insider Fight Night
Rumble in the Jungle Ladies and gentlemen… LET’S GET READY TO RUUUMBLE! Hai Vu and Nick Ross pitch together three martial arts specialists from Hanoi with three erstwhile contenders from the not-so-dark streets of Saigon, to see who will come out victorious. Photos by Hai Vu and Kyle Phanroy
HANOI
Long ‘The Doctor’ Nguyen Those searching for a new hobby should take notice. According to Vietfighter’s founder and head trainer, Long ‘The Doctor’ Nguyen, the most effective form of martial arts to learn is Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ). “At the heart of every martial art,” he says, “are techniques designed to overcome a more powerful opponent. BJJ has refined and perfected that philosophy. It is like the genetic engineering of martial arts.” Knowledgeable in many different styles, Long speaks on the subject with expertise. A decorated athlete from a young age, he has many BJJ, Muay Thai and MMA fights under his belt. And he is not an uncaring victor, having taken the Hippocratic Oath as a medical doctor in New South Wales, Australia. “After seven years [of being a doctor], I felt burnt out,” Long says. “I came back to Vietnam for a long holiday in late 2008, and I noticed that there wasn’t a facility for real world-class training in Hanoi. [At that point,] I hadn’t been back to Vietnam for 20 years. I didn’t know much about the country
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then, but I had somewhat of a cultural awakening. I wanted to do something new that was in keeping with my passion, so I decided to open this gym.” Opening in 2010, Vietfighter has already proven itself to be a worthy contender in the world of competitive fighting. “We are actually a training team,” says Long. “We have a team bond and we all improve together. We have people who come here with a goal to just lose weight, and they lose the weight. And we also have people who come here with the desire to be a medalist in their field of martial arts, and they win medals. We have a 31-year-old Swiss woman who was in finance full-time before training with us, and now she has had two professional Muay Thai fights in Thailand. Whatever your goal is, we try to fulfill it here.”
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