Fight(s) Of The Year
This one's difficult. Lots of great technical battles and real wars of attrition, but usually when it comes to fight of the year I'm looking for back-and-forth twists and turns in the action with a conclusive finish. There's no clear winner here like in 2015 (Urabe bros) or 2016 (Jaraya vs Ben Moh)
I guess I'll go with
Ilunga vs Duut. Its a feel good moment, both a great finish for Ilunga in getting revenge over a FOTY contender in 2016 + a redemption for his career on the biggest Glory card of the year.
Honorable mentions
- Both
Gonnapar vs. Koya Urabe and
Gonnapar vs Wei Rui were among the fights that I got most amped watching live. Both of them showcased a great stylistic matchup, outstanding crowd reaction and a huge show of heart from all sides. They deserve a shoutout, but both of them came down to a dynamic of one guy getting a down early and struggling to keep his lead while the other surged back trying to take it back at all costs. Thought they could have both used an extension.
- The fight that had the most significance to the sport of kickboxing has got to be Rico Verhoeven vs Jamal Ben Saddik. Yes, we as hardcore followers of the sport knew where Saddik stood in the sport and knew it was gonna be a showcase for Rico. That said, it was a showcase that a lot of people (especially casual fans who mostly watch MMA) caught onto and circulated around twitter and Reddit and whathaveyou.
- I mentioned that I liked back and forward brawls. If that's what you're in the market for, you should definitely take a look at KNOCK OUT that has helpfully produced a "top KNOCK OUT fights of the year"
ranking video. Shout out to
Maeguchi vs Katsuji,
Fukashi vs Katsuji,
Ogasawara Eisaku vs Wanchalong PKSaenchaiGym all of which were knock down brawls to the death.
Upset(s) Of The Year
This one's easy. I fully expected 18 year old Hiramoto Ren to be butchered by Gonnapar after he prevailed in that war vs. Koya Urabe. The arena really erupted for this one
Honorable mentions
- Superbon getting upsetted by Endy Semeleer (WHO?) was shocking news to wake up to. In terms of "WTF HOW" it probably should be higher up than Ren vs Gonnapar, only lessened by the fact that I didn't see it live since I was fully expecting Superbon to clean up and probably still haven't really digested that fact.
Fighter(s) Of The YearAgreed with Liverkick. In terms of relevance to the sport, there is only Rico Verhoeven. They had a
great essay on the topic which articulates the argument better than I ever could.
Honorable mentions
- Superbon should have taken this given his resume. If not for a little wrench that got thrown into his perfect plan by Endy Semeleer (SERIOUSLY WHO?!)
- In terms of the guy with the next best resume, Wei Rui went 8-0 this year including winning that stacked K-1 62.5kg tournament. He's a great ambassador for the sport in his own right (though I can see why some would be angry at some of the decisions he's won) and a fair pick if you disagree with Rico
- Takeru and Tenshin continued to demolish their opposition, put on great shows and gather mainstream appeal in Japan to the extent that it seems like we're seeing a legit kakutougi revival. That said, I don't want to hear a peep out of either of them until they settle this will-they-won't-they bullcrud and finally fuc- fight.
Breakout Fighter(s) Of The Year
There's a lot of worthy guys this year, but I'm going to pick someone I think a lot of Western fans are overlooking and go with Takei Yoshiki. Nabiyev and Allazov, hardcore fans always recognized as being legit guys who didn't get the stage they deserved. At the start of this year Takei was just a kid among dozens of teenagers who went through Koshien and competed in Krush. This year he not only breezed through the K-1 55kg grand prix, he had fights against legit contenders I thought would give him trouble in Izawa and Saravia and utterly destroyed them.
Unpopular opinion, but this is a guy that can probably go out there today and give Takeru or Tenshin a 50/50 fight.
Honorable mentions
- I said Alim Nabiyev being a huge underdog on the betting lines vs. Holtzken was a steal. He proved me right!
- Chingiz Allazov finally got contracted with a big org and annihilated his opposition. The only real question at this point is whether K-1 can secure a challenger who'll give him a worthy fight since I doubt Hinata has the style to give him a fight
- A lot of Japanese fans think that Rukiya is actually better than Koya Urabe and deserved to challenge Wei Rui before him. Not only did he score some fantastic wins (Deng Zeqi, Kyoshiro) that went under the radar, but he got them in spectacular fashion. He
actually fights like how Glory imagines Guto Innocente as fighting. Ninja shit in every round
- MOHAN DRAGON
Knockout(s) Of The YearThis one's defo the easiest pick.
He scored that nidangeri (i.e. the Demolition Kick) twice against Kyoshiro later in the year and also in the fight before this against a Russian in Emei Legend.
Honorable mentions
- Rukiya again with the flying shit vs.
Deng Zeqi - The most feel good KO of the year was when Sittichai strummed the rope rings with Yi Long's head
Comeback(s) Of The YearI'm repeating myself, but it doesn't become much more of a comeback than snapping a 7 fight losing streak with an incredible revenge KO.
Danyo Ilunga it is.
Honorable mentions
- Kubo Yuta looked like a guy who just didn't have it in him to give the sport his all anymore for a long time now. Just flashes of brilliance vs legit top guys like Kaew and Yamazaki before fading and losing dramatically. I thought he was done for sure this year when he started slipping vs. tier 2 guys and getting more into being a day trader. So grads to him for winning the 67.5kg K-1 GP. It wasn't the most stacked field, but he did finally give it his all again
- Kimura went through probably one of the worst stretches of a career ever between 2015-2017. So many 1RKO losses to guys he had no business losing to. It wasn't a full comeback, but volunteering like he did to take the Kido fight when so many other guys in the division didn't want to fight a bigger veteran coming down to their division and triumphing deserves a shoutout.
Controversy(s) Of The Year
Bigfoot vs Rico was disgusting. The only saving grace was that the referee kept it mercifully short. Glory somehow managed to taint that too what with Grisham questioning Dave on that topic twitter. As if it wasn't transparent that they wanted to put on a show by butchering a man well past his prime.
Dishonorable mentions
- This was a surprisingly calm year in general on the robbery aspect, but lets not forget RvR vs. Petch. I mean people will take sides on that issue, but I won't touch upon it since its almost an exact reenactment of the Sittichai incident.
-- Also Kaew vs Noiri was less of a complete robbery since I can completely understand how that happened with the "must judge" extension rounds. Still not great that the most dominant P4P champ in kickboxing lost his title on what was effectively a random chance event due to a technicality
- K-1 Japan made some flubs in matchmaking this year as it became clear that they were railroading towards a March mega-event and turning a blind eye to unexpected happenings. I won't bash them over their heads for failing to come to terms with Tenshin, but Stauros deserved an immediate title shot and Taiga does not deserve a 3rd Takeru fight.
Event(s) Of The YearK-1 Japan 70kg World GP. Might be a bit of hometown bias there + me being there live, but wow that card was stacked and wow did it delivered. A legit 70kg GP with a huge amount of KOs and crazy moments (Kido dropped Allazov!?). Great title fights like Wei Rui vs Gonnapar and Kaew vs Noiri. New exciting talents signed like Yamato Tetsuya. K-1 really brought their best to the game to fill out their expanded Saitama venue. Heck, they sprinkled on Takeru and Hiramoto on top as basically an afterthought, that's how stacked that card was. 14 fights, the least of which would have been a main card for Krush.
Honorable mentions
- Glory Redemption was a big event with a lot of epic moments. I put it under the K-1 event given its lack of volume in terms of high level competitive matchups, but their highs really delivered.
- In terms of the card where I got the most enjoyment from seeing, its probably the K-1 62.5kg GP. One of the best fights (Gonnapar vs Koya), the biggest upset (Gonnapar vs Hiramoto), the craziest KO (Rukiya vs Mizumachi), a breakout performance for one of the top fighters of the year (Wei Rui), it really had it all.
Story(s) Of The YearK-1 Japan announcing that it was returning to Saitama Super Arena was a real gamechanger. Its a homecoming that's 3 years in the making for an org that started with basically just the Krush roster and no real media coverage. That press conference where they held impromptu where they started with the camera zoomed in so you couldn't tell where it was then zoomed out to show that they were in Saitama and actually had a roadmap to getting back there? Then when they called it what looked like their entire Japanese roster of 40+ fighters? Just fantastic. Its the one piece of news that told me that kakutougi is finally coming back
