K-1 WORLD GP 2018 JAPAN K'FESTA.1 [21-03] Results

[K1power]

Fightcard
60kg Championship Tournament - QuarterFinals
- Goshyu Masanobu vs. Timur Nadrov
- TAKERU vs. Stauros Exakoustidis
- Komiyama Kosuke vs. Suarek Rukkukamui
- KOJI vs. Urabe Hirotaka

Superfight
Kido Yasuhiro vs. Issam Chahid

Superfight
Kimura Minoru* vs. Hirayama Jin
Kimura is with Kubo Kenji's K-1 team Kings now, explaining his presence on the card after K-1's fallout with Try Hard Gym

62.5kg - Lightweight Championship
Wei Rui (c) vs. Urabe Koya

65kg - Super Lightweight Championship
Noiri Masaaki (c) vs. Tetsuya Yamato

67.5kg - Welterweight Championship
Kubo Yuta (c) vs. Melsik Baghdasarya

70kg - Super Welterweight Champion
Chingiz Allazov (c) vs. Hinata

55kg - Super Bantamweight Championship
Takei Yoshiki (c) vs. Kubo Kenji

95kg - Heavyweight Championship
Antonio Plazibat (c) vs. Roel Mannaart

65kg - Title Challenger Elimination
Kaew Weerasakreck vs. Hiramoto Ren

65kg SuperFight
Nakazawa Jun vs. Soda Yasuomi II

55kg SuperFight
Gunji Taito vs. Tosaka Takumi

50kg Women's SuperFight
KANA vs. Polina Petukhova

Preliminary Fights
Yokoyama Takumi vs. Oiwa Tatsuya
Toushi vs. Hayato
Hara Shouta vs. Kondo Kaisei
Ruku vs. Kato Kona
Sano Junpei vs. Matsumura Hideaki

[karaevfan]

Fightcard

Weightclass?

TAIGA (c) vs. TAKERU (c)

This one will be at 60kgs. Takeru is relinquishing his 57.5kg title as of 3/20 to move up and challenge Taiga.

[K1power]

This is a monster card and it takes me back to the FEG days when traditionally K-1 would hold the first big event of the season in March, often at the same venue. For some reason I specifically remember the Saitama GP of March 2004 where Cyril Abidi messed up Hori Hiraku.

A quick glance over the fightcard reminds me of matchups like Alexey Ignashov vs. Carter Williams,
Sergei Gur vs. Jerrel Venetiaan and Ernesto Hoost vs. Xhavit Bajrami, but also curious crossover matchups in Shannon Briggs vs. Tom Erikson and Azziz Khattou vs. Francois Botha (the 'K-1 vs Boxing' theme was pretty big at the time).

There was also a big bad blood matchup between Mike Bernardo and Jan Nortje that had a real story behind it unlike so many of the fake dramatic show antics we get nowadays.

In all fairness the event happened at the height of the 'freakshow era' and also gave us unforgettable comedy gold like Bob Sapp vs. Seth Petruzelli and Musashi vs. Akebono. You gotta take the bad with the good, I guess.

I remember the crazy level of anticipation people used to have for big events, without streams or YouTube and at least three weeks of waiting time before anything was broadcasted on EuroSport mind you.

We had Boobs and his play-by-plays and they were glorious. I miss Boobs.

Good times.. then and now.

[dvewlsh]

People got mad at me for calling Saitama, where they ran quite regularly for MAX shows and bigger non-GP shows, as one of their spiritual homes with this being a homecoming.

[K1power]

#InternetPeople

[fartsmeller]

Amazing looking card. I was pretty down on the level of talent in the heavyweight tournament, but Plazibat looked like he could be something special. Hope they manage to find someone good for that fight.

[karaevfan]

Dec 19, 2017 21:09:56 GMT 1 K1power said:

This is a monster card and it takes me back to the FEG days when traditionally K-1 would hold the first big event of the season in March, often at the same venue. For some reason I specifically remember the Saitama GP of March 2004 where Cyril Abidi messed up Hori Hiraku.

A quick glance over the fightcard reminds me of matchups like Alexey Ignashov vs. Carter Williams,
Sergei Gur vs. Jerrel Venetiaan and Ernesto Hoost vs. Xhavit Bajrami, but also curious crossover matchups in Shannon Briggs vs. Tom Erikson and Azziz Khattou vs. Francois Botha (the 'K-1 vs Boxing' theme was pretty big at the time).

There was also a big bad blood matchup between Mike Bernardo and Jan Nortje that had a real story behind it unlike so many of the fake dramatic show antics we get nowadays.

In all fairness the event happened at the height of the 'freakshow era' and also gave us unforgettable comedy gold like Bob Sapp vs. Seth Petruzelli and Musashi vs. Akebono. You gotta take the bad with the good, I guess.

I remember the crazy level of anticipation people used to have for big events, without streams or YouTube and at least three weeks of waiting time before anything was broadcasted on EuroSport mind you.

We had Boobs and his play-by-plays and they were glorious. I miss Boobs.

Good times.. then and now.

Man I haven't thought of BooBs in years.

I had a ton of fun at the Yokohama March events. Used to go to those all the time.

Apparently K-1's already sold out the pre-sale tickets on this one, so that's a good sign. They've been coy about what they plan to do after this phase of their expansion, so looking forward to see what comes after.

[rictor]

Dec 19, 2017 21:09:56 GMT 1 K1power said:

This is a monster card and it takes me back to the FEG days when traditionally K-1 would hold the first big event of the season in March, often at the same venue. For some reason I specifically remember the Saitama GP of March 2004 where Cyril Abidi messed up Hori Hiraku.

A quick glance over the fightcard reminds me of matchups like Alexey Ignashov vs. Carter Williams,
Sergei Gur vs. Jerrel Venetiaan and Ernesto Hoost vs. Xhavit Bajrami, but also curious crossover matchups in Shannon Briggs vs. Tom Erikson and Azziz Khattou vs. Francois Botha (the 'K-1 vs Boxing' theme was pretty big at the time).

There was also a big bad blood matchup between Mike Bernardo and Jan Nortje that had a real story behind it unlike so many of the fake dramatic show antics we get nowadays.

In all fairness the event happened at the height of the 'freakshow era' and also gave us unforgettable comedy gold like Bob Sapp vs. Seth Petruzelli and Musashi vs. Akebono. You gotta take the bad with the good, I guess.

I remember the crazy level of anticipation people used to have for big events, without streams or YouTube and at least three weeks of waiting time before anything was broadcasted on EuroSport mind you.

We had Boobs and his play-by-plays and they were glorious. I miss Boobs.

Good times.. then and now.

Damn, K1power. Even I got nostalgic reading this and remembering the good old days.

[karaevfan]

I have been slacking on this.

Three more superfights have been announced

- Nakazawa Jun vs Soda Yasuomi II
- Komiyama Kosuke vs Goshyu Masanobu II
- Urabe Hirotaka vs Koji

Decent fights. Obviously not as super stacked as the few announced previously, but to add some color
- Nakazawa Jun is the current Krush 65kg champion. Soda Yasuomi (who used to be a regular in K-1 Japan obviously) was sent to Krush with a homework given to him by management that he needed to grab the Krush title to be brought back up on K-1. However despite getting two very good wins in Krush, he was upsetted in the titleshot by Nakazawa in a war of attrition. This rematch settles their newly sparked rivalry
- Komiyama edged out Stauros in the last K-1 full event. He's obviously known for his array of spinning karate shit, but despite some good wins he hasn't been able to string together a consistent run in K-1 what with some unexpected losses (vs Yun Qi) and some injuries that forced him to pull out of fights. He's still in K-1's good graces though since he earned a ton of good press for them by saving some dudes trapped in a burning car in a newstory that got a bit of mainstream press. His opponent Goshyu is the current Krush 60kg champion. He's also a feel good story as he's a guy born with a severe hearing impediment (effectively deaf without aid), but managed to score a comeback win to take the Krush title
- Hirotaka vs Koji is the real interesting fight here. Obviously nobody can really predict how Hirotaka's going to fight these days. His opponent Koji is known as being the biggest shit talker in all of K-1 Japan. In the presser for this, he stirred up shit by saying that Hirotaka was shot and gifting him a helmet to wear in the fight as a handicap which got Hirotaka a bit rattled.

Here's some other stuff I'm expecting
- Takei's opponent is probably going to be Terado. Gunji Taito was the frontrunner to be the challenger, but despite winning his fight in K-1 Survival Wars in a pretty dominant fashion, he failed to finish Oiwa (who showed some crazy heart) and probably lost the right to win the title shot.
-- That said, Terado's getting up there in years. While Takei asked for the Terado fight, don't know if Terado is ready for it. They could always bring in a decent foreigner (e.g. Jamie Whelan) or as a wildcard give the fight to Tsubakihara who upsetted Saikyo
- Mohan Dragon vs Kimura Minoru. Gotta happen
- I think Stauros hinted in a Greek article that he's coming to Japan in March. That said, this card is already 60kg heavy with 3 60kg fights on it already. With Taiga, Koji, Hirotaka, Komiyama and Goshyu tied up, I'm struggling to think of someone who might be a good opponent. Maybe Leona Pettis? Or could be that Google Translate got Stauros wrong and he's not in this event
- We may or may not get the first Female K-1 Japan fight. Kana asked for the shot after winning the Krush title vs Mellonie. Only question would be whether K-1 really can start up a competitive division there. I'm honestly at a loss to think of someone who would be a good matchup for her

[K1power]

A few updates to the card (OP updated):
Antonio Plazibat's opponent will be Roel Mannaart
Takei Yoshiki's opponent will be Kubo Kenji　

Also added to the card:
- Gunji Taito vs. Tosaka Takumi
- KANA vs. Polina Petukhova

Additionally, it appears as if the fight order has been shuffled around a bit, though nothing major.

I guess in a way it makes sense for Plazibat to be matched up with Mannaart; he's the only semi-finalist Plazibat hasn't faced yet. I don't really like his chances though.

[karaevfan]

Lot of hate going up with the newest card announcements.

Apparently they will be releasing another fight in February, presumably Kimura given how much he's been appealing on twitter.

[dvewlsh]

Roel Mannaart vs. Plazibat is a surprisingly good fight.

[Shadess]

I Disagree

[f]

Is Manaart anything special? He looked like a noob against that Morocan guy.

[K1power]

It's not so much Mannaart being a noob, but rather him being outclassed by El Bouni who just is really good. By all accounts Mannaart is fairly experienced on the local circuit, just not against the same calibre of fighters El Bouni has been up against.

The appeal of this fight is more due to who both fighters represent over their skillset:
Antonio Plazibat is Branko Cikatic's protegé while Roel Mannaart is Andre Mannaart's son. Cikatic defeated Mannaart Sr. in the quarterfinals of the 1994 K-1 WGP and this is a next generation revenge match of sorts. It's a great storyline that K-1 could create some hype for if they allocate at least some resources to promote it. It's the K-1 Japan version of Rocky's protegé and Apollo's son Creed fighting against Drago's son in Creed II.

Having said that, Plazibat is a lot better than Mannaart and as mentioned before I don't like Mannaart's chances. He will really have to step up his game to be a challenge to Plazibat.

In terms of competitiveness the better move would have been either Plazibat vs. El Bouni II and/or Mannaart vs. Uehara as a title eliminator.