Anderson Silva just said that he wants to compete in the Olympics in Taekwondo!

[andyjeffries]

I may be off base with this, but I thought there were rules against professional (read: paid) athletes competing in certain Olympic sports... I am not sure if TKD is one of them, or if I am just wrong. In this case, I hope I am. It would be fantastic to see him compete in Brazil.
(I know that is not true with basketball, what with the USA "Dream Teams" and all).

The only two remaining are Boxing and Wrestling (and maybe even of those just boxing as professional wrestling really isn't the same).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_sports#Olympics

Given that he's a professional in a different sport, it wouldn't matter anyway - it was never that you couldn't be a professional athlete only that you couldn't be a professional in that sport.

Finally, a lot of Taekwondo athletes are paid to train (receive a stipend from the NGB) - USA, Korea and Great Britain are among them.

 

[Gorilla]

WTf has put on professional fights in which many Olympians participated including Diane and Steven Lopez! Big money was paid!

 

[d1jinx]

joe rogan trained TKD. he talks about it.

The game changes. Just like TKD competition changed. MMA is changing. its evolving. what works today wont tomorrow. what dont work today will work tomorrow.

people focused so much on BJJ and how to counter and nuetralize it, that the stand up game got week. now people are getting knocked out or beaten standing up so the shift is going back that way.

In the end. true MMA is a mixture of traditional Martial Arts in 1 fighter hence MMA. Not just a slug fest of "Mixed" types of MA by fighters of Mixed styles...

 

[takadadojokeith]

Silva fighting in olympic TKD would make it interesting to non-TKD folks for the first time in a long time.

 

[wtftkdfanatic]

this would be so exciting to watch! Watching Silva in the octagon is breath taking. it would be very fun to see what he could do on the TKD mat. especially in Brazil. it makes me so pumped just thinking about it!