At a Vancouver Sun live chat tonight, UFC fighter Denis Kang answered a ton of questions candidly and honestly, including one about what he thought of the Rua/Machida decision that brought about an interesting answer.

I think Rua CLEARLY won that fight. THat was a huge mistake on the judge's part. I dont know if it was corruption or human error but it was wrong nonetheless .... I think Machida was off from the get-go. IMO he seemed a little intimidated and stressed by the pressure. Winning a title and defending one are two different things.

Kang went on to discuss his thoughts on a range of issues.

On his home town of Vancouver, which still hasn't gotten around to regulating MMA, causing him to leave for Montreal to get decent training in:

I dont know why there aren't more young athletes getting involved in MMA in Vancouver. I really wish that I could be based there but the circumstances call for otherwise. I thinkt hat if the municipality could regulate MMA in the city it would definitely help. To be honest its a bit of a slap in the face to me, because I have put so much into this sport and for them to be so unfair is not right... schedule permitting I will definitely be there [when the UFC holds a Vancouver show]! Anything to help the sport in my city.

On Crocop:

Crocop is a bit burnt out IMO. Remember he came from a succesful career in K1, to Pride, THEN to UFC. He needs time off... For Crocop, it's not his training, it's his mind, his heart etc. He needs to find his MMA mojo again.

On what he misses about fighting in Japan:

I would love knees to the head in UFC.

On Hendo's contract holdout:

I think Hendo is being a smart business man. He did the same thing with Pride a few years ago.

On Fedor vs Rogers:

Fedor with one hand tied behind his back !

On the top five light heavyweights in his opinion:

Machida, Rua, Thiago Silva, Rashad, Luis Arthur Kane.

On fighting his teammate, Nate Marquardt, if it came to it:

I would prefer not to fight Nate as he and I are friends, but if it's for a title or a 1# contender spot then we would have to.

On Kimbo Slice, who he's been training with at American Top Team:

I was just with Kimbo tonight. I havent really trained with him except for drilling techniques. He's too big for me to spar... kimbo is the nicest guy you could imagine. Remember he came into MMA very green without any athletic background except for street fights. He never made any claims about being the best. The dude just wants to fight. 

On women's MMA:

Womens MMA is growing, and in my opinion the best female fighter in the world is our neighbour in Victoria. None other than Sarah Kaufmann.

On fightwear: 

I will soon have a signature Tapout shirt. Look for it at www.deniskang.com very shortly

On gameplans:

I work on everything but for me it's all about staying on gameplan, sometimes I just try and brawl too much.

On Lesnar:

I could take lesnar....with a shotgun.....

On 'that fight' against Alan Belcher:

With that fight i was not prepared. I had a bad ankle injury which prevented me from training properly. My cardio was shit which let me to make a mistake and he caught me.

On 'that fight' in which he KTFO of Ninja Rua:

I just hit him again once and saw him dazed, right then the words of my boxing coach echoed in my head "you gotta keep yo'man drunk" so thats what I did lol.

The chat window archive can be found at http://www.tinyurl.com/kangchat, and for more Vancouver Sun coverage hit http://www.vancouversun.com/mma