 Which Asian American athlete inspired you growing up? Let us know in the comments down below because here's a list of the 10 most influential Asian American athletes. Yeah, we're going to go through and review each one of the 10 people on this list. And then of course, we're going to give you our takeaway. Then we're going to get to some athletes, Andrew, that didn't make this list. Maybe they were born in Asia or for whatever reason, they weren't on here and then give you our breakdown of them too. So make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications and do may is over. However, we didn't get to all the API month content that we wanted to. Yeah, true. I mean, I think every month is API month on our channel, but also real quick. I think that seeing Asians achieve at a high level in sports, whether it's contact sports or individual sports, I think it's very important because it basically makes Asian Americans feel like we're more than just what people think we are. Right. You're saying what we think we are as what tech workers, maybe service workers, maybe medical workers, or even just chefs, like there's nothing wrong with any of those professions. But I think sports because it's still rare to see an Asian achieve at a high level that it's just really cool. Yeah. And it's like society maybe doesn't believe in us to be super good at sports. Maybe our own parents and community doesn't fully even encourage us, you know what I mean? Or give us the necessary support. I'm not blaming anybody, but there's just a lot of barriers to Asians being super good at sports right in America. Exactly. So let's get into the list. What's the number one Asian athlete on this list? All right. So by the way, this is not our list, but we are giving our opinion. Shout out to Michelle Kwan. Number one, Andrew, she won 43 skating championships, including two Olympic medals, a silver and a bronze in 2002 Salt Lake City. Now she's a retired figure skater in the U.S. Ambassador Belize, where she got a talk with another legend from the early 2000s, Shine. Wow. What are they talking about? I remember growing up when I was really young, always hearing about Michelle Kwan, Christy Yamaguchi, and figure skating was a lot more in the news. I thought it was a bigger deal. It was kind of where a lot of the drama was with Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan and all that stuff, even though they were white. But I'm saying like, I guess like figure skating used to be a bigger deal, but shout out to her because that is a name from my childhood. Yeah. And at that time, you know, like you said, Christy Yamaguchi, there was also other not as high profile Asian female figure skaters. And I feel like that was sort of like almost before even there was media representation. There was Olympic representation. That's true. Yeah. And I think also her ability to transition from being an Olympic athlete to becoming a U.S. Ambassador now. That's pretty interesting. Pretty impressive. Pretty impressive. Moving on, Andrew, we got BJ Penn, the first World Jujitsu Championship Master from Hawaii, half Hawaiian slash Korean. Yeah. BJ Penn, I remember hearing about him when I was younger, right? You remember hearing that name, but I guess I didn't really know what he was doing, but I would hear that like, oh, BJ Penn is like doing this. And then I'd be like, who is BJ Penn? Is that like Cal Penn? Because Cal Penn is an Indian dude. Right. There is a lot of professional fighters, Andrew, whether it's UFC one championship, this kickboxing Muay Thai coming out of Hawaii. And a lot of people in Hawaii are mixed Asian obviously mixed with like a lot of other things or a lot of different Asians plus Pacific Island will combine. Yeah, BJ Penn, that was a name before actually UFC, before UFC actually started. There was like, you would just, that's why it wasn't as well known. Right. Obviously now there's Max Holloway, who's also from Hawaii. There's a ton of fighters from Hawaii now. Andrew, moving on, number three on the Next Sharks list, we got Troy Palamalu. Mmm. Oh man, I remember all the Samoans growing up, man. They would all rock his jersey on the Steelers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was wondering, I was like, wait, how come all our friends are wearing Steelers face? But I would say, man, I mean, he's a Super Bowl champ, pro bowler. He's a big deal in the Samoan community. And I would say he's probably one of the more successful Samoan football players. Yeah. Even though there's a lot of Islander football players. Yeah, there was a lot of Islanders that have had some career in the NFL as well. I remember growing up, the star quarterback for UW was Marcus Tuuyasasopo. And he was kind of like Kyler Murray before Kyler Murray in the sense that he was very undersized. Obviously not necessarily as good as Kyler Murray, but shout out to Tuuyasasopo. Moving on to Khloe Kim, Andrew, you did a food video with her. Yeah, we did a video together. I'll leave it down below. But Khloe Kim, especially for the younger generation and in snowboarding, because it's kind of like one of those cool like bro-ish sports for her to win the gold was pretty cool. Also, I think just like she's very relatable to like, you know, just the Gen Z younger millennial market. So I think that's cool for a lot of people. Yeah. And she really embodies. I feel like that like, dude, like I'm on like I'm in the snow, you know, like, you know, she's a chill girl. Moving on. Nathan Chen, who was born in Salt Lake City. He is a six time national champion like his Japanese rival, Yuzuru Ice Prince Hanyu. And he beat and faced him in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Yeah, I almost feel like Nathan Chen would have even been a bigger star if this was like 15 years ago in the Olympics when figure skating was even one of like the premier sports. But yeah, shout out to him. I think he did well to be honest. I'm not as much into figure skating like it doesn't really like, I guess, influence me personally at my age. But I could see that, you know, he's just a good representation. He's a nice guy. He is good looking. It helps. And I do think it bridged the gap a little bit for a Chinese American, especially, you know, who knows if you want to get into the geopolitical thing beat out a Japanese guy, you know, even though it's for America, but he's like Chinese. No, no, he, he, he decided he could have potentially been on team China, like what Eileen goo did, but he chose not to. He wanted to play for the home team, which is America. Shout out. Um, Sunisa Lee Andrew born in St. Paul, Minnesota. She's the first Hmong American to ever win a gold medal when she took home the top award in the individual all around jibs. This event in Tokyo in 2021. Yeah, guys, we did a whole video about Sunisa Lee and the significance of what she did. Obviously grown up in Seattle and the West Coast. Also really Gen Z, but more on the urban side. I feel like she represents a lot of Southeast Asian girls. We knew growing up in South Seattle, also West Seattle. Yeah, yeah. She's a little bit more like Bellevue. She's more like Tik Tok, I guess. Uh, and, uh, yeah, no, I mean, Sunisa Lee is really cool. And, uh, man, it'd be cool to like meet her one day. And I just feel like that, um, you know, for a group like the Hmong people, which are so small and they don't even really have like a nation. It's almost like this is like one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying. You're saying it's like it's different than being from a bigger group where it's like you're almost picking from your representation that more relates to you. If you're Hmong, it's like that's who it is big, you know, um, moving on. We got Tiger Woods, Andrew Tiger Woods classic. Probably widely considered Andrew the greatest golfer of all time. Yeah. Uh, I would say obviously him being half Asian. Uh, like I feel like there was always debate on how Asian he was. Like, was it his Asian side or his black side that made him good at golfing? Uh, well, I feel like most people in America consider him black, but he did come out and say, I'm Kablan Asian one time, which was kind of like a controversial remark. Also, there was the racial draft on the Chappelle show. And then of course his voice is more, I guess like whiter Asian. Um, I'll take him out. It's, uh, it's Tiger. Hey, did you go ahead and delete those text messages? Listen, Tiger is the Tiger is a very Asian animal. I'll take it. Yo, shout out to Tiger Woods, man. Uh, Michael Chang Andrew Michael Chang was, I believe at that time, one of the youngest guys to ever win, uh, the grand slam. Yeah, dude, shout out to Michael Chang. Super quick. Um, I think he did help get a lot of Asian families into tennis. I remember hearing his name a lot. I got to meet him in Seattle once because, uh, he was like running this league that we were playing basketball. He ran like a Christian Chinese sports league. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, shout out to Michael Chang, man. I think that's big for especially Asians in tennis. For sure. Uh, it showed that Asians could be good at tennis even in the 80s and win the whole thing, even though he's very, very young. Somebody, uh, and last but not least on next shark's list, we got Bruce Lee. Of course, a legend, you know, invented his own martial arts. People still, you know, do jikundo to this day. But this sort of leads us Andrew into our own list. And it's so interesting because, you know, everybody like sort of is into different things, right? So these are the athletes that inspired us growing up. Yeah. And, uh, Andrew, there's a connection here with Bruce Lee. Manny Pacquiao. Manny Pacquiao is considered the greatest Asian boxer of all time. Uh, there's a really big Japanese boxer right now. Yeah. Now, uh, in a way, he's like pretty much the best in his weight class. Um, but Pacquiao actually, I think he's like an eight division world champion, which is hyper impressive because most people just stay in their division to dominate. Yeah. And I think actually I was watching a lot of different boxing opinions from professional people like the commentators and they pretty much put Pacquiao like you could put him top five. Just because he dominated at different weight classes, even though he's not like undefeated like Mayweather. And you know what Pacquiao said? He said, yes, I was inspired by Bruce Lee because he values a more offensive centric approach, which is more one of the tenants of Jicundo obviously has a derivative of Wing Chun. Moving on to baseball and we grew up in Seattle, man. Ichiro, Ichiro was the man. Yo, that's Sasaki too. Yo, Ichiro was so cool. And I think Ichiro was cool too. Like he was actually cool. Like he's cool. He looks cool, right? Goatee was cool. He talked cool, even though he didn't really talk that much, but that was kind of cool. I remember there was like, what's your favorite show? And then he would just go, uh, SpongeBob SquarePants, um, but very personable though. You know what I mean? Of course, nowadays they got Shohei Otani. I believe Andrew, they both want MVP. Yeah. So Ichiro was the Japanese MVP. Shohei Otani as well. Moving on Andrew to the fight world. Our Korean zombie was huge. He was one of the biggest MMA fighters growing up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was huge, especially like we were in college and we had more Korean friends. They were super into them. So I think that was influential before that even was Kung-Lay. Kung-Lay came before UFC. Right. He was fighting in, uh, King boxing. I don't know what that league was called. There was a lot of leagues before like the consolidation. It was an MMA league before UFC. And actually shout out to the part Asian Brazilians to Andrew Lioto Machita. You know, a lot of these guys, uh, you know, a part Asian or like Japanese dads or whatever like that. Of course, there's a lot of current fighters that are really popping. Andrew, Zhang Wili, Song Yadong, Du Ho Choi, Andrew, Rod Tang. Yeah. Andrew, I think Rod Tang's videos fighting Muay Thai is some of the craziest things I ever seen when he just like Andrew, Andrew, he just lets people hit him four times and then he beats them up. It is insane. Very inspiring. Andrew, moving on to the NFL. I even followed Scott Fujita who as it turns out Andrew is not part Japanese. It's because his step-grandfather was Japanese. So interesting. But dad, that was actually like a thing growing up. I mean, obviously with that last name, everybody assumes he's Asian, but Eugene Chung was actually the cousin of our Taekwondo master. Yo, shout out to, yo, shout out to fantastic Korean Mike Kim. His dad was our Taekwondo master growing up and his cousin was Eugene Chung, who was the first full Asian, you know, that super looked Asian to play in the NFL. Yeah. And then Heinz Ward won some Super Bowl along with Troy Palamalu, Doug Baldwin, Taylor Rapp, our friend Patrick Chung, who's like part Chinese. Oh, shout out to that win. Yeah. That win. A full Vietnamese guy was like a pro bowler on the defensive side. Right. Obviously Kyler Murray, Ed Wang, a lot of the Islander guys, man. Shout out to Samoans, Tongans, Guamanians, Micronesians, Polynesians, Hawaiians. What up, ooze? Yeah. Um, Andrew, of course, we're moving into the NBA section now we've got Jeremy Lin. Yeah. You know, we nothing needs to be more said about him other than I guess one of the most interesting things about Jeremy is that he broke a lot of stereotypes and he confirmed a lot of stereotypes too because he still went to Harvard. Yeah. But I would say Jeremy Lin on this list is probably one of probably if the most famous. Yeah. Full Asian. Yeah. Um, Andrew, Yao Ming. Yao Ming was cool. Yo, Andrew, remember dad would take us to all the Yao Ming games? Our dad was not big on taking us to Sonic's games growing up, but he was taking us to all the Yao Ming games. We get good tickets. So we went to Yao Ming game. I remember and then our dad painted a poster because I was like, yo, we got to bring a poster. And then he wrote Jio. Yeah. Right. And that was like the first time like I didn't even speak Chinese. I didn't even know really what Jio meant. But dad wrote it and then somebody asked me and was like, Hey man, what does that mean? And then I was just like, I don't know. What is positive? Yo, I remember Yao Ming was in the layup line and he looked up at the signs though. I always thought that was tight, man. Um, Utah, Watanabe, Ruihachimura, Andrew, these guys are currently they're going to be in the NBA next year from Japan. Japan's got some great basketball training systems right now, but we got to go to the lesser known NBA players and Andrew, you know, we be following this. A lot of people don't follow this. We follow this. Andrew Utah Tabuse. Yeah. Do a lot of people know about this guy? Nah, man. He was kind of before the days of social media. Yi Jianlan also considered the Chinese Kevin Garnett. He's still playing in China, but he had some decent years in America and the NBA, but he probably didn't live up to the expectations. I think it was a lottery pick. Um, Menge Batir Andrew, who is actually a inner Mongolian person from China. So it's like his ethnic wise, I guess he's like actually Mongolian, but yo, I'll tell you this, man, dad has got to be one of the strongest guys ever. Yeah. Uh, they had this gigantic Korean guy, Ha Sung Jin. I remember he played for the Portland Trail Blazers. I mean, dude, this guy is huge. You know, he didn't really last too long in the NBA, but you know, I think there's, there's actually a couple Korean college players right now that could make the NBA right now. Yeah. I knew somebody who knew Ha Sung Jin from college. Uh, Sun Yuen won a championship with the Lakers. Andrew, actually he wasn't on the playoff roster, but he got a ring. He still gets the ring. Yeah. Um, I think Sun Yuen, he could have been good, but I just think, you know, because he was tall and he had some point guard skills. It was just, you know, maybe a lack of burst, lack of scoring explosiveness. Oh, somebody who did have a lot of scoring explosiveness Andrew, Wang Ji Ji. Yeah. Low-key, this guy has multiple 20 point games for the Clippers. Yeah, definitely, man. You know, uh, and then there's another guy, Zou Chi. I believe Zou Chi is playing. He's not playing in China right now. I think he's playing at MBL in Australia. Yeah. He's playing in Australia right now. So I think that's an interesting, uh, move for him. Yuki Togashi, these are guys who are really more in the Summer League or G League. Yeah. Or G League, but they didn't quite make it to the NBA. You die, Baba. Actually, I think still has a chance to make it into the G League right now. No, no, he's in the G League. He hasn't. He might have a chance to make it to the NBA. Yeah. Okay, he's got a chance. He's got a chance. He's just got to get the shooting numbers up. Sean Chen from Taiwan was also a guy that was a lot of people were looking at, you know, Summer League, G League player. Ding Han Yu Huang getting buckets in the Summer League. Oh, dang. He plays like Bogdan Bogdanovich or Bojan Bogdanovich, right? The pisses guy. He had a flamethrower, man. So I mean, I think that everybody looks, Andrew, at like different sports to get their inspiration, right? And I think that, let's be honest, guys, there's always like that tribalism where you relate to somebody more if they're more from your background, right? Like, if they're Chinese, I get it. Like, you're probably more likely to feel some closeness with them or if they're Korean or if they just look like you, even if they're just of the same Asian. Some people don't care and they're just happy to see any Asian. You know what I mean? That represents the larger group. So I think like it can be, it just all depends on what sport you're into and what you're looking for. For sure. For sure. Shout out to the mixed Asians as well, Jordan Clarkson, Jaylen Green. Yeah. I mean, some people take a lot of pride even with the mixed Asians or some people take pride. Even, I know some Chinese people who are not as much into Jeremy Lin, right? Right. Because like maybe they didn't relate to him per se or but then like they relate to other people. So I guess basically, I think there are enough Asian athletes at this time on the way that like you can find one you relate to. Yeah, for sure. And I do think that athletics is really cool because it obviously runs counter to Asian stereotypes. Right? I'm not saying that it's bad to be good at things that are stereotypically Asian either because that's what makes us strong or have, you know, the lives that we have. But also it's good to counterbalance that. Anyway, let us know who in the comment section below is an Asian American athlete that you were inspired by growing up. They could be part Asian. Let us know what you thought of our analysis and until next time, we're going to hop out boys. We out.