Enter the Dragon 13 will bring Taiwan’s first taste of Dirty Boxing Sunday at Taipei Gymnasium, one highlight of a mixed-rules card blending new formats with traditional MMA.
The undercard starts at 10:30am, with the main card beginning at 4pm. Tickets are NT$1,200.
Dirty Boxing is a US-born ruleset popularized by fighters Mike Perry and Jon Jones as an alternative to boxing. The format has gained traction overseas, with its inaugural championship streamed free to millions on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Photo courtesy of Combat Sports Arts
Taiwan’s version allows punches and elbows with clinch striking, but bans kicks, knees and takedowns. The rules are stricter than the American version, where standing ground strikes are also legal.
Event matchmaker Kemp Cheng (鄭宇哲) said the decision to stage Dirty Boxing was part of a broader plan to diversify the offerings of Way of the Dragon (WOTD), a promoter sanctioned by the Chinese Taipei Mixed Martial Arts Association. He previously considered working with another promotion but disagreed with its use of boxing gloves.
Cheng said Dirty Boxing is suited to athletes with backgrounds in Sanda and traditional Chinese martial arts. Fans may see techniques drawn from boxing, Muay Thai and other striking disciplines.
Photo courtesy of Combat Sports Arts
He organized the bout himself with MMA gloves and hand wraps. This, he said, “keeps the intensity of combat while ensuring safety.”
Cheng added that the Enter the Dragon series remains WOTD’s flagship event, giving local and regional fighters large-venue opportunities. Dirty Boxing, he said, is intended as a long-term project rather than a one-off spectacle.
The main event will be held under professional MMA rules, contrasting with the Dirty Boxing debut.
The ETD 13 card will also feature Beta MMA, which serves as the amateur format. Matches consist of three, three-minute rounds with no elbows, limited knees and the use of six-ounce gloves. Another format, Cage Striking, stages kickboxing inside a cage with three rounds of two and a half minutes each. Fighters are allowed to use punches, kicks and knees, with one clinch knee permitted, but elbows and takedowns remain prohibited.
In 2018, ETD 2 featured Jun Yong Park against Glenn Sparv. Park went on to compete as a UFC middleweight, underscoring the promotion’s ability to host fighters who later reach international stages.
Cheng confirmed the card’s headliner: Kevin Yu (尤凱文) vs Chiang Chieh-yu (蔣捷宇), a matchup he described as a “dream fight” between two of Taiwan’s toughest fighters.
“Nobody expected this fight to actually happen, so anticipation is enormous,” he said. “Everyone wants to know who will be crowned the strongest man in Taiwan.”
This is the year that the demographic crisis will begin to impact people’s lives. This will create pressures on treatment and hiring of foreigners. Regardless of whatever technological breakthroughs happen, the real value will come from digesting and productively applying existing technologies in new and creative ways. INTRODUCING BASIC SERVICES BREAKDOWNS At some point soon, we will begin to witness a breakdown in basic services. Initially, it will be limited and sporadic, but the frequency and newsworthiness of the incidents will only continue to accelerate dramatically in the coming years. Here in central Taiwan, many basic services are severely understaffed, and
Jan. 5 to Jan. 11 Of the more than 3,000km of sugar railway that once criss-crossed central and southern Taiwan, just 16.1km remain in operation today. By the time Dafydd Fell began photographing the network in earnest in 1994, it was already well past its heyday. The system had been significantly cut back, leaving behind abandoned stations, rusting rolling stock and crumbling facilities. This reduction continued during the five years of his documentation, adding urgency to his task. As passenger services had already ceased by then, Fell had to wait for the sugarcane harvest season each year, which typically ran from
It is a soulful folk song, filled with feeling and history: A love-stricken young man tells God about his hopes and dreams of happiness. Generations of Uighurs, the Turkic ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang region, have played it at parties and weddings. But today, if they download it, play it or share it online, they risk ending up in prison. Besh pede, a popular Uighur folk ballad, is among dozens of Uighur-language songs that have been deemed “problematic” by Xinjiang authorities, according to a recording of a meeting held by police and other local officials in the historic city of Kashgar in
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was out in force in the Taiwan Strait this week, threatening Taiwan with live-fire exercises, aircraft incursions and tedious claims to ownership. The reaction to the PRC’s blockade and decapitation strike exercises offer numerous lessons, if only we are willing to be taught. Reading the commentary on PRC behavior is like reading Bible interpretation across a range of Christian denominations: the text is recast to mean what the interpreter wants it to mean. Many PRC believers contended that the drills, obviously scheduled in advance, were aimed at the recent arms offer to Taiwan by the
RSS