Frankly, I was shocked to hear the first time that Chinese fighters were going to do K-1, it is a very different game, more different from San Shou than even full Muay Thai (because in K-1 you can not clinch, not catch the kick, etc). But the matches I saw they did well, I would have trained them differently and know some ways they could have done better, but I wasn't there to coach them.

In China, they have tons of opportunities to do San Shou and San Da and so that is what they do, often to negative effect because they only fight their own style and get used to the one format. Outside of China, like the US, there isn't many if at times any San Shou so we have to fight Muay Thai a lot. You get used to fighting that style of fight, as far as the opponent's "flavor" and you learn to adapt your game more. We still side kick, most San Shou fighters block the knees but don't use them much (my gym is an exception, probably because when the two coaches were fighting, we both used a lot of knees in those days when they were legal), so what we learn to do is use San Shou tools to fight a Muay Thai fight. Chinese didn't get this chance until now, and to their detriment, they're first shot was against top Muay Thai guys

Still, they are doing well, better than anyone expected, and so I think that's something they should get some respect for, it isn't "my --- is bigger" at all