So I'm finally doing this. I could have done it earlier, but was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work that comes with it as this is not something I can just do from memory. And even after reading through a ton of last year's threads, I'm still gonna miss stuff.
Like the last couple of years I won't really rank my picks, just highlight some things.
Either way, here goes:
Fight(s) Of The Year
I honestly have no clue on how to answer this. I've watched a lot of exciting fights throughout the year, but it's hard to retroactively compare and pick from a bunch of fights that were all similarly exciting. I'm not sure there was a single fight that truly stood out from all the others, so I'm just gonna mention some fun and notable ones.
Noiri Masaaki vs. Jordann Pikeur - Nobody who tried to stand and bang with Pikeur was able to keep up with him. I think Noiri came closest and it resulted in a very exciting back-and-forth fight.
Antonio Plazibat vs. Jahfarr Wilnis - Two fighters I like in a great brawl. Especially Plazibat fought like a madman.
Badr Hari vs. Rico Verhoeven 2 - There was a ton of hype going into this rare high profile HW rematch. It felt like the whole country (and fight community) was watching, which was great. The fight itself was 'just' pretty good, would have been better with a satisfying ending. There were tons of better quality fights in 2019 that didn't even make this post.
Takeru vs. Egawa Yuki - If this wasn't an exhibition fight it would probably be topping this list. The final minute, especially the last 30 seconds, contained some of the best action all year.
Upset(s) Of The YearMarat Grigorian defeating Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong - You could argue that it was bound to happen, but it didn't in their previous 4 meetings. For a while it looked like Marat would forever be second place as long as Sitthichai was around. But he finally did it and without shenanigans with the judging.
Andrei Stoica defeating both Ibrahim El Bouni and Anderson Braddock Silva - Stoica lost a decision to Tarik Khbabez in March of 2019 and I didn't have high hopes for him against El Bouni just a month later. But he won and went on to knock out Silva, who he also went in as an underdog against.
Aitaka Ryo defeating Sina Karimian - Hard hitters are a bad matchup for Karimian, but I don't think many expected a doughy looking Aitaka to stunt here. He did, though and what a knockout it was.
Fighter(s) Of The YearAlex Pereira - 3 fights with 3 stunning KO's, all while defending his middleweight belt and conquering the light heavyweight one.
Cedric Doumbé - Retaining and defending the welterweight belt against Harut Grigorian and Alim Nabiev, both by knockouts, is no small feat.
Marat Grigorian - Defeating Sitthichai alone would be a big enough accomplishment, but Marat went on to defend his title twice.
Kimura "Philip" Minoru - 6 fights, 6 KO's, some of them KO of the year contenders. He would be at the top if his opponents were of a higher calibre.
Breakout Fighter(s) Of The YearEgawa Yuki - His K-1 57.5kg Tournament victory really put him on the map. His exhibition bout with Takeru was the cherry on top.
Bruno Gazani - A lightweight that came out of nowhere and defeated Michael Palandre and Vlad Tuinov. At 34, he has to make waves fast.
Nick Chasteen - An upcoming lightweight with decent skills and three straight victories in Glory, propelling him from undercard to Superfight Series status.
Donegi Abena - Abena quickly rose through the ranks and earned himself a shot at the light heavyweight title by defeating Michael Duut. While he looked good in defeat against Vakhitov, his loss to Pereira was a hard one.
Knockout(s) Of The YearTenshin over Federico Roma
Cedric Doumbe over Harut Grigorian
Alex Pereira over Donegi Abena
Alex Pereira over Jason Wilnis
Aitaka Ryo over Sina Karimian
Kimura "Philip" Minoru over Marcel Adayemi
Honorable mention:
Jason Wilnis scored a nice classic lowkick TKO victory over Jacob Rodriguez at Glory 63. Unfortunately I couldn't find a clip of it. Aside from that, I'd say most KO's from 2019 are honorable mentions.
Comeback(s) Of The YearTiffany Van Soest - After a second loss to Anissa Meksen in March of 2019, Van Soest bounced back and finally got revenge on Meksen while regaining the women's super bantamweight belt.
D’Angelo Marshall - Marshall took some tough losses in 2018, but victories over Daniel Skvor and Jahfarr Wilnis put him back on track in 2019. He didn't win his rematch with Benjamin Adegbuyi, but looked better than he did in their first fight.
Andrei Stoica - After initially making waves in SuperKombat, both Andrei and Bogdan Stoica struggled against top level competition. They kept testing themselves against high level competition outside of their comfort zone of local Romanian promotions and it paid off. Especially Stoica's victory over Anderson Braddock was impressive.
Kimura "Philip" Minoru - After a period of inconsistent results, Kimura scored 6 KO's in 6 fights. He's back.
Ismael Londt - Things got quiet for a while around Londt after he took a couple of losses in Glory. In December of 2019 he made his comeback with (T)KO victories over Enver Slijvar and James McSweeney.
Controversy(s) Of The YearCédric Doumbé running out of the ring to celebrate after he seemingly defeated Harut Grigorian. Grigorian beat the (questionable) count and the fight was somehow back on again. Doumbé was allowed to continue and quickly finished Grigorian off for good, but it could have just as well ended on a disqualification for Doumbé on the technicality of him leaving the ring before the fight was called.
ONE's questonable propaganda and business methods. They have some good fighters under contract and I've seen some good fights on their cards, but it just feels like a balloon that's going to pop in the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, again, some questionable decisions in K-1. Namely Kana getting favorited in the women's tournament.
Badr Hari vs. Rico Verhoeven 2 - While I'm not sure controversy is the right word here, Badr vs. Rico
again ending with an anti-climactic injury has to be one of the more frustrating things to happen in the sport all year.
Event(s) Of The YearK-1 World GP 2019 Japan in Osaka - This was a surprise, really. The card had less starpower and not a lot of buzz going into it, but man did it deliver. While I'm not sure you could single out a single fight as a fight of the year contender, there was good action all around and some great KO's.
K'Festa 2 - Arguably not as good as the first one, but still an awesome, action-packed event.
Glory Collision 2 / Glory 74 - While it was a good event overall, it's really the hype of the main event that elevated it.
Glory 65 Utrecht - An event that looked decent on paper, but really overdelivered. Similar to Glory 62 Rotterdam the year before.
Story(s) Of The YearBadr Hari vs. Rico Verhoeven 2 - While I strongly disagree with anyone calling this the biggest fight in kickboxing history, this was arguably the biggest story in kickboxing in 2019. From the lead-up that started after the first fight, to the crazy media hype surrounding it, to the frustrating conclusion.
Ironically, the ending that we got may have made it a bigger story than it already was.
Stuff that I couldn't really fit anywhereK-1 started branding their Krush and Khaos events with a K-1 label (K-1 Krush, K-1 Khaos) only to stop doing it as the year progressed. Wonder if there's more to it.
Daniel Ghita was very active on social media badmouthing other fighters (namely Rico Verhoeven), but unfortunately he wasn't as active in the ring. He defeated Petr Vondráček in March of 2019 and that was it.
Hiramoto Ren, whose K-1 contract ran out, decided to fight in other promotions to prove K-1's superiority. Yup.
So in conclusion this took me large chunks of time over the course of two days to write. Surely it's still lacking in every conceivable aspect and may feel incoherent, but I finally finished it which feels good. Also, there may be a silver lining to my very bad work ethics; There's something to read about kickboxing during this unfortunate drought of events.
Not that anyone is waiting for anything I write, but for those who took the effort to read this anyway: Thank you!
