The Korean Zombie, Chang Sung Jung, might never have a chance to step into the ring with Georges St. Pierre, the dominant UFC Welterweight Champion, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t hold a victory of sorts over him. We’ve all been following MMA for a while now and know that MMA apparel is usually done in poor taste. It is just one of those sad facts of life. The aesthetic of most MMA apparel companies is usually that of lots of skulls, wings, skulls with wings, blood splatter and of course, oppressive imagery.
I’m not sure how imagery from former wartime regimes became such a popular thing with the folks who design MMA gear, but it has been this way for a long, long time. We are all kind of immune to Nazi imagery at this point as we’ve seen all sorts of MMA apparel companies use similar imagery, or some even use actual Nazi imagery, because they thought it looked cool. Something that we’ve seen a lot of as well has been the Rising Sun Flag of Japan, which was used by the Imperial Japanese Army, most notably during World War II where they committed horrible atrocities in Asia.
We really haven’t heard many complaints about anyone using that flag, but then again, MMA has rarely involved so many nations as it does now, especially with popular Korean fighters like Chang Sung Jung having a platform to express themselves. To a proud Korean fighter like Jung, the Rising Sun imagery offends him and he explained it on his Facebook page yesterday.
Well, Hayabusa Fight Gear was quick to react and say “our bad, we didn’t know,” and explain that it will not be produced for mass marketing and that this will be the end of it.