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MMA debut set for funnyman Yoon

January 7, 2014
Yoon Hyung-bin

Yoon Hyung-bin

By Baek Byung-yeul

Scrawny funnyman Yoon Hyung-bin is set to make his debut in combat sports.

Road Fighting Championship (Road FC), Korea’s largest mixed-martial arts promotion, announced that Yoon will fight Japanese fighter Tsukuda Takaya, also a rookie, at an event in Seoul on Feb. 9.

Yoon, 34, first announced his intentions to train and fight for Road FC in October last year. He is currently being trained by veteran fighter Seo Doo-won.

As a comic, Yoon has carried himself like a character from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, his value as an entertainer relies on bizarre outfits and insulting other celebrities. So as awkward in the ring he might be, Yoon seems like a veteran in selling his own fight.

Yoon and Takaya are already locked in a heated verbal feud, creating build up for a fight that probably won’t be worth watching.

“I am pretty excited about debuting with Road FC, but too bad I am fighting against a poorly-skilled Korean. I will give him a taste of my Japanese power,” Takaya wrote on his Facebook account last week.

In response, Yoon says he takes pleasure in the idea of hurting a Japanese athlete.

“Takaya’s provocation reminded me why I wanted to debut as a fighter in the first place,” Yoon said. Yoon is referring to the incident when Korean female fighter Im Soo-jung was seriously injured after being beaten by three male comedians on a Japanese television show in 2011.

Im, who needed eight weeks to recover, said she had already been nursing a leg injury before the shooting and claimed she was never told by the show’s producers that the fight would be real.

Yoon is not the first Korean comedian to dabble with mixed martial arts. Lee Seung-yoon fought in a Road FC event in 2010, but lost and never returned.

“Her injury fueled my motivation. It’s absolutely impossible for me to lose the fight,” Yoon claimed.

The fight between Yoon and Tayaka will be one of the cards at the Road FC event next month at the Olympic Hall in southern Seoul.