Choi made the read that Puig will use his jab to counter his 1-2. The Korean took a step back and let Puig jab, only to slip it and throw a big right hand that quickly floored Juan Puig. That right hand was money, it tells you how dangerous Choi can be. There are so many lazy jabs thrown in MMA. If you’re a fighter you definitely might want to be careful when you fight one of those violent Koreans from team MAD such as the Korean Superboy or the Korean Zombie!
Once Puig was on his back, the follow up shots by Choi were a bit messy, he didn’t immediately try to pass the legs before throwing the final punches. After missing a few blows, he ended up passing Puig’s left leg and then landed some accurate punches to Puig’s face. Mario Yamasaki then stopped the fight before it got too ugly.
As soon as Puig’s lead leg moves on, Choi takes a step back to get his feet in position. His right foot is ready and on his toes before Puig’s jab is even extended. Choi’s left foot is flat footed, that’s very important because he’s trying to create as much power as possible going forward. When he’s throwing the right hand he’s gonna take a short step forward with his right foot. Also worth mentioning how Choi is very economic in his movement (he barely moves his head more than necessary to slip the Jab) and he raised his right elbow to a 90 degree angle just before extending his arm. That was perfect.
The Confirmation
After his quick UFC Debut, Choi took a step up in competition. Sam Sicilia was on a two-fight win streak and it would be his tenth UFC appearance. The fight took place in Seoul, South Korea in the beautiful Olympic Arena. Choi got such a big reaction when he walked out that you would be forgiven for thinking it was the main event.
Sam Sicilia is not the type of fighter to hide from a scrap and from the get go both men went at it. Sicilia opened the fight an inside leg kick that was countered by Choi’s right hand, followed by a short left hook that got Sam’s attention. Soon after the stubborn and tough American tried the same thing, and got the same answer. But except time, Choi’s timing was on point and Sicilia ended up with his butt on the canvas. Sicilia managed to get back to his feet using a single leg, but thirty seconds into that fight and he was already in survival mode while the Korean crowd grew hungrier for some Choi violence. Sam kept pressuring Choi, who was just too fast and too accurate for Sicilia. It was the beginning of the end when Choi landed a beautiful right uppercut-right hook combo that rocked Sicilia a second time.
Getting smashed on the feet, Sicilia managed to get an under-over and tried an inside trip, but mid-throw the Korean reversed it and almost ended up on top. Choi did that like it was nothing, another indication that he’s a solid defensive grappler.
As soon as they got back up, it was Choi who chased the American, cutting off the octagon. Once again, Choi was very economic in his movement and very accurate. After half a minute of being trapped with his back against the cage, Sicilia desperately try to rush on Choi who caught him with a big right hand followed by that same short left hook that sent Sam to the canvas a second time. He didn’t survive, as the Korean Superboy ended the show quickly.
What a quick burst of violence. It took 93 seconds for Doo Ho Choi to stop Sam Sicilia. It was enough to get him his first UFC bonus as he won ‘Performance of the Night’.
Doo Ho Choi’s balance is so good. His mechanics are great. It takes a lot of focus to always throw sharp punches and kicks and you never see Choi throwing lazy jabs or random hooks. He’s the definition of a great puncher.
Following his outstanding win over Sicilia, the UFC booked Choi vs. Thiago Tavares, (18 fights in the UFC) who used to fight at lightweight against the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov, Clay Guida, Sam Stout and Brian Ortega.
Thiago was supposed to be the one that would challenge Doo Ho Choi in the grappling department. Well, Thiago ended up taking Choi to the ground two times, but he never got anything going as the Korean controlled his head position at all times. Choi’s composure on the ground was great, he stayed calm, relaxed, and worked back up step by step. Even when he got taken down a second time in the center of the octagon, he worked his way near the cage and used it to get back up.
With two minutes and thirty seconds left in the first round, Choi stood and reversed the position against the cage, disengaged and slowly started to hunt down Tavares. The Brazilian was trapped and in big danger, but he didn’t seem to be aware of this, he did not even try to escape that dangerous spot.
Choi watched him and threw a right hand just to see his reaction. Tavares’ reaction time was atrocious compared to the speed of the Korean Superboy, who then threw a jab that Thiago tried in vain to parry before circling towards Choi’s right hand. Choi then ended the show with a beautiful 1-2 on the chin of Thiago who went down to the ground, helpless. There was two minutes and 20 seconds left in round one when Herb Dean stopped the fight.
Doo Ho Choi fights like he has a secret. Or should I say, the secret is that behind his angelic face there is a dangerous man that believes he can knock out anyone in the world.
Oh that’s another Performance of the night for the young Korean.
Four Minutes & Fifty Seconds
Being 3-0 in the UFC with three first-round knockouts to his name, Doo Ho Choi called out the winner of the fight between Cub Swanson and Tatsuya Kawajiri. The Korean Superboy got what he asked for, he faced Cub Swanson in Toronto at UFC 206. Before sharing the cage with Cub, Doo Ho Choi only spent four minutes and 50 seconds inside the octagon. That’s a crazy statistic. Cub entered that fight as the underdog.
They won Fight of the Year. It was a crazy back and forth brawl where both warriors got severely hurt, but Cub chose to fight at a crazy pace that fit him well. Choi is not slow at all but he is not necessarily super fast, either. He is more accurate and possesses better punching mechanics than most of his opponents, but if you get him to fight at a high pace eventually he’ll start making mistakes and his punches will not be as sharp as they were in the earlier rounds. That’s what Cub did in the fight.
I am not going to breakdown the fight sequence by sequence but here’s what we can take away from Doo Ho Choi in that gutsy performance.
One thing in that matchup that played out well for Cub is that he tends to shift his weight to the opposite side as he throws powerful kicks or hooks, which makes his head never on the center line, perfect against Choi who so far in his UFC tenure was mostly deadly on the counter with his right hand.
The opening sequence of the fight is a good representation of that, Choi took the center of the octagon and pressured Cub who directly threw a leg kick that Choi tried to counter with his famous straight right, but Cub’s head was already far away from the center line.
Choi’s clinch game was good in this contest, he quickly stopped a takedown attempt from Cub and landed some big knees to the body, then tripped Cub in order to get the Palm Springs man in a headlock where he could land good knees to Cub’s face.
Doo Ho Choi won the first round, Swanson didn’t land much on him despite many impressive attempts. So far, Choi’s defense held up and both his right hands and his strikes in the clinch landed well on the American, whose unorthodox style was definitely a problem for the Korean despite how the round went.
Cub entered round two pressing forward over and over, and eventually he caught Choi with big hooks that rocked him. The Korean managed to stay on his feet and move away, but Cub got him to back up constantly, and even rocked him again. Still, Choi stayed focused, he managed to counter Swanson’s wild pressure with a beautiful right hand over his jab that rocked the veteran. Doo Ho Choi—usually patient—then finally lost his composure and rushed the finish which allowed Cub to survive the Korean’s attack. That should for sure be a learning experience for Choi.
Round two belonged to Cub Swanson, as he got close to finishing Choi twice (the Korean’s chin seems insane). He ate so many bombs from the creative American striker.
But even hurt and close to being finished, Choi survived on the ground (Swanson got full mount) and managed to get back to his feet. Choi is definitely underrated in the grappling aspect of his game, in round three he even used a slick ankle pick to get back up.
Even though Choi did a decent job of mixing strikes to the body and the head, he was guilty of being too focused on his counter right hand over Cub’s jab. That is a deadly counter, but he waited too much for it which made him predictable at times, while his opponent kept him guessing all night long.
Choi’s kicking game was almost nonexistent, a good few calf kicks would have helped him tremendously to slow Cub and counter him. Instead, round 3 became a sloppy war between two exhausted fighters and it was the more experienced man that edged the fight. Swanson knocked down the brave Korean in the last seconds of the fight. Doo Ho Choi got an amazing pop from the crowd during his post fight interview in which he ‘promised to train much harder and never lose again’.
It was a crazy step up in competition for someone who before that fight spent less than a round inside the cage but it was a very gutsy performance and a “good loss”, you learn more from those than in a lifetime in the gym.
Brutal Matchmaking
The Cub Swanson fight was a calculated risk. Choi lost, but it still made sense to give it a shot. I believe that with a better game plan, Choi had all the skills to defeat Cub Swanson.
After that fight, I thought the UFC would give him one or two unranked featherweights so that he could get his confidence back and pick up more experience along the way. But no, they matched him with Jeremy Stephens, one of the most dangerous fighters in featherweight history.
Personally, as soon as I heard the fight had been made, I hated it. It’s not that I was doubting Choi’s capacity to win or to be competitive, but this wasn’t a calculated risk anymore. It was a gamble in which you could bury one of your brightest prospects.
We have arrived at that night of January 14th, 2018, in St. Louis, Missouri.
The positive from this contest is that Choi seemed to have learned from the Swanson fight and used some good leg and body kicks as soon as the fight started. He spent most of round 1 destroying Stephens’ lead leg, work that forced ‘Lil Heathen’ to switch stance. Choi also did a good job of making Stephens miss a lot. It was a good first round for Choi who also caught Jeremy with a nice jab - right uppercut - left hook combo. Doo Ho Choi won round one.
In round two, Choi landed a beautiful front kick out of nowhere to Stephens’ face. Despite Choi winning most exchanges for the first minutes, Stephens started to pressure more and more and Choi couldn’t find a way to get Stephens away from him, except for fighting power versus power and circling towards Jeremy’s right hand. Things snowballed in this manner until he got caught, and subsequently stopped by nasty elbows on the ground.
After almost two years outside the octagon, The Korean Superboy makes his long awaited comeback in his hometown against Charles Jourdain (2nd fight in the UFC).
Choi may get Jourdain out of there early, but I would love to see Choi in there for more than one round to see if all the improvements he made can be shown to the world. Even if he lost both of those fights back to back, there is a good chance that he learned a lot through those difficult experiences. I have no doubt that he drew lessons and experience from the Cub Swanson fight, and I just hope that the Stephens fight didn’t shatter his confidence too much.
Regardless, I am convinced that Choi can still play a big role in that featherweight division. If he wins Saturday, I hope the UFC will not throw him to the wolves once again but build him step by step with a match up against someone like Mirsad Bektic or Ricardo Lamas.
My prediction for Saturday is that he wins Knockout of the Night, which would be his fifth bonus in a row. Can’t wait.