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K-1 San Shou Champion Cung Le
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Cung Le Demonstrates his Moves for AsianConnections!
AC Team was invited to attend the International Sport Kickboxing Association's Championship at the Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas.
Our ringside seats were so close that we shook with the intensity of each punch and kick. At any moment the athletes could slam against the ropes almost on top of us.
The fights are for real. There were some matches that the athlete had been knocked out cold. Paramedics rushed in to give emergency care. It is a violent, no holds barred
type of sport that makes professional wrestling look downright wimpy by comparison. (We still love you, The Rock!)
AC Team caught up with headliner Cung Le, just before he won the International Sport Kickboxing Association light heavyweight championship and K-1 USA title against
Mohammed Laminn Keita before the cheering audience at the Bellagio Resort.
Le has a career filled with victories. He is 10-0 with seven knockouts as a professional, and 36-2 with 24 knockouts including his amateur career.
The K-1 USA title pits athletes using different styles of martial arts. Le wowed the crowd with his complex, action packed punches and kicks. His martial arts style, San
Shou, is a style that the Chinese developed, merging traditional boxing, kung fu and Greco Roman wrestling. There's never a dull moment. "For every move, there is a
counter move." "There is rarely a lull. There are no clinches with the fighters holding the way they do with hand-to-hand combat sports, because if one fighter tries to clinch in
San Shou, the other could body slam him," said Le.
Le, 28, says his priority isn't to be one of the best in the world (which he is), but to be a good role model for young
people. Born in Saigon and raised in San Jose, California, since he was 2, Le turned to martial arts at an early age for protection.
Le won the California State wrestling championship at 158 pounds while in junior college. "As a martial artist, my goal is not how many titles I
can win but how many people I can touch." Le owns two martial arts gyms in San Jose, and endorses a line of cardiovascular fitness products that he has developed. His new
projects include film, television,video and Internet projects.
On martial arts "action stars" Jackie Chan and Jet Li:
On Jackie and Jet
Cung Le: I feel that Jackie Chan and Jet Li have done a lot for the martial arts. They brought it into the mainstream.
Actually, Jackie Chan brought it into the mainstream over here, and put a big dent in the market. Everyone is into the martial arts, everyone is into kung-fu fighting now, and Jet Li
followed and he's doing a good job. And I hope one day, you know, I don't want to be fighting for the rest of my life even though I have two gyms and I teach, I would really like to be in front of the camera. So
hopefully [when] one of these guys get tired and they want to move on to producing or directing, hopefully they can direct me and let me have a go at it.
On his acting career:
Cung Le: Yeah, I'm shooting [a film] for the Internet, and it is a comedy. The Internet site is called "The Kwoon," www.thekwoon.com, and the other one is an independent film. It's going to be shooting in January 2001, that's called
"The Edge of Darkness" where I play a bad guy, a hitman, but hey, you know, you gotta start somewhere. In "The Kwoon," it's more of a comedy. I start out also as a hitman, I
become the grim reaper, and its an action kung fu comedy, so it's going to be good, and I film that actually one week after this fight.
For more photos, click here!
AsianConnections thanks Cung Le and AC Team's Mike Kai.
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