K-1 WORLD GP 2021 JAPAN ～K’FESTA.4 Day.1～ [21-03] Results
Mar 21, 2021 13:10:42 GMT 1
lero and shkibb like this
Post by K1power on Mar 21, 2021 13:10:42 GMT 1
On to my comments:
+ Egawa/Tsubakihara was a solid, competitive fight. Good to see Tsubakihara was not just there to make Egawa look good.
+ I was afraid Yamazaki might be a bit overconfident when the fight started, but he really made quick work of Fukashi.
+ While Murakoshi seemed a bit more conserved than I would have liked, his fight with Ashizawa had some fun wild moments.
+ Kondo/Maki Dwansonpong was very good. Especially the second round.
+ Jinbo/Mori was a very fun brawl.
+ Just a quick shoutout to Nozomi who's only 16 years old. Despite losing, she didn't succumb to big stage pressure and had a decent performance against an older, more experienced opponent.
+ While I'm still a bit iffy on events with crowds, it was reassuring to see lots of facemasks, shields and the crowd being smaller than usual for K'Festa.
- Urabe Koya scoring a knockdown based off a groin shot. It wasn't intentional, but it wasn't a good look either. Luckily the ref saw what was up and didn't count Hasumi.
- Ozawa/Shinotsuka. That was a rough fight to pick up the action after the intermission. First Ozawa continuously went for Shinotsuka's groin, like five times in a row. Why wasn't he at least deducted a point? If the lowkicks aren't hitting their target and you've hit your opponent low twice already, stop throwing them. Any subsequent groin shots can't be called accidents anymore. Then in the extra round Shinotsuki, while scoring cleaner combinations, also seemed to land a bunch of headbutts. All in all a frustrating fight.
- Higashimoto/Kawarada was looking very promising, but got ruined by an early cut. Came from a well placed knee, but still.
- Again, frustrating to see a fighter like RUI stagnate at this level and stumble through the ring when he has the potential to be much better.
Some additional notes:
* Pretty cool to see Yoshiki Takei in the audience despite his move to boxing.
* That was a nasty kick Sattari Weerasakreck landed on Kato Hisaki. Due to Kato leaning into it, it seemed to land with the upper shin/knee and did some serious damage to Kato's face as blood was gushing out while he crumbled to the canvas.
* Tofanelli was well on his way to beat Suzuki even without the cut. He consistently landed inside lowkicks throughout the fight which slowed Suzuki down a lot.
* Missed the first 4 undercard fights, so I'll have to catch up to comment on those. Had a bunch of KO's though.
* Stream had a few hiccups here and there which I blame the VPN for. I wish Abema/K-1 would find a way to share these events live without geoblocking.
* Amount of viewers was considerably lower compared to other K-1 events on Abema. Usually they are anywhere between 500k-1M+. Viewership now ranged between 150k-300k+. There is probably a reasonable explanation for this (Spring Equinox Day?), but a steep drop either way.
Overall a solid event, but it didn't really give off that big K'Festa feel and definitely felt more like a regular K-1 show functioning as build up for the Day 2 event next week. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. Due to the circumstances we didn't get a lot of shows last year and using Day 1 as somewhat of a wake up call for the audience might pay off in terms of views and (social) media attention next week. Also, more fighters get to be active this way. There's also a Krush event inbetween on Saturday.
The quality of the fights was high, but the second half of the event definitely could have used a few more KO's. Also, having back-to-back fights tainted by groin shots to start off the main event portion definitely put a dent in it for me. It's not really something you can plan ahead for as sometimes shit just happens.
+ Egawa/Tsubakihara was a solid, competitive fight. Good to see Tsubakihara was not just there to make Egawa look good.
+ I was afraid Yamazaki might be a bit overconfident when the fight started, but he really made quick work of Fukashi.
+ While Murakoshi seemed a bit more conserved than I would have liked, his fight with Ashizawa had some fun wild moments.
+ Kondo/Maki Dwansonpong was very good. Especially the second round.
+ Jinbo/Mori was a very fun brawl.
+ Just a quick shoutout to Nozomi who's only 16 years old. Despite losing, she didn't succumb to big stage pressure and had a decent performance against an older, more experienced opponent.
+ While I'm still a bit iffy on events with crowds, it was reassuring to see lots of facemasks, shields and the crowd being smaller than usual for K'Festa.
- Urabe Koya scoring a knockdown based off a groin shot. It wasn't intentional, but it wasn't a good look either. Luckily the ref saw what was up and didn't count Hasumi.
- Ozawa/Shinotsuka. That was a rough fight to pick up the action after the intermission. First Ozawa continuously went for Shinotsuka's groin, like five times in a row. Why wasn't he at least deducted a point? If the lowkicks aren't hitting their target and you've hit your opponent low twice already, stop throwing them. Any subsequent groin shots can't be called accidents anymore. Then in the extra round Shinotsuki, while scoring cleaner combinations, also seemed to land a bunch of headbutts. All in all a frustrating fight.
- Higashimoto/Kawarada was looking very promising, but got ruined by an early cut. Came from a well placed knee, but still.
- Again, frustrating to see a fighter like RUI stagnate at this level and stumble through the ring when he has the potential to be much better.
Some additional notes:
* Pretty cool to see Yoshiki Takei in the audience despite his move to boxing.
* That was a nasty kick Sattari Weerasakreck landed on Kato Hisaki. Due to Kato leaning into it, it seemed to land with the upper shin/knee and did some serious damage to Kato's face as blood was gushing out while he crumbled to the canvas.
* Tofanelli was well on his way to beat Suzuki even without the cut. He consistently landed inside lowkicks throughout the fight which slowed Suzuki down a lot.
* Missed the first 4 undercard fights, so I'll have to catch up to comment on those. Had a bunch of KO's though.
* Stream had a few hiccups here and there which I blame the VPN for. I wish Abema/K-1 would find a way to share these events live without geoblocking.
* Amount of viewers was considerably lower compared to other K-1 events on Abema. Usually they are anywhere between 500k-1M+. Viewership now ranged between 150k-300k+. There is probably a reasonable explanation for this (Spring Equinox Day?), but a steep drop either way.
Overall a solid event, but it didn't really give off that big K'Festa feel and definitely felt more like a regular K-1 show functioning as build up for the Day 2 event next week. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. Due to the circumstances we didn't get a lot of shows last year and using Day 1 as somewhat of a wake up call for the audience might pay off in terms of views and (social) media attention next week. Also, more fighters get to be active this way. There's also a Krush event inbetween on Saturday.
The quality of the fights was high, but the second half of the event definitely could have used a few more KO's. Also, having back-to-back fights tainted by groin shots to start off the main event portion definitely put a dent in it for me. It's not really something you can plan ahead for as sometimes shit just happens.
