# Emin Boztepe



## Tames D (May 5, 2016)

I like his Wing Tsun. Very aggressive.


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## Tames D (May 6, 2016)




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## geezer (May 7, 2016)

Thanks for some good old clips of Emin. That was 25 years ago! I met him in that period ....a great 'Chunner and fighter, but not easy to train under! Last time I ran into him was about 2009 or so? Older, wiser, and mellower. A very good instructor IMO. WC (all lineages) could use more guys like him.


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## Tames D (May 7, 2016)

In what way was he not easy to train under?


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## geezer (May 8, 2016)

Tames D said:


> In what way was he not easy to train under?



If you were not strong, and a quick learner, like many gifted fighters, he could lose patience. And if you weren't at the high level of physical ability needed to hang with him, you could get hurt. My former training partner and si-dai in WT became Emin's room mate for a short time and blew out his knee training with Emin.

Interestingly, he has no hard feelings toward Emin about this (or vice versa). In spite of his injuries, that guy did improve tremendously from his time with Emin. It's just that if you are going to play with tigers, you better be a tiger!

BTW ...I'm talking about the "early Emin" in the USA ...his trips here in the late 80s after beating William Cheung, and on into the early 90s. After another decade or so, people say he mellowed considerably moving on from a "fighter" mentality to more of a coach and trainer.

Now I've only met Emin a few times. If there are any EBMAS WT people on this forum, I'm sure they can contribute more regarding this remarkable WT personality.


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## Tames D (May 8, 2016)

Good information. Thank you.


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## punisher73 (May 9, 2016)

Never been impressed with jumping an older man at his own seminar and then claiming how you "beat him".  Props to him for mellowing as he got older.


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## geezer (May 10, 2016)

Yeah, in his defense, he was really just an arrogant kid back then and he was put up to this stunt by others who stood to benefit from the publicity. 

...And that "older man" did have a big roll in provoking the encounter, making outrageous claims, issuing public challenges against all comers, then promoting a seminar virtually in the other group's back yard.... you gotta admit, there was a definite pro-wrestler smack talk quality to the whole affair. I think of the whole thing as Europe's answer to Count Dante 

Anyways, now days with legitimate venues for physical contests (MMA, etc.) such dangerous silliness has apparently become obsolete.


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## Hanzou (May 10, 2016)

punisher73 said:


> Never been impressed with jumping an older man at his own seminar and then claiming how you "beat him".  Props to him for mellowing as he got older.



That video always intrigued me. All of that training and practice by two "grandmasters", and when the chips fall down you end up fighting like two untrained children in a schoolyard.


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## Tames D (May 11, 2016)

Hanzou said:


> That video always intrigued me. All of that training and practice by two "grandmasters", and when the chips fall down you end up fighting like two untrained children in a schoolyard.


Yeah, I agree. I wonder what Emin's thoughts are about that ugly encounter. I've never seen any comments from him regarding it.


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## guy b. (May 11, 2016)

Hanzou said:


> That video always intrigued me. All of that training and practice by two "grandmasters", and when the chips fall down you end up fighting like two untrained children in a schoolyard.



I thought Emin tripped him quite well. Punching from on top on the ground was ok for someone not specifically trained in this. Clinch and ground skills of the other guy look very poor.


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## Jens (May 11, 2016)

geezer said:


> you gotta admit, there was a definite pro-wrestler smack talk quality to the whole affair.


 The whole ordeal looked like sloppy pro wrestling to me, no wing chun there. Emin certainly didn't use any "Wing Tsun" to subdue Cheung, this just made wing chun look like bad overall due to the fact that Cheung was out of his element on the ground, and Emin didn't use any WT to beat him. What are they masters of, it certainly wasn't wing chun lol


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## geezer (May 11, 2016)

Jens said:


> The whole ordeal looked like sloppy pro wrestling to me, no wing chun there. Emin certainly didn't use any "Wing Tsun" to subdue Cheung...



This is an interesting point. At that point Emin was already quite proficient at applying his WT and William Cheung, whatever you think of his claims, was a direct student of Yip Man who also had considerable sparring and challenge-match experience as a young man. Yet when the fight went to the ground it took on the character of unsophisticated brawling. Why?

Two reasons, IMO. First, it went to the ground almost immediately. WC still has a woefully deficient ground game, and it was even worse back in the 80s. _Later_, Emin trained extensively for the ground with various grapplers, but he was not experienced on the ground _at that time._ And obviously, neither was Cheung.

The second reason people don't see much WT/WC in that clip is that when the stuff hits the fan, nothing goes as planned. People are expecting moves like in a movie. That just isn't realistic. Look at _Alan Orr's_ guys and gals. They train CSL Wing Chun principles, but in the ring it takes on a different form entirely.

Alan has gotten a lot of criticism for this, and has answered it in many posts and videoclips. I listen to what _he_ says over armchair critics. My conclusion, is that when the going gets tough or even chaotic, don't expect to see beautiful "style" ...regardless of your system. If you know what to look for, though, you can still see a lot of content. 




BTW, even though that clip had the slowed-down section, the quality was quite poor. I had a chance to see the original, uncut VHS footage back in the 80s and you could pick up a lot more. For a guy with no grappling game, Emin did a surprisingly good job (as a striker), maintaining dominance and controlling Cheung on the ground so he could rain down punches and elbows. Remember, this was way before UFC where "ground and pound" became something every school kid tried to imitate.


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## JPinAZ (May 11, 2016)

Not taking any sides here in this old dead-horse issue, but a very important point about that video that is often overlooked is - this clip is grossly edited/clipped short by one side (Emin's camp).
Where is the pre-contact stage? We only see it from the point where they are locked together.
Was GM WC jumped and then the camera picks up from there?
Or were they both in equal agreement and readiness for the 'challenge'?

Also, another good point is, GM WC got back up and then went on to complete his seminar with no issue. So IMO no one really won/lost that 'encounter', except maybe an embarrassing black eye to the WC community in general


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## geezer (May 11, 2016)

JPinAZ said:


> Not taking any sides here in this old dead-horse issue, but a very important point about that video that is often overlooked is - *this clip is grossly edited/clipped short*



The bolded part above is worth noting. See my previous post. Oh and by the way, William Cheung deserves kudos for attempting to complete his seminar. He _was_ pretty bruised up. I've seen the pictures. If it had been worse, I'd think assault charges would have been filed. As it is, I'm not sure why they weren't.


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## yak sao (May 11, 2016)

Tames D said:


> Yeah, I agree. I wonder what Emin's thoughts are about that ugly encounter. I've never seen any comments from him regarding it.



Emin  was far from any Grand Master back in those days. He was 24 years old and had been training WT for about five or six years at that point. I talked to him about it some years later and there was no chest-thumping or bragging, in fact he was almost sorry it happened despite the notoriety it gave him.


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## KPM (May 12, 2016)

geezer said:


> BTW, even though that clip had the slowed-down section, the quality was quite poor. I had a chance to see the original, uncut VHS footage back in the 80s and you could pick up a lot more. For a guy with no grappling game, Emin did a surprisingly good job (as a striker), maintaining dominance and controlling Cheung on the ground so he could rain down punches and elbows. Remember, this was way before UFC where "ground and pound" became something every school kid tried to imitate.



I half-way remember reading something about Emin having some training in Turkish Wrestling prior to starting Wing Chun.  But that was a long time ago and may have just been someone shooting off.


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## Tony Dismukes (May 12, 2016)

KPM said:


> I half-way remember reading something about Emin having some training in Turkish Wrestling prior to starting Wing Chun.  But that was a long time ago and may have just been someone shooting off.


I believe that is correct, although I don't know how extensive his background is in that art or how good he was at it.


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## JowGaWolf (May 12, 2016)

What was the fight supposed to be about? Who was better at Wing Chun or who was the better fighter?


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## Jens (May 12, 2016)

geezer said:


> This is an interesting point. At that point Emin was already quite proficient at applying his WT and William Cheung, whatever you think of his claims, was a direct student of Yip Man who also had considerable sparring and challenge-match experience as a young man. Yet when the fight went to the ground it took on the character of unsophisticated brawling. Why?



Personally I believe Emin was probably a little worried about Cheung's reputation on his feet, so he immediately took him to the ground where he knew he would have his best chance. This seems to have been his intention all along. Emin mentioned somewhere that he had done some Turkish wrestling before this incident.



JPinAZ said:


> this clip is grossly edited/clipped short by one side (Emin's camp).
> Where is the pre-contact stage? We only see it from the point where they are locked together.
> Was GM WC jumped and then the camera picks up from there?
> Or were they both in equal agreement and readiness for the 'challenge'?



Good point! it was be nice to see the complete unedited version. it was obviously chopped up to promote Leung Ting's WT system over TWC. Emin even admitted that it was Leung Ting and Kernspect that put him up to it.


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## geezer (May 12, 2016)

[


Jens said:


> .... it was obviously chopped up to promote Leung Ting's WT system over TWC. Emin even admitted that it was Leung Ting and Kernspect that put him up to it.



Well, I did see the original VHS and IMO Emin still dominated throughout. Although, you are absolutely right about it all being a set-up and about who was behind it. Anyway, it was a long time ago, I'm no longer connected to any of the parties involved and I, for one, don't really care anymore.  Sooo....moving on....

As to whether he did Turkish wrestling or not, either way, when I first met Emin in the 80s, I didn't get the impression that groundwork was his forte. I vaguely remember that he kept after me to be more aggressive and serious in training with him (I was pretty intimidated). But I _tried_. Once, when he swept me and followed me to the floor (God, he had strong legs!) I did a reversal and got his back ... at least for an instant. A good grappler wouldn't have allowed that. Didn't matter though, because he recovered in a flash and punished me for testing him. 

That's the way it was. Not aggressive, you took a beating. Aggressive, and you took a _worse_ beating. Fighters love training like that. Me ...I've come to accept that I'm more of a hobbyist. 

My WT si-dei who was briefly Emin's roommate back in the early 90s (when he and the Gracies were making noise) said that Emin worked really hard to improve his grappling skills at that time, training with an old friend and champion wrestler named Rezah or something. So I think the improvement in groundwork came from that time, after the Cheung episode.


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## Jens (May 12, 2016)

geezer said:


> My WT si-dei who was briefly Emin's roommate back in the early 90s (when he and the Gracies were making noise) said that Emin worked really hard to improve his grappling skills at that time, training with an old friend and champion wrestler named Rezah or something. So I think the improvement in groundwork came from that time, after the Cheung episode.



The Guy's Name is Reza Nasri, He fought in UFC 11 and lost very badly to Brian Johnston. here is the clip


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## kehcorpz (May 12, 2016)

Can somebody tell me if the MMA fighter are tested for steroids? I guess not. Johnston has a pretty insane look in his eyes. And these traps and shoulders holy moly.


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## geezer (May 12, 2016)

Jens said:


> The Guy's Name is Reza Nasri, He fought in UFC 11 and lost ...



Yeah, that's the guy, and it looks like that was his only attempt to cross over from greco-roman wrestling to MMA. Not so successful, I'd say. Still he could have been very good within his sport of Greco Roman, but I couldn't verify that either way.

I couldn't find his name on the lists of any major international greco roman championships, but it is possible he is listed under a different name (I know a couple of Iranians in the United States who go by different names than they went by in Iran), or that he was some kind of national champion that never made it to the next (international) level. He does have some some self-defense tapes based on greco-roman wrestling on Youtube.


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## geezer (May 12, 2016)

kehcorpz said:


> Can somebody tell me if the MMA fighter are tested for steroids? I guess not. Johnston has a pretty insane look in his eyes. And these traps and shoulders holy moly.



...and the ring girls. Are they tested for silicon? Holy Moly!


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## Tony Dismukes (May 12, 2016)

kehcorpz said:


> Can somebody tell me if the MMA fighter are tested for steroids? I guess not. Johnston has a pretty insane look in his eyes. And these traps and shoulders holy moly.


Yes they are, and athletes getting busted for banned substances is pretty common.

Even so, it's probable that a lot more competitors use PEDs than are actually caught.


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## kehcorpz (May 12, 2016)

They probably use designer steroids, too, which can't be tested. Or they simply get off the juice
before the competition. They'd have to do random tests at any time in order to catch them.

I don't watch MMA but this clip is already repelling to me. It's so raw and brutal. I think
in order to even fight like this you have to dehumanize yourself in some way in order to be able
relentlessly hit someone like a lunatic. To me this looks more like a fight between animals. 

No offense against people who do MMA but I don't think that watching this is good for people.
Imagine teenagers watch this. They could become desensitized to such a kind of violence.


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## Marnetmar (May 12, 2016)

kehcorpz said:


> They probably use designer steroids, too, which can't be tested. Or they simply get off the juice
> before the competition. They'd have to do random tests at any time in order to catch them.
> 
> I don't watch MMA but this clip is already repelling to me. It's so raw and brutal. I think
> ...



It's a blood sport. It's bound to attract shitty overly-aggressive people who like violence.


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## kehcorpz (May 13, 2016)

Marnetmar said:


> It's a blood sport. It's bound to attract shitty overly-aggressive people who like violence.



I agree.
In my opinion people who are already more like animals and totally uncivilized who watch this stuff will only become more
raw and aggressive.

I mean a normal person with a conscience would not hit or kick a person on the ground. When I see real life videos where people
kick somebody on the ground it always shocks me. How can somebody become so vile? To me somebody who does this isn't
human anymore. I have seen a short video it must have been shot in asia or something. There's an old lady lying on the ground
probably cause she was attacked. She raises her head and a young person kicks her right in the face making her head bounce
back. Maybe she died from this or suffered serious neck injury. 
This is really a sick world. Just today I read a news report where a young person was beaten to death on the street by strangers
which approached him and then hit him without warning! This is so sick and disturbing. It really makes you afraid to go to public
places.


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