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 The story so far Hello, if you don't check the kickboxing thread that often, you might not know that K-1 Japan still exists. Not only that, they are holding an absolutely enormous card in a few days. It wasn't always absolutely enormous, it was just mildly enormous. It was due to be headlined by a third fight between Takeru and Taiga, with Takeru moving up in weight to get another title. A reliable fight that they knew Takeru would win in exciting fashion and make their first show in Saitama Super Arena a success. Then, because this is kickboxing, Taiga and every member of his gym were blackballed from the company. There was a made scramble to replace their headliner, but since they'd booked a title fight for absolutely every division, and just kicked out their champion, they needed to do something with some legitimacy. So they pulled an 8 man, one night tournament out of the hat, for their already very big, long card. And now it's a 24 fight, 9 hour card. The card is so long that it's actually going to start at a time where Americans can watch at least some of it. It's also so long that by the time it finishes, the trains to take fans home will have long since stopped. This card starts on Tuesday night and will go all the way until Wednesday morning. K-1 Japan put on the most consistently good kickboxing shows right now, but they're hard to watch because of time and language barriers. I'm going to tell you who the gently caress these people are and how to watch this.  The fights and the fighters  22:00 EST/19:00 PST/02:00 GMT - Show begins. This is the first time for the new K-1 holding a show in the main area of the Saitama Super Arena, and presumably there will be an opening ceremony and intro video. 22:30 EST/19:30 PST/02:30 GMT - Preliminary Fights Honestly I have no idea who these people are, I'm not gonna try and contextualise it for you. They're here to warm the place up. P-1 Sano Junpei vs. Matsumura Hideaki P-2 Ruku vs. Kato Kona P-3 Hara Shouta vs. Kondo Kaisei P-4 Toushi vs. Hayato P-5 Yokoyama Takumi vs. Oiwa Tatsuya [60kg tournament reserve fight] 00:00 EST/21:00 PST/04:00 GMT - Main Card Part 1 Landhousing Presents: 4th WORLD GP Super Featherweight (62.5kg) Championship Tournament  QF1 - Koji (23-11) vs Hirotaka Urabe (54-14-3) Koji is a former minor league champion (ISKA and HEAT belts) firmly from the Chael Sonnen school of public speaking. His relentless poo poo talk, including gifting Urabe a signed motorcycle helmet as a handicap for his "shot chin" at a prefight press conference, has gotten firmly under his skin. His last fight was a decision over Kotaro Shimano, an undersized but fairly limited power puncher. Urabe is a former ISKA, Krush, and K-1 champion, and was a regular on late-era K-1 shows. After knocking out his little brother and making their mom cry to take the 60kg title, he's hit a skid. After losing several dumbass non-title fights, he finally lost his actual title to Taiga. Then managed to lose his rebound fight in Krush. His last fight was a KO over former It's Showtime champion Masahiro Yamamoto, who is now on a string of KO losses. Losing to Koji likely relegates him to Krush forevermore. QF-2 Kosuke Komiyama (30-6) vs. Suarek Rukkukamui (95-34-11) Kosuke Komiyama is a former BLADE tournament champ and RISE champ. He made national news after cancelling a fight when heinjured himself rescuing people from burning cars. His father is the founder of a Karate school, so you can guess where this is going: Komiyama has been training since kindergarten, has won more than 60 karate tournaments, and made it to the final 8 of the All Japan Kyokushin Championships twice before turning pro. He's a tall, mobile, and extremely dextrous kicker, with a variety of kicks and spinning poo poo under his belt. His last fight was a fairly undramatic but still pretty impressive decision win over Stauros, who was fresh off of completely beating the poo poo out of then-champion Taiga within a round. Suarek is a former Rajadamnern fighter who for the last 3 years has been fighting in REBELS in Japan under full Thai rules, defeating lots of domestic fighters and winning a 60kg tournament in November. Suarek has been fighting since he was 12, and turned 32 a couple of days ago. As such he's fairly advanced in Thai years, however his style is mostly heavy straight punches and low kicks punctuated with spinning elbows. Obviously the elbows are out so his game will have to adjust. Suarek is the favourite to make it to the final on this side of the bracket. QF-3 TAKERU (31-1) vs. Stauros Exakoustidis (33-8) If you've been watching K-1 for the last few years, Takeru needs no introduction. If you haven't: Takeru is championship level nuts, and has used that and media savvy to drag kickboxing back into the spotlight. He started karate in second grade because of watching K-1 on TV. He specifically went to a high school that had boxing equipment, but dropped out due to bad behaviour. After discovering that he couldn't fight in K-1's child fighting tournaments without being in high school, he re-enrolled. This is how he fights, all the time. Somehow it's won him multiple belts, and he's going for his third in a new weight class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alNUnhsnsIs Stauros is a WKBC, WAKO, and ISKA champion. He's Greek, and so the immediate promotional gimmick is "look, he's Greek just like Mike Zambidis". Except for once, he actually turned out to be like Mike Zambidis and completely and utterly destroyed then-champion Taiga in a bullshit non-title fight. He's an extremely heavy puncher and at worst the second most dangerous man in the tournament. QF-4 Masanobu Goshyu (23-6) vs. Dennis Wosik (23-3-1) Goshyu was born with a severe hearing impediment, and without aid is deaf. He was bullied as a child, but was a natural athlete and made it to the quarter finals of the national high school baseball tournament that inspired K-1's child fighting ring as a pinch hitter. Unusually for Japan, he didn't start kickboxing until after graduating high school. He won an amateur tournament straight off the bat, and just won the Krush 60kg title in a come from behind win. He was originally booked on this card for a rematch with Kosuke Komiyama in a nice, PR friendly affair, but now the deaf man and the rescuer are in over their heads in a bitter fight to the death. Japan. Dennis Wosik is a late replacement for Timur Nadrov, who absolutely would have taken Goshyu's head off his shoulders had he not broken his hand. Wosik will not be prepared for a tournament, but recently fought in China so he should have at least a fight in him. Even though I watched his last fight, I can't remember a thing about it. Wosik has fought under the German, Polish, and South African flags so I'm actually really not sure what his deal is. He's nearly 10cm taller than Nadrov though, and just by being the second opponent change since he was booked on this card could cause problems for Goshyu.  Welterweight (67.5kg) Title Fight: Yuta Kubo (c) (46-10-2) vs Melsik Baghdasaryan (9-1) Yuta Kubo was once one of the top 63kg fighters in the world. Now he's a slightly tubby, boring 67.5kg fighter who allegedly beats women, but most distasteful of all beat aspiring curry stand owner Mohan Dragon for this belt. A crime for which he must be punished. Melsik Baghdasaryan, formerly of Glendale Fight Club (lol), is a former Wu Lin Feng 67kg champion who is notable for being a sparring partner for Miguel Cotto and the unfortunate tendency for his shoulder to explode. If his shoulder didn't explode (again) in his last fight in K-1, he'd probably already have this belt. Melsik brings together the two polar extremes of combat sports, merging the "training in karate since 6 years of age" and "being Armenian" styles together. Heavyweight Title Fight: Antonio Plazibat (c) (14-1) vs. Roel Mannaart (23-2) Antonio Plazibat was a pleasant surprise in a "heavyweight" tournament in Japan where he turned out to be pretty good and absolutely iced his opponents with flying knees and poo poo before decisioning Ibrahim el Bouni for the title. Despite being a student of Branko Cikatic, he sticks to knocking people out rather than cheating while knocking them out. Roel Mannaart is the son of olden days K-1 fighter Andre Mannaart. Branko Cikatic knocked out his dad. It's like poetry, they rhyme etc. THE DREADED INTERMISSION https://i.imgur.com/Ll7yXi3.mp4 ??:?? PST/??:?? EST/??:?? GMT - Main Card Part 2. Showtimes have not been given, but there is a good chance that if they make good time they will try and hurry the card up, as the show is scheduled to end after the train services stop to let people actually go home.  50kg Women's Superfight: Kana (9-1) vs Polina Petukhova (3-0) KANA trains out of Masato's Silver Wolf gym, she's won belts in Krush but is notable because she brutally knocks girls out sometimes. She's a solid puncher but her chin has never been tucked so far in recorded history. Polina fights out of the Chuvash Republic, which I just learned exists. Super Bantamweight Superfight: Taito Gunji (10-2-1) vs. Takumi Tosaka (24-8) I don't know a lot about Gunji, he's a product of the child fighting tournaments -> Krush -> K-1 system. He's 19 years old, a Krush champion at 53kg, and his last fight was his K-1 debut, a decision win against Oiwa Shota, who I've never heard of and honestly I haven't watched this either Tosaka trains out of Haleo Top Team, which is a supplement company that also supports greatest fighter of all time Kazuo Misaki. Tosaka also has a good tan. He's never held any titles or fought in K-1 before. His last fight was a decision loss in Krush, but the fight before that was a KO where he showed some decent hands. Super Lightweight Superfight: Jun Nakazawa (22-10-1) vs Yasuomi Soda (23-6) Jun Nakazawa is the current Krush 65kg champion. After a string of losses a few years back, Soda was sent back down to Krush and told by his management that he needed to get the belt to get back to K-1. He was expected to win, but Nakazawa proved tougher than expected in a gruelling tit for tat fight, sparking a little rivalry. Nakazawa however, made it up to K-1 then got stomped by former champ Tetsuya Yamato back from globetrotting under full Thai rules. This is the rematch. SF-1 - Winner of QF-1 vs Winner of QF-2 SF-2 - Winner of QF-3 vs Winner of QF-4 Super Featherweight (65kg) Title Fight: Noiri Masaaki (c) (43-9) vs. Tetsuya Yamato (39-15) For those of you who remember the spotty teen from 2009 with the upside down triangle for a head who whips rear end, he still whips rear end but he has kids now and reminds you of the steady march of time and your impending death. https://twitter.com/Grabaka_Hitman/status/899209084423024642 Tetsuya Yamato was the first K-1 63kg champion and holds a win over Noiri, but as mentioned has spent much of the last few years travelling the world fighting in Muay Thai. He's on a KO streak in Japan at the moment, but I would expect him to lose this. He's surprised before though. Super Welterweight (70kg) Title Fight: Chingiz Allazov (c) (52-2-1) vs. Hinata (45-17) This is the first defense of Chingiz's title, which he won in a tournament in June last year, blowing through Hiroki Nakajima (who sucks), Jordan Pikeur (who doesn't), and K-1 MAX mainstay Yasuhiro Kido. He was very impressive, and has a very impressive record. Hinata is a karate stylist with an exceptionally good Kikuno style crescent kick to the liver, which he's used to take out Artur Kyshenko in days gone by. Hinata has some great wins on his record like Souwer, Kyshenko, and Zambidis, but he's fully capable of losing to opponents he should beat. I expect Chingiz to beat him, but the liver kick can always save him. THERE'S A SECOND loving INTERMISSION. THE SHOW IS SO LONG IT HAS TWO INTERMISSIONS. https://twitter.com/Grabaka_Hitman/status/881343679851626496 ??:?? PST/??:?? EST/??:?? GMT - Main Card Part 3.  Welterweight (67.5kg) "Super"fight: Minoru "Phillip" Kimura (23-8-1) vs. Hirayama Jin (14-12-3) As you might expect from the name, Minoru Kimura is a white Brazilian man. He was actually born and raised in Japan, but the novelty's worn off. I don't like watching this roided out freak. gently caress it. He sucks. Welterweight (67.5kg) Superfight: Yasuhiro Kido (44-22-1) vs. Issam Chahid (27-1) Kido is one of the old K-1 MAX bridesmaids who surprised by turning back the clock and getting to the finals of the 70kg tournament. He then followed that up by losing to Phillip Kimura. As a reward he fights a newcomer with a record of 27 wins and 25 knockouts. Guess what. EMURGO presents: Kaew Weerasakreck (142-32-4) vs. Ren Hiramoto (9-4) It's not confirmed yet whether this is going to be a title eliminator, but it basically is. Kaew basically should've retained his title against Noiri, but it was a paralysing nothing fight that I don't think anyone's in a hurry to see again. Kaew is extremely good and should still rightfully be the champion, so it might be confusing why he's against a 9-4 19 year old. Well, Ren Hiramoto is part of the "golden generation" of child fighters alongside Tenshin Nasukawa. He's one of the 4 defeats in Tenshin's amateur record. Albeit when they were 12 years old. Lightweight (62.5kg) Title Fight: Wei Rui (c) (46-2) vs. Urabe Koya (47-11) Wei Rui is a joy to watch, he's a san shou fighter and is one of the best China has to offer. He's extremely well tested and has probably fought more Thais than anyone on the card except the Thais. Koya Urabe is much less shopworn than his brother. He still has flashes of brilliance every now and then but I fully expect him to lose this. Super Bantamweight (55kg?) Title Fight: Yoshiki Takei (c) (14-2) vs. Kenji Kubo (23-7) Yoshiki Takei is quietly one of the best and most exciting kickboxers active right now. He's tiny, he's fast, and he has plenty of knockouts. He just completely obliterated Diego Saravia with a spinning back kick to the liver in the first round, and his fights are routinely good as hell, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Mm2vQ48Eg&t=78s Kenji Kubo is uh, Yuta Kubo's equally odd looking little brother. This fight is here to show you that the best guy Tenshin Nasukawa could fight in his own weight class is Takei. Landhousing Presents: 4th WORLD GP Super Featherweight Championship Tournament Final And then it'll be over after a scheduled 9 hours. Where to watch If you have a reliable VPN, the main broadcast is on Abema. Their geoblocking gets better every show, and I haven't gotten Hola to work for a long time https://abema.tv/now-on-air/fighting-sports There are usually Chinese streams that aren't geoblocked, which will either be on https://www.yy.com or http://live.qq.com/directory/game/Fight however they usually have a maximum number of free connections, so you might find it stops working at peak time, and certainly when Wei Rui fights. Finally, apparently you can sign up for a 24 hour free trial on fujitv.live, and it should air on Gaora Triticum Guzzler fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 19:47
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Fightsport failsons of the world, this starts tomorrow night. They were aiming to configure the arena for 18000 capacity, and they've sold out with the exception of 100 tickets saved for on the day sales. So it's on track to be the biggest kickboxing event in Japan in the last decade https://twitter.com/Grabaka_Hitman/status/975480352641822720 https://twitter.com/Grabaka_Hitman/status/975467786704125952 https://twitter.com/Grabaka_Hitman/status/975436556159811585 This poo poo is going to be nuts, don't miss it
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Mar 19, 2018 20:24
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This is dope, thank you for the long effort post. I'll check it out
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Mar 20, 2018 00:06
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Wei Rui came in 1.5lbs over on his second attempt, K-1 are debating what they're going to do and will make an announcement later. Given that this is Japan and he's Chinese, rather than cancel the fight I imagine they're going to let it continue with a point deduction straight off the bat.
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Mar 20, 2018 09:46
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I'm not gonna be able to catch this live unfortunately but does K-1 still get their poo poo uploaded to youtube like 24 hours after the fact? Gonna take a marathon on Friday if that is the case because this card should be fairly lit. Also lets all just remember Kimura as the doofus who got punked by Krazy Horse in seven seconds in Rizin'.
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Mar 20, 2018 11:59
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Bushmeister posted:I'm not gonna be able to catch this live unfortunately but does K-1 still get their poo poo uploaded to youtube like 24 hours after the fact? Gonna take a marathon on Friday if that is the case because this card should be fairly lit. The timing varies, sometimes it's 2-3 days, but yeah they upload all the fights here here
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Mar 20, 2018 12:16
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Wei Rui suffers the complete triumvirate of Japanese promotional sanctions. He's docked 20% of his purse, he starts the fight docked one point, and... he has to wear 10oz gloves while Urabe still wears 8oz gloves 
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Mar 20, 2018 15:08
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Triticum Guzzler posted:Wei Rui suffers the complete triumvirate of Japanese promotional sanctions. He's docked 20% of his purse, he starts the fight docked one point, and... he has to wear 10oz gloves while Urabe still wears 8oz gloves They let him fight with his dignity at least.
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Mar 20, 2018 17:52
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thank you
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Mar 20, 2018 18:42
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This is goddamn awesome. Thank you for the huge post. Talk about a great time for a nor’easter. This sounds absolutely insane, even by Japanese combat sport standards. Surprised it’s not being offered on FITE. Regarding VPN talk, PIA is working fine with it. Marshal Prolapse fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Mar 20, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 20:52
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MazelTovCocktail posted:This is goddamn awesome. Thank you for the huge post. Talk about a great time for a nor’easter. This sounds absolutely insane, even by Japanese combat sport standards. the fuji tv thing doesn't require a vpn but i think because of that it's likely to get hammered, in my experience the qq streams also don't require a vpn, but they have limited slots for non-premium accounts so you may find you get booted off when Wei Rui fights as for the lack of an english ippv, there's a few issues there. one is that k-1 japan has less than 15 full time employees. perhaps more importantly is that k-1 global apparently own broadcast rights everywhere else in the world, and they're impossible to deal with and presided over by an insane dumbass who was given a company by his absurdly rich family to keep him away from their own business because he is so blisteringly incompetent.   the scale of the show is looking to be a huge step up even if they're lying about selling out
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Mar 20, 2018 21:10
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Luckily the vpn I use actually seems to work with Abema when I just tested it, so I should just be able to chromecast it with no problems. That doesn’t surprise me about K-1 Global being owned by an insane moron because if you asked me to explain who the hell even owns the company these days I doubt I could even try to do it. So being owned by a lunatic makes as much sense as anything else. It’s interesting they’re going for such a huge show, but I guess it’s natural when they’re competing against Rizin at the same time and all the things airing from China. Marshal Prolapse fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 21:49
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Card starts 3 and a half hours from now. If you're a pod cast weirdo then here's 30 minutes or so of Johny Hendricks' striking coach talking about this card http://lordgaul.podbean.com/
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Mar 20, 2018 23:30
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As a result of setting of my VPN up for Abema....I've found a channel of nonstop competitive mahjong. That's a thing. Anyway, it's so nice to not have to wait until for 1:00 AM-3:00 AM for Japanese Combat Sports to start (granted NJ Cup Finals start at 2AM tonight). Thanks again for doing the thread man.
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Mar 21, 2018 01:26
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Show opens in 1 hour. I'm getting some sleep and hoping I time my alarm properly to watch the opening bouts of the tournament. Good luck to all
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Mar 21, 2018 02:05
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Triticum Guzzler posted:Show opens in 1 hour. I'm getting some sleep and hoping I time my alarm properly to watch the opening bouts of the tournament. Good luck to all On the bright side it should be pretty hard to oversleep it all.
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Mar 21, 2018 02:16
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It’s starting!
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Mar 21, 2018 03:32
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I wish I liked kickboxing enough to stay up all night to watch a obscure marathon k1 japan tournament especially after Duncan's effort post I feel like I timed getting into MMA at the right time, this looks like a sengoku equivalent or something which for a while was lots of fun Will check out the recommended fights after, bless up
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Mar 21, 2018 04:07
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Watching this because of that great OP. EDIT: Aforementioned fujitv.live seems to be working fine so far, they've got a 24h free trial option. J-Ro fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 21, 2018 04:10
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Grettings;... 
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Mar 21, 2018 04:54
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I'm gonna watch this live for a little bit
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Mar 21, 2018 05:04
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do NOT show me girls in bikinis at this point in time. like a normal man i woke p at 4am to see naked men not this bull crap
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Mar 21, 2018 05:06
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a rapper called ak-69 who says he is known as "rain man" in his song is singing now for reasons that aren't immediately clear
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Mar 21, 2018 05:11
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Those hype videos are doing their god drat job. ... YEAH, we're getting a musical segment too.
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Mar 21, 2018 05:11
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this is ksw as gently caress
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Mar 21, 2018 05:13
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Triticum Guzzler posted:this is ksw as gently caress It's still gooooooing
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Mar 21, 2018 05:17
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ak-69 is now summoning all the tournament fighters to the ring, like some kind of tone deaf siren that keeps saying "sixty nine"
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Mar 21, 2018 05:18
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Triticum Guzzler posted:ak-69 is now summoning all the tournament fighters to the ring, like some kind of tone deaf siren that keeps saying "sixty nine" [extremely 69 voice]whats going on?
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Mar 21, 2018 05:19
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ak-69 throws the mic on the floor and we are into the first vtr while urabe and koji go backstage so that they can walk out again
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Mar 21, 2018 05:21
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so that the video just now makes sense:Karaev Fan posted:In the backstage interview after his last fight Koji was asked "you'll KO your next opponent right?" Then the thing with the motorcycle helmet was that in the pre fight press conference, Koji got under Urabe's skin saying that because he's got such a glass chin, to make it a fair fight he went out looking for some headgear, but the only suitable headgear he could find was the helmet
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Mar 21, 2018 05:26
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I don't know 90% of the people on this card, but I just finished signing up a fake e-mail account and I'm very excited to watch them kick each other seven thousand times.
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Mar 21, 2018 05:29
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not much landing clean for either through the first two rounds, but true to his word koji made him look fragile in the first 30 seconds. urabe is not fighting like a guy who has two more in him tonight
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Mar 21, 2018 05:39
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Was that a loving draw? Edit: Wait, they're doing a sudden death round?
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Mar 21, 2018 05:42
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well, it's going to a extension round that wouldn't be necessary if koji didn't smother his own punches
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Mar 21, 2018 05:43
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Urabe edges out the extra round imo but he looks incredibly beatable
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Mar 21, 2018 05:47
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Well, the judges see it for koji, who is cut above the eye and looks a bit of a mess, don't fancy his chances
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Mar 21, 2018 05:48
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Yeah Koji gonna have a rough time.
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Mar 21, 2018 05:50
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Are they carrying banners saying 'ELBOW IS OVER' just to remind Suarek that there's no elbows or is it some sort of catchphrase for Komiyama?
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Mar 21, 2018 05:53
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Suarek got fuckin caught, wow
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Mar 21, 2018 05:57
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OH gently caress! Komiyama kills Suarek with a head kick counter while moving backwards
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Mar 21, 2018 05:58
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