Matt Benyon - Media CV

Writing

I have interviewed the two current world champions of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Submission Grappling for the prestigious Japanese martial arts magazine Gong Kakutogi.

Both interviews required photography and a face to face interview, and ended up as double page spreads.

Interview with Roger Gracie, multiple-time World BJJ Champion

Interview with Braulio Estima, World Submission Grappling Champion

I am a regular contributing writer to Fighters Only, possibly the world’s greatest Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) magazine, with a worldwide readership and UK, Canada, US, and German editions.

Two of the many articles I have written:

A double page feature on Yuki Nakai, a Japanese martial arts legend:

The Quiet Warrior, by Matt Benyon

Extract:

Travelling around the world and training, Nakai earned a reputation for himself as a tough and technical grappler, gaining victories in both the Pan-American and Mundial (world) jiu jitsu tournaments. Eventually outgrowing the brown belt he had quickly achieved, he was awarded his black belt by the International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation and went on to found Paraestra, effectively bringing the art of BJJ to its estranged homeland. As a black belt, Nakai has competed in hard-fought battles against some of the world’s best jiu jitsu players on the professional circuit, facing off against Leo Vieira and Ricardo de la Riva among others. “I thought Brazilian jiu-jitsu fit the Japanese,” says Nakai, and evidently, he was right. Nowadays you can find one of his Paraestra dojos nestled in the basement of an apartment building or down a narrow alley in just about any city in Japan.

A guest editorial on the pitfalls of using online video sites to watch pay-per-view events:

Spoilt for Choice by Matt Benyon

Extract:

If the early 90s created the MTV generation, where everything had to be chopped down to five-minute bursts of intense entertainment, then the naughties have produced the YouTube generation, where action has to be delivered in 30-second slices. We can’t wait around for anything any more, no sir. I want it downloaded to my hard drive faster than I can flick my mouse across the scroll bar to get to the good bit. We have become out-of-control Johhny 5’s, mumbling “input… input…” and twitching with ADHD-like impatience. This is a serious problem. Enter the ghost of MMA Christmas future: There you sit, jacked into the internet, a punch-junkie, fast forwarding through introductions, through staredowns, through ring-stalking, through everything, just to get to that KO punch or submission or decision. You also have processed cheese dribbling out of your mouth and you smell pretty bad. Not a nice prediction, eh?

MMA commentary on Bloody Elbow, one of the world’s best MMA hybrid blog and news sites:

Ultimate Fighting or MMA? Extract:

You might be interested to know that the Japanese term for MMA is sougou kakutougi, with sougou meaning “mix” and kakutougi meaning “large, flattened sausage.” No, wait. Kakutougi means “martial arts” (with a sporting connotation, as opposed to budo, the more traditional type.) So the Japanese, also, call it mixed martial arts.They also call tiny apartments “mansion” though, so we can’t really trust them. Of course, a brief explanation of the reason why it is called mixed martial arts at all is both required and possibly redundant for most readers; It is because of the mixture of martial arts that are needed to compete, from the grappling arts to the striking arts and pretty much nothing in between. What about the term Ultimate Fighting? Oh, do hold on a minute. I have to get a Kleenex. I’ll be right with you, I just have to Hoover the floor. Why don’t I Xerox you a copy of my buttocks? Darn it, I just sliced off my finger. Let me get a Band Aid. Ultimate Fighting is a brand, just like Kleenex, Hoover and Xerox. It is due to our insatiable appetite for the goggle-box in the corner of the room that these words enter our lexicon with barely a whisper and before you know it we are Tipp-Exing and Sellotaping our way through life.

Numerous articles during my tenure as Editor of Fukuoka Now magazine, including:

Kabuki, Japan’s Enigmatic Theatre

Fukuoka Now

To non-Japanese, kabuki can appear to be another one of Japan’s unfathomable national treasures, alongside sumo, the tea ceremony and the electric toilet seat. The distinctive dialogue, make-up and rampant cross-dressing put many off. But kabuki’s popularity is warranted: with a little patience, be prepared to uncover a form of theater that is rich, rewarding, and uniquely Japanese.

For beginners, we recommend the plays of Bando Tamasaburo. He is an actor with such presence that as soon as he appears on the stage, you’ll be swept away with the rest of the audience (and probably forget that he is a man wearing a lot of make-up). Another good play to start with is Sukeroku, featuring Ichikawa Ebizo. The story is comparatively simple, and Ebizo is known for performing the role of his character very well - voted sexiest guy of 1629 (probably)!

Golf for Everyone

While this was first conceived as a simple ’stick and ball’ game, the vital ingredient was later added to create golf’s uniqueness: the hole. Or, if you buy Robin Williams’ version of events, a bunch of [expletive] drunk Scotsmen got together and decided to whack a [expletive] ball down a [expletive] gopher hole, and put loads of [expletive] trees and [expletive] sand in the way. Either way, in the hundreds of years that have passed since then, golf has remained relatively unchanged, save for the materials the equipment is created from.

Fukuoka Now

But what about golf in our adopted home, Japan? It was in the 70’s that golf really began to take off here. The economy was booming, money was flowing, and the Japanese wanted a slice of the stick and ball action. Golf courses sprang up all over Japan, and most of them flaunted the kind of membership fees that needed extra long checks to write them on. We’re talking 3,000,000 yen joining fees plus 25,000,000 yen annual fees, and you still had to pay to play each round. These uber-courses were members-only affairs that relied on inflated corporate membership fees paid by companies’ expense accounts.

Video

I studied broadcast and new media at University, where I learned video editing. What follows are some of my videos, usually based on my hobby: martial arts.

This is an interview with Kenshi Tomari, my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor. All footage was shot, edited, and translated by me, using Sony Vegas.

An introduction to a judo seminar I attended, hosted by one of the greatest judokas of Japan, Koji Komuro.

I had some troubles with this video, but learnt some practical, real-world knowledge about de-interlacing and file formats.