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The Japanese love their K-1, and watching them - almost 15,000 strong – pack the Saitama Super Arena on Saturday night was a site to behold. In America, the fight crowds are mostly guys, many of whom look like they’d be jacking your car if they couldn’t land a ticket to the show. In Japan, K-1 is almost high society; sharp dressed men and pretty women all dolled up for a night on the town. The crowd is as civil and polite as a Greenwich country club. Nosebleed seats are $200 apiece. Ringside? About a grand – and unlike Vegas, there ain’t too many comps in the house. Most everyone is a paying customer. The event itself was so well-choreographed and organized that this reporter felt kind of like Henry Hill in Goodfellas, getting escorted to the front of the club to hear Bobby Vinton.
The K-1 World Grand Prix 2004 was a nine fight card, and even with some high profile no-shows – Remy Bonjasky bowed out at the last minute citing back troubles, and Ray Sefo also suffered a hand injury - the fans got their yen’s worth. The first fight pitted Cyril Abidi of France, who’s been on a roll lately, versus former Japan karate champion Hiraku Hori. While Abidi is a former French kickboxing champion, the damage he did tonight was with his fists. After an even first round, in which each fighter scored on multiple combinations, Abidi drew first blood in round two, dropping Hori with a five-punch combination at 1:30. Hori hung on, but Abidi was relentless, and after three additional knockdowns in round three the ref stopped it literally with two seconds to go in the fight. Afterwards, Abidi praised Hori’s toughness and said he had a bright future. We’re inclined to agree.
The second bout of the night featured Jerrel Venetiaan – he of Holland’s famous Vos Gym, training base for Ernesto Hoost, against Sergei Gur of Belarus. This was a highly anticipated fight among K-1 fans, and with good reason. Gur has won seven of his last eight fights – the lone defeat coming against Hoost, and over the past few years Venetiaan has notched wins against Remy Bonjasky and the “Red Scorpion” Alexey Ignashov, among others.
Venetiaan entered the ring wearing an African mask and leopard skin trunks, which the crowd naturally ate up. For those of you who are old-school WWF fans, think Abdullah the Butcher about 200 pounds lighter. The fight was close, and neither fighter was ever seriously hurt, prompting one fan to tell us, in broken English, “It might draw.” In the end, Gur got the split decision. Not surprisingly, Venetiaan felt the K-1 officials should have allowed for an extra round to declare a true winner. “But if the judges say he’s the winner, he’s the winner,” said Venetiaan. “But I want a rematch.” Stay tuned.
We still can’t believe the results of the third bout, pitting former WBF World Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Bernardo of South Africa against Jan “The Giant” Nortje. Nortje and Bernardo not only share the same home country, they also shared the same trainer at one point, the famous Steve of Steve’s Gym. Bernardo’s reputation as a fierce puncher has been well earned – 42 knockouts in 53 victories. One of those knockout victories, a one-rounder against Gary Goodridge at Inoki Bom Ba Ye on New Year’s Eve 2003, was punctuated by one of the greatest post-fight trash talk moves of all time, in which he literally stepped on the fallen Goodridge and raised his arms aloft, as if to say, “Conquered!”
“The Giant,” on the other hand, has barely a .500 record in K1, and showed up Saturday night looking like he had taken one too many trips to the Johannesburg McDonald’s.
“This will be over in one round,” we said to our interpreter.
We were so convinced that Bernardo would land the home run punch that we were surprised to see Nortje still on his feet a minute into the round. Then something completely unexpected happened; Nortje dropped Bernardo with a quick left, dropping him ninety seconds into the fight.
“Fluke,” we thought.
Then he did it again with a right thirty two seconds later, and still again at 2:32, bringing the fight to a screeching halt. Nortje had scored the biggest upset of the night.
Bernardo was visibly shocked and upset, and Steve ran over to embrace him while he was slumped over in the center of the ring. “This should never have happened,” Bernardo said afterwards. “But this is the heavyweight division, and when you have two big punchers in there, if one lands, somebody’s going down. I just happened to get caught tonight.”
While it was probably justified, there was no Ali-esque “I shook up the world” speech from Nortje. Instead, he praised his fellow countryman and said he “felt bad” for Mike, because he “wasn’t himself.”
The fourth bout could be titled, “The Continuing K-1 Education of Francois Botha.” The former IBF Heavyweight Champion entered the ring against Belgium’s Aziz Khattou badly in need of a victory, having lost in his first three K-1 bouts. Unfortunately for the “White Buffalo,” it wasn’t in the cards tonight. Khattou was not at all intimidated by the punching power of the “White Buffalo,” who, lest we forget, stood toe-to-toe with Mike Tyson back in the day. He used the ring to his advantage almost immediately, circling Botha and quickly catching him with a straight right that had Botha on the canvas at 0:45. The South African recovered quickly, surviving the round and some incredibly fast spinning back kicks from Khattou. Trust us, folks, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of one of these.
In the end, it was the flash knockdown that made the difference. Personally, we thought Botha won rounds two and three, scoring with repeated combinations. Unfortunately for him, the judges didn’t see it that way, and awarded Khattou the split decision. Botha remained gracious in defeat afterwards, admitting he was “still uncomfortable” in the K-1 ring but was anxious to redeem himself at the Battle at the Bellagio II next month.
The fifth fight of the night brought the highly anticipated – in K-1 circles anyway – debut of former heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs, who took on fellow American Tom Erikson. We spoke with Briggs’ Florida-based training team, which included the Laos-born instructor known as “Mr. Nee.” He told us that his fighter’s training regimen over the past three months included Muay Thai and jiu jitsu. Whatever. Tonight Briggs was content to win the old-fashioned way with a crushing knockout just over a minute into the round. “I’m at the bottom right now,” Briggs said after the win, “but I will be champion eventually… I hope.”
That last comment invoked the ire of Erikson and his training partner Gary Goodridge, who accused Briggs of “talking too much shit.” Eriksson challenged Briggs to a fight under MMA rules instead. “I took this fight on short notice and responded to his challenge. Let him respond to mine now.”
One minute into his K-1 career and already Briggs is stirring things up. Should be interesting to watch how this plays out.
Bout number six pitted K-1’s greatest overseas marketing tool, Bob Sapp, who has been featured recently in ESPN the Magazine, Muscle and Fitness, etc. as part of an all-out U.S. marketing blitz. For many fight fans in America, “the myth of Bob Sapp” is alive and well, even though most have never seen him fight. As far as they’re concerned, he’s the second coming of Tyson.
Imagine how shocked the neophytes would have been to see “The Beast” on his behind about fifteen seconds into his fight with K-1 newcomer and Ultimate Fighting Championship specialist Seth Petruzelli. Petruzelli, seven inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter, rocked Sapp with a straight left hand and looked well on his way to scoring a “Winky Wright-like” upset that would have ruined Sapp’s hopes for a big money payday against Iron Mike. Unfortunately for Seth, fifteen seconds later he injured his right elbow when it collided with Sapp’s chin. He stepped back from Sapp, unable to bend the arm, before slumping to the canvas in pain.
What happened next was completely bizarre. Instead of stopping the fight temporarily, the ref mysteriously counted Petruzelli out, despite his protestations that he could have continued and was not seriously hurt. Before you could say, “cha ching,” Big Money Bob had escaped with yet another dubious victory, a “knockout” that was anything but.
Petruzelli deserves another shot at Sapp, but we doubt the Sapp camp – or K-1 powers-that-be – would want anything to do with that. “If that had been an MMA fight,” said Petruzelli, “I would have been all over him and that fight would have been over in a minute.” Based on what happened tonight, it’s tough to argue with him.
We couldn’t resist asking Bob about the rumored Tyson fight afterwards.
“Is he still in your plans?” we asked.
“He’s still in the plans,” Sapp replied.
“Have you signed the contract?”
“The contracts are signed,” said Bob.
“Any idea of when you’re going to fight him?”
“No idea,” said Bob, “But obviously I’ve got some work to do.”
Draw your own conclusions, K-1 fans.
The seventh fight featured fan favorite “The Red Scorpion” Alexey Ignashov against twenty-three year-old K-1 Las Vegas Champion Carter Williams. Ignashov is a legend in K-1 circles, having racked up sixty-six wins and numerous titles including the 2001 World Grand Prix championship. Carter is the young gun looking to build his own K-1 legend. About halfway into round one, Ignashov caught Carter with a groin shot that had every guy in the arena grabbing their crotches and saying, “That’s gotta hurt.” Understandably, Carter was, in his words, “distracted” and ultimately was knocked out in round two despite a valiant effort overall. Incidentally, his post-fight comments provided the funniest moment of the night.
Japanese reporter: “Can you explain how you felt about the impact of his strikes?”
Carter: “Well how does it feel to get kicked in the balls?”
That’s entertainment, baby! Bring on fight number eight!
The next fight coulda shoulda woulda been an all-time classic. That’s if Remy Bonjasky hadn’t cancelled at the last minute. Instead, we got a very good fight with the ageless wonder, the “Couture of K-1” Ernesto Hoost against Andy Hug disciple Xhavit Bajrami. As Hoost explained to us later, he had “nothing to gain” from this fight, having beaten Bajrami before. Showing what a true, consummate professional he is, Hoost got the job done anyway, dominating throughout and winning a three-round unanimous decision. Thirty-nine years old, and over a hundred fights into his career, the only four-time K1 World Grand Prix champion is still as hungry as ever. He clearly wants that Bonjasky fight, and we, along with all K-1 fans, can’t wait to see it happen.
The final bout of the evening, the so-called “main event” (and we use that phrase loosely) was, to be blunt, a joke. Former sumo yokozuna Akebono, he who was dropped like a sack of bricks by Sapp on New Year’s Eve, squared off against Musashi. We won’t waste your time getting into too many details here. To say that Akebono is immobile as a fighter is kind of like saying women love Oprah.
He can’t punch. He can’t kick. He can’t even move. Musashi can do all of those things, as we’ve seen. Yet somehow he wound up on the canvas as the result of a “phantom punch” in round two. The fight was stopped as the “hurt” Musashi was attended to by ringside physicians. Miraculously, Musashi continued fighting and earned the three-round decision. It was an embarrassing ending to an otherwise stellar fight card, and best forgotten. See you in Vegas next month.
The Japanese love their K-1, and watching them - almost 15,000 strong – pack the Saitama Super Arena on Saturday night was a site to behold. In America, the fight crowds are mostly guys, many of whom look like they’d be jacking your car if they couldn’t land a ticket to the show. In Japan, K-1 is almost high society; sharp dressed men and pretty women all dolled up for a night on the town. The crowd is as civil and polite as a Greenwich country club. Nosebleed seats are $200 apiece. Ringside? About a grand – and unlike Vegas, there ain’t too many comps in the house. Most everyone is a paying customer. The event itself was so well-choreographed and organized that this reporter felt kind of like Henry Hill in Goodfellas, getting escorted to the front of the club to hear Bobby Vinton.
The K-1 World Grand Prix 2004 was a nine fight card, and even with some high profile no-shows – Remy Bonjasky bowed out at the last minute citing back troubles, and Ray Sefo also suffered a hand injury - the fans got their yen’s worth. The first fight pitted Cyril Abidi of France, who’s been on a roll lately, versus former Japan karate champion Hiraku Hori. While Abidi is a former French kickboxing champion, the damage he did tonight was with his fists. After an even first round, in which each fighter scored on multiple combinations, Abidi drew first blood in round two, dropping Hori with a five-punch combination at 1:30. Hori hung on, but Abidi was relentless, and after three additional knockdowns in round three the ref stopped it literally with two seconds to go in the fight. Afterwards, Abidi praised Hori’s toughness and said he had a bright future. We’re inclined to agree.
The second bout of the night featured Jerrel Venetiaan – he of Holland’s famous Vos Gym, training base for Ernesto Hoost, against Sergei Gur of Belarus. This was a highly anticipated fight among K-1 fans, and with good reason. Gur has won seven of his last eight fights – the lone defeat coming against Hoost, and over the past few years Venetiaan has notched wins against Remy Bonjasky and the “Red Scorpion” Alexey Ignashov, among others.
Venetiaan entered the ring wearing an African mask and leopard skin trunks, which the crowd naturally ate up. For those of you who are old-school WWF fans, think Abdullah the Butcher about 200 pounds lighter. The fight was close, and neither fighter was ever seriously hurt, prompting one fan to tell us, in broken English, “It might draw.” In the end, Gur got the split decision. Not surprisingly, Venetiaan felt the K-1 officials should have allowed for an extra round to declare a true winner. “But if the judges say he’s the winner, he’s the winner,” said Venetiaan. “But I want a rematch.” Stay tuned.
We still can’t believe the results of the third bout, pitting former WBF World Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Bernardo of South Africa against Jan “The Giant” Nortje. Nortje and Bernardo not only share the same home country, they also shared the same trainer at one point, the famous Steve of Steve’s Gym. Bernardo’s reputation as a fierce puncher has been well earned – 42 knockouts in 53 victories. One of those knockout victories, a one-rounder against Gary Goodridge at Inoki Bom Ba Ye on New Year’s Eve 2003, was punctuated by one of the greatest post-fight trash talk moves of all time, in which he literally stepped on the fallen Goodridge and raised his arms aloft, as if to say, “Conquered!”
“The Giant,” on the other hand, has barely a .500 record in K1, and showed up Saturday night looking like he had taken one too many trips to the Johannesburg McDonald’s.
“This will be over in one round,” we said to our interpreter.
We were so convinced that Bernardo would land the home run punch that we were surprised to see Nortje still on his feet a minute into the round. Then something completely unexpected happened; Nortje dropped Bernardo with a quick left, dropping him ninety seconds into the fight.
“Fluke,” we thought.
Then he did it again with a right thirty two seconds later, and still again at 2:32, bringing the fight to a screeching halt. Nortje had scored the biggest upset of the night.
Bernardo was visibly shocked and upset, and Steve ran over to embrace him while he was slumped over in the center of the ring. “This should never have happened,” Bernardo said afterwards. “But this is the heavyweight division, and when you have two big punchers in there, if one lands, somebody’s going down. I just happened to get caught tonight.”
While it was probably justified, there was no Ali-esque “I shook up the world” speech from Nortje. Instead, he praised his fellow countryman and said he “felt bad” for Mike, because he “wasn’t himself.”
The fourth bout could be titled, “The Continuing K-1 Education of Francois Botha.” The former IBF Heavyweight Champion entered the ring against Belgium’s Aziz Khattou badly in need of a victory, having lost in his first three K-1 bouts. Unfortunately for the “White Buffalo,” it wasn’t in the cards tonight. Khattou was not at all intimidated by the punching power of the “White Buffalo,” who, lest we forget, stood toe-to-toe with Mike Tyson back in the day. He used the ring to his advantage almost immediately, circling Botha and quickly catching him with a straight right that had Botha on the canvas at 0:45. The South African recovered quickly, surviving the round and some incredibly fast spinning back kicks from Khattou. Trust us, folks, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of one of these.
In the end, it was the flash knockdown that made the difference. Personally, we thought Botha won rounds two and three, scoring with repeated combinations. Unfortunately for him, the judges didn’t see it that way, and awarded Khattou the split decision. Botha remained gracious in defeat afterwards, admitting he was “still uncomfortable” in the K-1 ring but was anxious to redeem himself at the Battle at the Bellagio II next month.
The fifth fight of the night brought the highly anticipated – in K-1 circles anyway – debut of former heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs, who took on fellow American Tom Erikson. We spoke with Briggs’ Florida-based training team, which included the Laos-born instructor known as “Mr. Nee.” He told us that his fighter’s training regimen over the past three months included Muay Thai and jiu jitsu. Whatever. Tonight Briggs was content to win the old-fashioned way with a crushing knockout just over a minute into the round. “I’m at the bottom right now,” Briggs said after the win, “but I will be champion eventually… I hope.”
That last comment invoked the ire of Erikson and his training partner Gary Goodridge, who accused Briggs of “talking too much shit.” Eriksson challenged Briggs to a fight under MMA rules instead. “I took this fight on short notice and responded to his challenge. Let him respond to mine now.”
One minute into his K-1 career and already Briggs is stirring things up. Should be interesting to watch how this plays out.
Bout number six pitted K-1’s greatest overseas marketing tool, Bob Sapp, who has been featured recently in ESPN the Magazine, Muscle and Fitness, etc. as part of an all-out U.S. marketing blitz. For many fight fans in America, “the myth of Bob Sapp” is alive and well, even though most have never seen him fight. As far as they’re concerned, he’s the second coming of Tyson.
Imagine how shocked the neophytes would have been to see “The Beast” on his behind about fifteen seconds into his fight with K-1 newcomer and Ultimate Fighting Championship specialist Seth Petruzelli. Petruzelli, seven inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter, rocked Sapp with a straight left hand and looked well on his way to scoring a “Winky Wright-like” upset that would have ruined Sapp’s hopes for a big money payday against Iron Mike. Unfortunately for Seth, fifteen seconds later he injured his right elbow when it collided with Sapp’s chin. He stepped back from Sapp, unable to bend the arm, before slumping to the canvas in pain.
What happened next was completely bizarre. Instead of stopping the fight temporarily, the ref mysteriously counted Petruzelli out, despite his protestations that he could have continued and was not seriously hurt. Before you could say, “cha ching,” Big Money Bob had escaped with yet another dubious victory, a “knockout” that was anything but.
Petruzelli deserves another shot at Sapp, but we doubt the Sapp camp – or K-1 powers-that-be – would want anything to do with that. “If that had been an MMA fight,” said Petruzelli, “I would have been all over him and that fight would have been over in a minute.” Based on what happened tonight, it’s tough to argue with him.
We couldn’t resist asking Bob about the rumored Tyson fight afterwards.
“Is he still in your plans?” we asked.
“He’s still in the plans,” Sapp replied.
“Have you signed the contract?”
“The contracts are signed,” said Bob.
“Any idea of when you’re going to fight him?”
“No idea,” said Bob, “But obviously I’ve got some work to do.”
Draw your own conclusions, K-1 fans.
The seventh fight featured fan favorite “The Red Scorpion” Alexey Ignashov against twenty-three year-old K-1 Las Vegas Champion Carter Williams. Ignashov is a legend in K-1 circles, having racked up sixty-six wins and numerous titles including the 2001 World Grand Prix championship. Carter is the young gun looking to build his own K-1 legend. About halfway into round one, Ignashov caught Carter with a groin shot that had every guy in the arena grabbing their crotches and saying, “That’s gotta hurt.” Understandably, Carter was, in his words, “distracted” and ultimately was knocked out in round two despite a valiant effort overall. Incidentally, his post-fight comments provided the funniest moment of the night.
Japanese reporter: “Can you explain how you felt about the impact of his strikes?”
Carter: “Well how does it feel to get kicked in the balls?”
That’s entertainment, baby! Bring on fight number eight!
The next fight coulda shoulda woulda been an all-time classic. That’s if Remy Bonjasky hadn’t cancelled at the last minute. Instead, we got a very good fight with the ageless wonder, the “Couture of K-1” Ernesto Hoost against Andy Hug disciple Xhavit Bajrami. As Hoost explained to us later, he had “nothing to gain” from this fight, having beaten Bajrami before. Showing what a true, consummate professional he is, Hoost got the job done anyway, dominating throughout and winning a three-round unanimous decision. Thirty-nine years old, and over a hundred fights into his career, the only four-time K1 World Grand Prix champion is still as hungry as ever. He clearly wants that Bonjasky fight, and we, along with all K-1 fans, can’t wait to see it happen.
The final bout of the evening, the so-called “main event” (and we use that phrase loosely) was, to be blunt, a joke. Former sumo yokozuna Akebono, he who was dropped like a sack of bricks by Sapp on New Year’s Eve, squared off against Musashi. We won’t waste your time getting into too many details here. To say that Akebono is immobile as a fighter is kind of like saying women love Oprah.
He can’t punch. He can’t kick. He can’t even move. Musashi can do all of those things, as we’ve seen. Yet somehow he wound up on the canvas as the result of a “phantom punch” in round two. The fight was stopped as the “hurt” Musashi was attended to by ringside physicians. Miraculously, Musashi continued fighting and earned the three-round decision. It was an embarrassing ending to an otherwise stellar fight card, and best forgotten. See you in Vegas next month.
Ojciec Dyrektor Dzialu K-1 www.mmaniacs.pl 2003 - 2010
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