Martial Arts
RAF Abu Dhabi: Two Belts in One Division, and MMA Stars Imported Under the Freestyle Banner
Gold Medals, Empty Ledgers: The Real Scoreboard of South Asian Combat Sports
Stretchered Out After Round Five: Barcelos's Reassuring Message and the Risk the Ledger Records
Sanda 56kg Final: Six of China's Seven Golds, and Vietnam's One Quiet Statistic
The Korean Wall Beneath the Bronze: The Real Measure of Singapore's Fencing Breakthrough
42–41: The Scoreline That Isn't in Fencing's Rulebook
Martial ArtsUFC 331: Van's Sprawl, the Marketing of a 'Greatest Era,' and Steveson's Twelve SecondsI left the print desk for fourteen freeze-frames, and never looked back. Seve...
Martial ArtsA Martinete on the Referee's Neck: The Death No Board Stayed to Account ForI stopped the video four times. Each time it froze on the same frame — a...
Martial ArtsRAF Abu Dhabi: Two Belts in One Division, and MMA Stars Imported Under the Freestyle BannerHook The schedule stopped my pen. RAF 14 on October 23, then barely three wee...
Martial ArtsEmpty Ledgers, Invisible Lineage: Why Bangladesh's Combat Sports Cannot Even Keep Their Own RecordsLast month, standing in front of a filing cabinet beside the NSC gymnasium in...
Martial ArtsEight Layers Outside the Ring: A New Framework for Reading Bangladesh's Combat SportsMarch 2026. The NSC gymnasium in Dhaka. The Bangladesh Boxing Federation...
Martial ArtsGold Medals, Empty Ledgers: The Real Scoreboard of South Asian Combat SportsAugust 2026, the mixed zone at the Indra Stadium in Bukit Jalil. A 21-year-ol...
Martial ArtsStretchered Out After Round Five: Barcelos's Reassuring Message and the Risk the Ledger RecordsThat night in Las Vegas the fifth-round bell never needed to sound....
Martial ArtsFive-Nil, One Swollen Knee: Vietnam's Team-Kata Gold and the Accounting Gap in Karate KataHook Before the final, the left knee had been struck twice on the warm-up mat...
Martial ArtsTwo Pens in the Extra Round: Lò Thị Phung, Stick-Pushing, and Vietnam's MMA PipelineThe afternoon of 20 September found me at my Osaka desk, tea long cold, lapto...
Martial ArtsVietnam's Silent Metronome on the Kata Floor: The 0.42 Points Hidden Inside a 5-0 SweepOn the scoreboard in the hall, all three matches read identically — 5-0, 5-0,...
Martial ArtsSanda 56kg Final: Six of China's Seven Golds, and Vietnam's One Quiet StatisticOn a raised platform in Aichi-Nagoya, an eight-by-eight metre square of board...
Martial ArtsShort Hair, Two Golds: The Scoreboard Vietnamese Team Kata Never ShowsOn a September evening I was sitting in front of a laptop in a sixth-floor fl...
Martial Arts42–41 and the Ten-Touch Wall: The Geometry of Singapore's Épée BronzeOvertime. Team épée quarter-final, Singapore against Uzbekistan. Late in the...
Martial ArtsThe Korean Wall Beneath the Bronze: The Real Measure of Singapore's Fencing BreakthroughIt was 1:40 in the morning in my Colombo flat. On the laptop screen, the pist...
Martial ArtsTwo Ends of the Blade: Singapore's First Bronze and Korea's 45–35In the summer of 2026 I walked into the fan zone in Karama, Dubai, to watch a...
Martial Arts42–41: The Scoreline That Isn't in Fencing's RulebookFour in the morning. A cold dormitory room in Nagoya, a laptop screen running...
Martial ArtsSingapore's Fencing Bronze at the Asian Games: The Real Story Is in the Relay, Not the StarThe final touch out of the elimination bracket pinned me to my chair....
Martial ArtsTen Touches of Distance: Singapore's First Fencing Bronze and the Korean WallOn the strip at the Aichi Sky Expo the scoreboard sat at 42–41 and the match...
Martial ArtsA Martinete on the Referee's Neck: The Death No Board Stayed to Account ForI stopped the video four times. Each time it froze on the same frame — a...
Martial ArtsRAF Abu Dhabi: Two Belts in One Division, and MMA Stars Imported Under the Freestyle BannerHook The schedule stopped my pen. RAF 14 on October 23, then barely three wee...
Martial ArtsEmpty Ledgers, Invisible Lineage: Why Bangladesh's Combat Sports Cannot Even Keep Their Own RecordsLast month, standing in front of a filing cabinet beside the NSC gymnasium in...
Martial ArtsEight Layers Outside the Ring: A New Framework for Reading Bangladesh's Combat SportsMarch 2026. The NSC gymnasium in Dhaka. The Bangladesh Boxing Federation...
Martial ArtsGold Medals, Empty Ledgers: The Real Scoreboard of South Asian Combat SportsAugust 2026, the mixed zone at the Indra Stadium in Bukit Jalil. A 21-year-ol...
Martial ArtsStretchered Out After Round Five: Barcelos's Reassuring Message and the Risk the Ledger RecordsThat night in Las Vegas the fifth-round bell never needed to sound....
Martial ArtsFive-Nil, One Swollen Knee: Vietnam's Team-Kata Gold and the Accounting Gap in Karate KataHook Before the final, the left knee had been struck twice on the warm-up mat...
Martial ArtsTwo Pens in the Extra Round: Lò Thị Phung, Stick-Pushing, and Vietnam's MMA PipelineThe afternoon of 20 September found me at my Osaka desk, tea long cold, lapto...
Martial ArtsVietnam's Silent Metronome on the Kata Floor: The 0.42 Points Hidden Inside a 5-0 SweepOn the scoreboard in the hall, all three matches read identically — 5-0, 5-0,...
Martial ArtsSanda 56kg Final: Six of China's Seven Golds, and Vietnam's One Quiet StatisticOn a raised platform in Aichi-Nagoya, an eight-by-eight metre square of board...
Martial ArtsShort Hair, Two Golds: The Scoreboard Vietnamese Team Kata Never ShowsOn a September evening I was sitting in front of a laptop in a sixth-floor fl...
Martial Arts42–41 and the Ten-Touch Wall: The Geometry of Singapore's Épée BronzeOvertime. Team épée quarter-final, Singapore against Uzbekistan. Late in the...
Martial ArtsThe Korean Wall Beneath the Bronze: The Real Measure of Singapore's Fencing BreakthroughIt was 1:40 in the morning in my Colombo flat. On the laptop screen, the pist...
Martial ArtsTwo Ends of the Blade: Singapore's First Bronze and Korea's 45–35In the summer of 2026 I walked into the fan zone in Karama, Dubai, to watch a...
Martial Arts42–41: The Scoreline That Isn't in Fencing's RulebookFour in the morning. A cold dormitory room in Nagoya, a laptop screen running...
Martial ArtsSingapore's Fencing Bronze at the Asian Games: The Real Story Is in the Relay, Not the StarThe final touch out of the elimination bracket pinned me to my chair....
Martial ArtsTen Touches of Distance: Singapore's First Fencing Bronze and the Korean WallOn the strip at the Aichi Sky Expo the scoreboard sat at 42–41 and the match...